Customer Reviews

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

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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.