He begins by giving a deft biography of William Jackson Palmer, the railroad builder who connected the Colorado coal fields to the Eastern markets. The bulk of the book is devoted instead to the description and analysis of the complex geological, sociological, financial and personal forces that created the Ludlow environment.Īndrews takes us on a few key stops backward in time from the central event of his story. The event itself - a fierce armed conflict between Colorado coal miners and a variable force of mine guards, National Guardsmen and deputized militiamen - is afforded less than five pages of Andrews’ narrative. Andrews’ Killing for Coal offers an intriguing analysis of the so-called Ludlow Massacre of April 20, 1914, a watershed event in American labor history that he illuminates with a new understanding of the complexity of this conflict.Īndrews, a professor of history at University of Colorado Denver, writes not so much about the Massacre, but around it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |