"Mildred Allen Beik, a Windber native whose father entered the coal mines at age eleven in 1914, explores the struggle of miners and their families against the company, whose repressive policies encroached on every part of their lives. That Windber's population represented twenty-five different nationalities, including Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles, Italians, and Carpatho-Russians, was a potential obstacle to the solidarity of miners. Beik, however, shows how the immigrants overcame ethnic fragmentation by banding together as a class to unionize the mines. Work, family, church, fraternal societies, and civic institutions all proved critical as men and women alike adapted to new working conditions and to a new culture."--BOOK JACKET.
In 1897 the Berwind-White Coal Mining Company founded Windber as a company town for its miners in the bituminous coal country of Pennsylvania. The Miners of Windber chronicles the coming of unionization to Windber, from the 1890s, when thousands of new immigrants flooded Pennsylvania in search of work, through the New Deal era of the 1930s, when the miners' rights to organize, join the United Mine Workers of America, and bargain collectively were recognized after years of bitter struggle. Mildred Allen Beik, a Windber native whose father entered the coal mines at age eleven in 1914, explores the struggle of miners and their families against the company, whose repressive policies encroached on every part of their lives. That Windber's population represented twenty-five different nationalities, including Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles, Italians, and Carpatho-Russians, was a potential obstacle to the solidarity of miners. Beik, however, shows how the immigrants overcame ethnic fragmentation by banding together as a class to unionize the mines. Work, family, church, fraternal societies, and civic institutions all proved critical as men and women alike adapted to new working conditions and to a new culture. Circumstance, if not principle, forced miners to embrace cultural pluralism in their fight for greater democracy, reforms of capitalism, and an inclusive, working-class, definition of what it meant to be an American. Beik draws on a wide variety of sources, including oral histories gathered from thirty-five of the oldest living immigrants in Windber, foreign-language newspapers, fraternal society collections, church manuscripts, public documents, union records, and census materials. The struggles of Windber's diverse working class undeniably mirror the efforts of working people everywhere to democratize the undemocratic America they knew. Their history suggests some of the possibilities and limitations, strengths and weaknesses, of worker protest in the early twentieth century.
Pompano Beach: A History tells the story of the hardworking men and women who transformed Pompano from a wild farming community into a flourishing city on Floridas coast. From the hardships of hurricanes to the riches of the 1920s real estate boom, through the tough times of the Depression to victory in World War II, author Frank J. Cavaioli, PhD, traces the history of Pompano through fascinating facts and residents own accounts.
Biochemistry and Physiology of Plant Immunity details the physiological properties of plant immunity from a biochemical perspective. The book provides a summary and concise explanation of the various studies conducted on the field of biochemistry and physiology of plant immunity. The text first details the evolution of parasitism, and then proceeds to discussing the biochemistry and physiology of heterotrophic micro-organisms. Next, the selection talks about the biochemistry and physiology of diseased plant, before it finally deals with plant immunity. The book will be of great use to researchers and practitioners of disciplines that deal with the health of vegetation, such as botany and horticulture.
Ask the Grey Sisters: Sault Ste. Marie and the General Hospital, 1898-1998 tells the story of the creation and one-hundred-year history of the Sault Ste. Marie General Hospital. At a time when Canada's healthcare system is at a crossroads and we are asked to make crucial decisions for its future, it is intriguing and enlightening to look at the colourful past of a typical community hospital. Throughout the 1890s, Sault Ste. Marie was a town in search of a hospital. Its glory days at the centre of the fur-trade route were long gone and the Sault was in the process of becoming a modern industrial community. Such a community needed a hospital as a centrepiece to attract investors and as a necessary social institution to care for the hundreds of workers who were flocking to town without family support. The General Hospital was established in 1898 after the town committee charged with developing a hospital had been refused funding by both the federal and provincial governments. In desperation, the committee met with the provincial Inspector of Asylums and Prisons (the only provincial official with hospitals in his mandate). "If you wish a hospital of which the work is serious and lasting," he is reported to have advised them, "ask the Grey Sisters." And so began a fruitful association between the community of Sault Ste. Marie and two orders of Grey Sisters who have operated the hospital through its one-hundred-year history. Based in part on the extensive archival collections of both orders of nuns, this history includes material from the sisters' Chronicles and their personal reminiscences. The result is an intimate and detailed portrait of a community hospital, placed in the context of an emerging provincial system of health care.
Covering the period from the re-establishment of the Irish militia during the Crimean War until the disbandment of the Ulster Defence Regiment in 1992, this book examines the Irish amateur military tradition within the British Army, distinctive from a British amateur military tradition. Irish men and women of both religions and political persuasions made a significant contribution to these forces, and in so doing played an important role within the British Empire, whilst also providing a crucial link between the army and Irish society. Utilising new source material, this book demonstrates the complex nature of Irish involvement with British institutions and its Empire. It argues that within this unique tradition, two divergent Protestant and Catholic traditions emerged, and membership of these organisations was used as a means of social mobility, for political patronage, and, crucially, to demonstrate loyalty to Britain and its Empire.
'I've spent the majority of my life fighting for the rights of Traditional Owners. This has put me in the firing line. But I chose this job, I chose this political path. My family did not.' - Wayne Bergmann It's Broome, 2010. Nyikina man Wayne Bergmann has just received a death threat. His wife has watched a friend cross the road to avoid speaking with her. His children are subject to intense schoolyard bullying. Bergmann, a boilermaker by trade, and lawyer, is chief executive of the Kimberley Land Council during the controversial James Price Point gas hub negotiations. It's an event that will tear the Broome community apart. Wayne's story starts on Nyikina country and encompasses backbreaking station work, buried treasure, a Swedish bone thief and traditional magic love songs. His is an electrifying tale of resilience, determination and optimism, which shows what it takes to be an Aboriginal person walking in two cultures in a country where racism runs deep.
