The Lattimer Massacre: The Forgotten Incident at the Crossroads of Labor, Migration, and Race in America

I've been getting a bit of a kick recently by looking up what historical events happened on any given day. Today I looked up the historical incidents falling on September 10, and I ran across something called the Lattimer Massacre, which I had never heard of before. 

A Google search showed me that this is probably something I should have known about, so here I am, passing along what I have learned.

The Lattimer Massacre, wikicommons

The Lattimer Massacre happened on September 10, 1897, but according to this article on the Smithsonian's website, the actual events that lead to the massacre began in the 1880s. 

Lattimer is a town in Luzern County, Pennsylvania. At the time, anthracite mining was a big deal in the area. The industry was booming. Large deposits of coal were shipped to bigger cities like Philadelphia and New York from mines like the ones outside of Lattimer. The industry was hopping, and a lot of people were moving from bigger cities to places like Lattimer for work. In the 1880s, a wave of mostly Eastern European immigrants began moving from these big cities to Lattimer for work. 

This wave of immigration was changing the face of the industry. Up until about the mid 19th century, most of those working in the coal industry were from Scotland, Wales, and England. Then in the mid 19th century, the Irish became the largest laboring class in the region. Not only that, but as the industry really began taking off, the miners started to dig deeper, and work in deeper, more unstable mines. Thus, by the time this wave of Eastern European immigrants started moving into the area for work, the mines were incredibly deep and amazingly unsafe. 

To compensate for increased injuries and dangerous conditions, coal barons, and the people who ran these mines, started hiring all the Eastern European immigrants they could, for lower pay. They hired more workers than they actually needed, thus allowing them to have an army of those in their employ that were at their disposal, and could be thrown into the mine to take over whenever someone was injured.

According to Wikipedia, "Conditions in coal mines of the late 19th century were harsh. Mine safety was poor, such that 32,000 miners in Northeast Pennsylvania had died since 1870. Wages, already low in a competitive industry, fell 17% during the mid-1890s after a coal industry slump. Although wages had improved some by the fall of 1897, anthracite coal companies in the region cut wages and consolidated operations within the mines (often resulting in more laborious working conditions). In some cases, companies forced workers to lease homes from the company and required them to see only company doctors when injured."

There was a lot of prejudice about those workers who weren't "English speaking." In one quote, author Edward Rood (1867-1954) wrote the following about non "English speaking" workers, specifically Italians and Slavs who had moved to the area at this time, "... not only are they eager to work for wages on which an English-speaking family would starve, but they are superstitious and murderous and to not hesitate to use dynamite to blow up the home of one whom they particularly hate. Also, unlike the average Chinaman, each of these foreign miners insists on voting as soon as possible." 

A typical working day for these individuals began around around 7 a.m. each morning, and then lasted until dusk. They would earn between $.50 to $1.10 a day. Rood, the author who was probably just a delight to be around (sarcasm font) claimed he knew of one man who had worked for 16 days, and only earned $.04. He continued to say, "As a rule, foreigners in the anthracite fields have been content until fairly recently to labor for very low wages without a protest; to huddle in shanties like so many domestic animals; to eat half-spoiled vegetables and fruits that could not be sold to English-speaking people." (this article)

In 1890, the United Mine Workers of America, a union, was created. According to the Smithsonian Article, "The United Mine Workers of America, union established in 1890, wasn't much help to the new immigrant miners--it was concerned primarily with protecting the jobs of the native or naturalized coal workers, the "English speakers." It backed the 1897 Campbell Act, which levied a 3-cent-a-day state tax on coal operators for each non-U.S. citizen working in their collieries."

The Campbell Act was enacted on August 21, 1897. This was a huge insult to some of the coal workers. The non "English Speakers" were already being paid 10-15 percent less than their "English speaking" counterparts. Some of them had already protested working conditions and pay issues. This act was just one more deduction in a line of them, and for many, it was the last straw. The thing that broke the camel's back, as it were. 

Events were heating up. In the summer of 1897, the Hazelton Even Standard in Luzerne County said, "The day of the slave driver is past and the once ignorant foreigner will no longer tolerate it." Following this, a wave of spontaneous protests erupted throughout the region. (this article)

Hoping to make an impact, the miners decided to strike in an effort to close down all the mines in the region. However, the mines outside of Lattimer continued to operate. A group of some 400 men, mostly Eastern European, gathered at the town of Harwood to protest. Their goal was to march from Harwood to Lattimer. Carrying an American flag, the men began their peaceful protest. On the way, Luzerne County Sheriff James Martin and his deputies harassed the men as they marched. 

An image of miners being shot at as they march, wikicommons

Sheriff James Martin had been called back from a vacation in Atlantic City to deal with all this. He ended up declaring a state of disorder and using that to deputize some 150 men. He armed them with Winchester rifles, metal-piercing shells, and buckshot. As the marchers approached, he ordered his men to grab the American flag they were carrying. Someone yelled "shoot the sons of bitches" and then all hell broke loose. (this article)

According to Smithsonian, "At 3:45 p.m., at the outskirts of Lattimer, a confrontation ensued. Eighty-six deputies, joined by coal company police, lined the sides of the road; perhaps 150 of the men were armed with rifles and pistols. Martin ordered the miners to abandon their march. Some miners pushed forward, someone yelled "Fire!" and several men immediately fell dead in their tracks. The rest of the miners turned and began to run away, but the firing continued for about two minutes, and over a dozen protesters were shot in the back while fleeing. Nineteen men died that day, and as many as five more died from gunshot wounds later that week."

The tragic loss of life was bad enough, but almost immediately after the strike, the battle for the narrative of what happened began. For many, the nineteen dead were immortalized, turned into patron saints for workers' rights. Almost 8,000 people showed up to pay respects at their funerals. Immediately after, Governor Daniel Hastings sent a brigade of 2,500 state militia to the region to control expected reprisals.  

Newspapers from all over grabbed the story of the protest and subsequent attack and tragic deaths and ran with it. "...newspapers expressed shock and outrage at the "butchery" and "carnage." The New York Tribune declared, "Strikers March to Death," and the headline in Pittsburgh's Amerikansko-Slovenske noveny read, "Massacre of Slavs - In the Freest Country under the Sun - People Are Shot at like Dogs." Another paper noted that "If the strikers in Hazelton region were of the English-speaking class there would have been no bloodshed." (From this website)

On the other side of this incident, Martin and his deputies were brought to trial for murdering one man during the protest. However they were found innocent. Their lawyers argued that the strikers were like, "that lawless horde that came from the steppes of Asia [that] has found its way here." and "The history of the Hun and Slav in the old country is that of mischief and destruction. And they marched under Attila ruthlessly over Europe." (this article) From this point, the other counter narrative was born. A narrative in which these people had attacked the sheriff's deputies, rather than the other way around. That they had come to America to take away jobs from naturalized citizens, and they had the aim to take the peace and liberty away from legal US citizens. That what justified their treatment was the fact they did not speak English. 

From wikicommons

This second narrative was noticed by powerful people, those who ran the coal mines, those who owned the companies, important people with money. They need up firing just about everyone who had supported the protests, including union workers, and anyone who had vocally supported the issues the peaceful protestors were acting for, as well as the protestors themselves. As you'd expect, the conditions in the mines didn't improve, nor did the pay.

The backlash from this incident was so vehemently against immigrant workers, the president of the UMWA spoke out, imploring people to remember that "The coal you dig isn't Slavish or Polish or Irish coal. It is just coal." This statement became a rallying cry in other protests that took place in 1900 and 1902 (which ended up winning workers better pay, shorter days, and better working conditions.). "With increasing support from foreign-born workers, the UMWA began to recognize Lattimer as an event that cemented new immigrant labor's loyalty to the union." (Smithsonian)

Paul A. Shackle, the author of the Smithsonian article, sums this incident up perfectly, "Lattimer remains little known in the national public memory. The two state-sponsored historical markers still stand, a bit tarnished after decades of weathering, and the memorial boulder has a few new cracks, a testament to the fragility the labor movement. There is now a new wave of migration to the area, mostly from Latin America. Many of today's immigrants work in non-union meat packing plants or in fulfillment centers, racing up and down aisles gathering merchandise for delivery, all the while being timed for efficiency. The median income in the area is low, and these workers can face discrimination on the job and in their neighborhoods. Their story of struggle and perseverance--and Lattimer's updated place in Pennsylvania and U.S. labor history--is slowly unfolding."

Further Reading

How a 1897 Massacre of Pennsylvania Coal Miners Morphed from a Galvanizing Crises to Forgotten History

Lattimer Massacre

Lattimer Massacre Historical Marker

Remembering the Lattimer Massacre

Remembering Lattimer: Labor, Migration, and Race in Pennsylvania by Paul A. Shackle