U.S. Steel and Gary, West Virginia

U.S. Steel and Gary, West Virginia

Author: Ronald G. Garay

Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press

Published: 2011-02-28

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1572337974

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“This book is well written and meticulously documented; it will add significantly to the available literature on West Virginia’s industrial and community history. It should find a receptive audience among college and post- graduate scholars of industrial and labor history, West Virginia history, and Appalachian studies.” —John Lilly, editor, Goldenseal The company owned the houses. It owned the stores. It provided medical and governmental services. It provided practically all the jobs. Gary, West Virginia, a coal mining town in the southern part of the state, was a creation of U.S. Steel. And while the workers were not formally bound to the company, their fortunes—like that of their community—were inextricably tied to the success of U.S. Steel. Gary developed in the early twentieth century as U.S. Steel sought a new supply of raw material for its industrial operations. The rich Pocahontas coal field in remote southern West Virginia provided the carbon-rich, low-sulfur coal the company required. To house the thousands of workers it would import to mine that coal bed, U.S. Steel carved a town out of the mountain wilderness. The company was the sole reason for its existence. In this fascinating book, Ronald Garay tells the story of how industry-altering decisions made by U.S. Steel executives reverberated in the hollows of Appalachia. From the area’s industrial revolution in the early twentieth century to the peak of steel-making activity in the 1940s to the industry’s decline in the 1970s, U.S. Steel and Gary, West Virginia offers an illuminating example of how coal and steel paternalism shaped the eastern mountain region and the limited ways communities and their economies evolve. In telling the story of Gary, this volume freshly illuminates the stories of other mining towns throughout Appalachia. At once a work of passionate journalism and a cogent analysis of economic development in Appalachia, this work is a significant contribution to the scholarship on U.S. business history, labor history, and Appalachian studies. Ronald Garay, a professor emeritus of mass communication at Louisiana State University, is the author of Gordon McLendon: The Maverick of Radio and The Manship School: A History of Journalism Education at LSU.


Religious Books, 1876-1982

Religious Books, 1876-1982

Author: R.R. Bowker Company. Department of Bibliography

Publisher: New York : Bowker

Published: 1983

Total Pages: 1328

ISBN-13:

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"Prepared by the R.R. Bowker Company's Department of Bibliography in collaboration with the Publications Systems Department"--Page opposite t.p. Includes indexes. Author Index ... 3901-4069 Title Index ... 4071-4389.


Massacre at Sand Creek

Massacre at Sand Creek

Author: Gary L. Roberts

Publisher: Abingdon Press

Published: 2016-05-03

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 1501825860

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Sand Creek. At dawn on the morning of November 29, 1864, Colonel John Milton Chivington gave the command that led to slaughter of 230 peaceful Cheyennes and Arapahos—primarily women, children, and elderly—camped under the protection of the U. S. government along Sand Creek in Colorado Territory and flying both an American flag and a white flag. The Sand Creek massacre seized national attention in the winter of 1864-1865 and generated a controversy that still excites heated debate more than 150 years later. At Sand Creek demoniac forces seemed unloosed so completely that humanity itself was the casualty. That was the charge that drew public attention to the Colorado frontier in 1865. That was the claim that spawned heated debate in Congress, two congressional hearings, and a military commission. Westerners vociferously and passionately denied the accusations. Reformers seized the charges as evidence of the failure of American Indian policy. Sand Creek launched a war that was not truly over for fifteen years. In the first year alone, it cost the United States government $50,000,000. Methodists have a special stake in this story. The governor whose polices led the Cheyennes and Arapahos to Sand Creek was a prominent Methodist layman. Colonel Chivington was a Methodist minister. Perhaps those were merely coincidences, but the question also remains of how the Methodist Episcopal Church itself responded to the massacre. Was it also somehow culpable in what happened? It is time for this story to be told. Coming to grips with what happened at Sand Creek involves hard questions and unsatisfactory answers not only about what happened but also about what led to it and why. It stirs ancient questions about the best and worst in every person, questions older than history, questions as relevant as today’s headlines, questions we all must answer from within.