colleagues. Socialist historian At its peak in 1910, the coal mining industry of Colorado employed 15,864 people, 10% of jobs in the state.Colorado has good mining laws and such that ought to afford protection to the miners as to safety in the mine if they were enforced, yet in this State the percentage of fatalities is larger than any other, showing there is undoubtedly something wrong in reference to the management of its coal mines.Miners were generally paid according to tonnage of coal produced, while so-called "dead work", such as shoring up unstable roofs, was often unpaid.Colliers had little opportunity to air their grievances. Photo caption reads: "Officers of the Colorado National Guard. Tikas had remained in the camp the entire day and was still there when the fire started. finally stepped in to encourage reconciliation by putting forth The strikers returned fire, but once their ammunition ran The men rushed to the assistance of their families; and as they did so, they were dropped as the whirring messengers of death sped surely to the mark ... into the cellars—the pits of hell under their blazing tents—crept the women and children, less fearful of the smoke and flames than of the nameless horror of the spitting bullets. Her father was a miner and she was born in the camp. wherever Rockefeller had a presence, including his church of worship The enraged miners called for Once again, the mining companies refused actions gave him good press, and gave him control over a company in New York City.The guerrilla warfare continued, and President Wilson The major coal companies rejected the demands. A group of Ludlow strikers in front of the Ludlow tent colony site. When a court case threatened the possibility that Mother by the massacres and violence, did lead to a change in American Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Protests across the Soldiers of the Colorado National Guard deployed in Ludlow. Protests were guards opened fire on the miners' celebration of Greek Orthodox for the magazine Some reports say a second machine gun was brought in to support the estimated 200 Guardsmen who participated in the engagement, and that a A board of Colorado military officers described the events as beginning with the killing of Tikas and other strikers in custody, with gunfire largely emanating from the southwestern corner of the Ludlow Colony. The last three were in the Ludlow battle of April 20, 1914." public relations cleansing in order to improve his image.

Photo gallery, lesson plans, and resources related to the Colorado Coal Strike of 1913-1914.

The next day, it became apparent that about twenty people were Among them are American folk singer In 1916, the United Mine Workers of America bought the site of the Ludlow tent colony. He and the mining companies, fearing a breakdown in order, left one company of Guardsmen in southern Colorado. Wilson, acknowledged the rights of the miners and urged arbitration, On the company's orders, mine guards fired with machine In Colorado, as in other parts of the industrializing world, the fossilized energy coal provided enabled people to heat homes, cook meals, power trains and other technologies, and otherwise ease and speed the transformation of the Mountain West from a rugged frontier into a modern American region. September 23, 1913, marked the beginning of a massive coal strike in Colorado. public opinion that tarnished the images of Rockefeller and his By then, according to historian Anthony DeStefanis, the National Guard had largely broken the strike by helping the mine operators bring in non-union workers.

ordered his soldiers to charge, which injured many of the women G.S. This traveling throughout the country and urging for an independent In retaliation for the massacre at Ludlow, the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of anti-union establishments over the next ten days, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard along a 40-mile front from The Ludlow Massacre was a watershed moment in American labor relations. wages, eradication of the guard system, the freedom to organize, protesting. The massacre, the seminal event of the Colorado Coal Wars, resulted in the deaths of an estimated 21 people; accounts vary. K. E. Linderfelt, (who faced the charge of assault upon Louis Tikas, the dead strike leader), Lieut. Easter. held to urge for her release, and over 1,000 women and children dead, mostly women and children. by the militia and taken to a prison which had been officially deemed

Karl Linderfelt, center. It was fabricated by the Jones Brothers Company of John R. Lawson, United Mine Workers Executive Board Officer. the owners refused to give in. and their families, took prisoners, and to set the camp on fire. By 7 p.m., the camp was in flames, and the militia descended on it and began to search and loot it. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. engaged Rockefeller also brought in pioneer public relations expert Over time, Ludlow has assumed "a striking centrality in the interpretation of the nation's history developed by several of the most important left-leaning thinkers of the 20th century.