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Episode Description
Wess Harris joins host Adam Camac to discuss key figures, issues, and events from the West Virginia Mine Wars and the history of coal mining in West Virginia. Wess is a sociologist who is a certified underground miner and who has a background as a union organizer. He has been a farmer for over 50 years, and he is the owner, director, and curator of the Our Story Traveling Museum. He is also the Board Historian for the Mother Jones Community Foundation. He is the editor of When Miners March and Written in Blood: Courage and Corruption in the Appalachian War of Extraction.
1:25 – The guest’s background and interest in the West Virginia Mine Wars, the guest’s experiences and background as a miner, union organizer, labor historian, and sociologist
7:26 – Background of West Virginia and Appalachia and their connection to coal mines and unions, why this is so interesting and important to West Virginia and the entire United States
10:41 – Working conditions in coal mines, the sorts of people who worked in coal mines in the early 1900s, how the backgrounds of the coal miners and the conditions in the coal mines led to unions and union organizers playing such a significant role, the scrip economy
14:52 – What the scrip system was and how it worked, some of the particularly nefarious ramifications of the scrip system and some of the problems the scrip system presented, Esau scrip
21:03 – Whether there are any statistics of how many women were affected by the Esau scrip system
22:48 – What the West Virginia Mine Wars were, key figures, battles, and events, how extraction played a role in the West Virginia Mine Wars
28:11 – Abuses and draconian aspects of coal company policies against the mine workers
32:24 – Bill Blizzard, the Battle of Blair Mountain, and the “Red Neck Army”
46:22 – Farmington Mine disaster of 1968, Buffalo Creek flooding disaster of 1972, Upper Big Branch Mine disaster of 2010, black lung disease
56:32 – More about the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster of 2010, US Senator Joe Manchin, Massey Energy CEO and future US Senate candidate Don Blankenship
1:00:29 – Why so much of this history is censored and is thus unknown to the general public
1:03:55 – What the Our Story Traveling Museum is, the guest’s books (When Miners March and Written in Blood: Courage and Corruption in the Appalachian War of Extraction)
1:07:16 – Anything we missed, where to follow the guest’s work, related resources
Guest’s Books
When Miners March written by William Blizzard and edited by Wess Harris
Written in Blood: Courage and Corruption in the Appalachian War of Extraction edited by Wess Harris
Guest’s Facebook Page
Previous Episode About West Virginia
4. The Song “Country Roads” and Its Impact on West Virginia and Globally with Sarah Morris (9/20/23)
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