From CGI's HotCoffee:

In the winter of 1933, the coal miners of the twin valley towns of Davidson and Wilder in Tennessee went on strike. The one-industry towns were completely company-run. The miners were paid in scrip which could only be used at the company store. In fact, when the miners struck, the company turned off the electricity in town and took the doors off the miners' homes.

But the miners held out. The company then turned the struggle into a lockout -- importing hired strikebreakers at better pay than the union had ever received, and protecting them with the National Guard.

Leader of the striking miners was Barney Graham. At the end of April, Barney was shot by a Chicago gangster specifically brought in by the company for the job.

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To understand what happened at Haymarket, it is necessary to go back to the summer of 1884 when the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, the predecessor of the American Federation of Labor, called for May 1, 1886 to be the beginning of a nationwide movement for the eight-hour day. This wasn't a particularly radical idea since both Illinois workers and federal employees were supposed to have been covered by an eight-hour day law since 1867. The problem was that the federal government failed to enforce its own law, and in Illinois, employers forced workers to sign waivers of the law as condition of employment.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

these are song links at the site

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

SONGS OF THE SEA

1800s: IMMIGRATION FROM EUROPE & THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT

OUTLAWS & BADMEN (and -WOMEN)

SONGS FROM PENITENTIARIES & CHAIN GANGS

THE CIVIL WAR

THE RAILROAD IN AMERICAN SONG

TRAMPS, HOBOES, MIGRANT WORKERS, HOMELESS

TRAGEDIES AND DISASTERS

WORLD WAR I

THE LABOR MOVEMENT

1920s & 1930s; THE DEPRESSION & THE NEW DEAL

WORLD WAR II

LATE 1940s & 1950s: McCARTHY "WITCH-HUNTS;" NUCLEAR ARMS RACE, THE KOREA WAR

RACE RELATIONS & THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

1960s: THE BOMB SCARE, THE GENERATION GAP, THE VIET-NAM WAR

ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF SONG TITLES

SONGS BY INDIVIDUAL SONGWRITERS/ARTISTS:

THE DIXON BROTHERS (HOWARD & DORSEY DIXON)

BOB DYLAN

JIM GARLAND

TOM GLAZER

SARAH OGAN GUNNING

WOODY GUTHRIE & THE ALMANAC SINGERS

JOE HILL

AUNT MOLLY JACKSON

PETER LAFARGE

MILLARD LAMPELL

DAVE McCARN

BOB MILLER

PHIL OCHS

BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE