The Long Argument: Capital vs. Labor · Episode 6 of 12 · 25 min
The Company Town: Scrip, Ludlow, and Blair Mountain
From the 1880s to the 1920s, thousands of Americans lived in towns where one company owned the houses, ran the only store and issued its own scrip. The episode follows the company town to its violent endpoints, the Ludlow Massacre of 1914 and the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921, and the era's two official answers: company unionism and the Walsh Commission's charge of industrial feudalism.
Who's who
- George M. Pullman+1 more episodeSleeping-car magnate who built a model company town
- John D. Rockefeller Jr.Oversaw family's Colorado Fuel & Iron stake; promoted employee representation after Ludlow
- Louis TikasGreek immigrant leader of the Ludlow tent colony, killed in 1914
- Karl LinderfeltGuard officer who struck Tikas before he was killed
- Mother JonesItinerant union agitator active in West Virginia and Colorado
- Sid Hatfield+1 more episodeMatewan police chief whose 1921 assassination sparked the miners' march
- Eugene V. Debs+1 more episodeAmerican Railway Union president who led the 1894 Pullman boycott
Where it happens
- Pullman, Illinois+2 more episodesGeorge Pullman's model town south of Chicago
- Ludlow, Colorado+1 more episodeSite of the 1914 massacre of a strikers' tent colony
- Blair Mountain, West VirginiaSite of the 1921 armed miners' march
- Matewan, West Virginia+1 more episodeSite of the May 1920 shootout with Baldwin-Felts detectives
Timeline
- 1880-1884Pullman builds his model town south of Chicago
- May 11, 1894Pullman workers strike over wage cuts without rent cuts
- September 23, 191310,000 to 12,000 miners strike Colorado coal operators and build tent colonies
- April 20, 1914Ludlow Massacre: Guard assault burns the tent colony, leaving about 21 dead
- 1921About ten thousand armed miners march on Logan County and are bombed from the air
Still debated
Ludlow's toll ranges from 19 to 26 dead, and sources dispute whether its fire was deliberate or accidental and whether massacre or battle is the better word. Historians also contest whether company stores trapped workers in debt and whether the Rockefeller Plan was reform or union avoidance.
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