Bituminous coal miners' strike of 1894
Date | 1894 |
---|---|
Location | United States |
Participants | 180,000 |
Deaths | ~5 |
The bituminous coal miners' strike was an unsuccessful national eight-week strike by miners of bituminous coal in the United States, which began on April 21, 1894.[1]
The panic of 1893 hit the coal mining industry particularly hard. Wage cuts in the industry began immediately, and wages were slashed again in early 1894.
By the late spring of 1894, the
Initially, the strike was a major success. More than 180,000 miners in Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia struck. In Illinois, 25,207 miners went on strike, while only 610 continued to work through the strike, with the average Illinois miner out of work for 72 days because of the strike.[2]
But the mine owners were unwilling and/or unable to restore wages. Some owners adjusted wages slightly upward, but most refused to budge.
In some areas of the country, violence erupted between strikers and mine operators or between striking and non-striking miners. On May 23 near
As the depression deepened, the miners were unable to hold out. By late June, almost all the miners had returned to work.
The strike shattered the United Mine Workers. A year after the strike, the union's secretary-treasurer wrote to the American Federation of Labor (AFL), declaring, 'The National is busted...' The union almost ceased to exist. It suspended publication of its newsletter and ceased paying per capita dues to the AFL.
It would be a quarter of a century before John L. Lewis would turn the Mine Workers into a successful union again.
References
- ^ Gigantic Miners' Strike Ordered.; Over 200,000 Men in Eleven States May Quit Work April 21, New York Times, Wednesday, April 12, 1894; page 8.
- ^ The Coal Miners Strike – 1894, Coal in Illinois, 13th Annual Report of the State Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1894, Springfield, 1895; Appendix pages 5–26, see particularly Table III.
- ^ W. T. Stead, Incidents of Labor War in America, The Contemporary Review, Vol. LXVI, No. 1, July 1894; pages 65–74.
- ^ G. E. Plumbe, The Great Coal Strike, The Daily News Almanac and Political Register for 1895, Chicago Daily News, 1895; pages 77–78.
- ^ Trouble with Coal Strikers, New York Times, Wednesday July 9, 1894; page 8.
- ^ Coal Strike may Continue – But Few Miners Willing to Accept Lower Wages, New York Times, Thursday June 14, 1894; page 4.
- ^ Thomas J. Hudson, Iowa Chapter VIII, Events from Jackson to Cummins, The Province and the States, Vol. V, the Western Historical Association, 1904; page 170
- ^ The National Guard – Iowa's Splendid Militia, The Midland Monthly, Vol. II, No. 5 Nov. 1894; page 419.
- ^ Service at Muchakinock and Evans, in Mahaska County, During the Coal Miners' Strike, Report of the Adjutant-General to the Governor of the State of Iowa for Biennial Period Ending Nov. 30, 1895, Conway, Des Moines, 1895; page 18
Further reading
- Foner, Philip S. History of the Labor Movement in the United States: From the Founding of the A.F. of L. to the Emergence of American Imperialism. 2nd ed. New York: International Publishers, Co., 1975. ISBN 0-7178-0388-0
- Jensen, Richard. The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888-1896 (1971) online