Mrs. Gillum
English 11A
16 May 2018
Appalachian Mountain
Appalachian refers to a largely rural people who reside in the southern Appalachian region covering about 110,000 square miles in the states of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. Appalachian are spread through the Appalachian Mountains in nine states. This area consists of three physiographic regions. The Blue Ridge Mountains, with the highest peaks in the area, constitute the eastern region; the central, southern, East Tennessee, and Southwest Virginia. The Appalachian is such an amazing way to find the history of our lands and what all has happened in these mountains (“Appalachians”).
The location …show more content…
For five days in late August and early September in Logan County of 1921, West Virginia between 10,000 and 15,000 coal miners confronted an army of police and strikebreakers backed by coal operators during a struggle by the minors to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coalfields. The struggle had ended but didn’t end till one million rounds of bullets were fired, and the United States Army intervened by presidential order. In long-term, the battle raised awareness of the appalling conditions faced by miners in the dangerous West Virginia coalfields, and led directly to a change in union tactics into political battles to get the law on labor’s side via confrontations with recalcitrant and abusive managements and thence to the much larger organized labor victory a few years later during the New Deal in 1933.( “ Battle of Blair …show more content…
In the final analysis, management’s success was Pyrrhic victory that helped lead to a much larger and stronger organized labor movement in many other industries and labor union affiliations and umbrella organizations like the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). In April 2008, Blair Mountain was chosen for the list of protected places on the National Register of Historic Places. The decision has been contested by the state of West Virginia, therefore this nomination is currently under review. In supposition, The Battle of Blair Mountain was the result of generation of social transformation and extreme exploitation in the southern West Virginia coalfields. Beginning in 1870-1880, coal operators had established a system of oppression and exploitation based around the company town system. To maintain their domination and hegemony, coal operators paid “private detectives” as well as public law enforcement agents to ensure that union organizers were kept out of the region. In order to accomplish this objective, agents of the coal operators used intimidation, harassment, espionage and even murder. Throughout the early 20th century, West Virginia coal miners attempted to overthrow this brutal system and engaged in a series of strikes, such as West Virginia Mine War of 1912-1913.(“Battle of Blair