Which Side Are You On?: The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 [Paperback]

John W. Hevener (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 11, 2002

"Depression-era Harlan County, Kentucky, was the site of one of the most bitter and protracted labor disputes in American history. The decade-long conflict between miners and the coal operators who adamantly resisted unionization has been immortalized in folksong by Florence Reece and Aunt Molly Jackson, contemplated in prose by Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson, and long been obscured by popular myths and legends. John W. Hevener separates the fact from the legend in his Weatherford Award-winning investigation of Harlan's civil strife, now available for the first time in paperback. "In Which Side Are You On?" Hevener attributes the violence - including the deaths of thirteen union miners--to more than just labor conflict, viewing Harlan's troubles as sectional economic conflict stemming from the county's rapid industrialization and social disorganization in the preceding decade. Detailing the dimensions of unionization and the balance of power spawned by New Deal labor policy after government intervention, "Which Side Are You On? " is the definitive analysis of Harlan's bloody decade and a seminal contribution to American labor history."

Editorial Reviews

Review

PRAISE FOR THE HARDCOVER EDITION "From this trip into an Appalachian arcanum, the reader emerges with an appreciation for those who finally gained those freedoms which most Americans took for granted, including the right to speak and assemble without fear." -- The Journal of Southern History

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (February 11, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252070771
• ISBN-13: 978-0252070778
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #348,345 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Filling in the Blanks in Family History, November 9, 2006

By 

Anne Meek (Norfolk, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Which Side Are You On?: The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback)

My family lived in Harlan, Kentucky on and off between 1920 and 1934. After my parents and my brother left Kentucky and I was born, they continued to tell stories about life in Harlan, the conflicts between the miners and the mine operators, efforts in public health and education, the role of the church, and so on. One particular story described the 1935 death of Elmon Middleton from dynamite attached to the starter of his car. My dad told this story so vividly that I could never forget it. So I decided to read about the setting, the times, and to look for documentation of this event, in preparation for writing a biography of my dad. Which Side Are You On? presents a comprehensive and detailed history of those times in that place. The author offers thorough documentation of the controversies and scholarly descriptions of social and economic conditions. For example, he explains the realities of transportation costs on the price of coal, along with the primitive nature of roads, bridges, and railroads in Eastern Kentucky; the need to stay competitive in pricing on the part of the companies; the inborn (Scots Irish?) reluctance of the miners to organize into unions; the racism and poverty endemic in the miners' camps; the habits of violence, in evidence long before the various efforts to unionize; and the lack of state-funded social and health services, as well as very poor public funding for roads and bridges.