Western Federation of Miners

Examples of Western Federation of Miners in the following topics:

• The Cripple Creek Miners' Strike of 1894

  • The Cripple Creek Miners' Strike of 1894 was a five-month strike by the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) in Cripple Creek, Colorado.
  • The influx of silver miners into the gold mines caused a lowering of wages.
  • Once the new changes went into effect, they affiliated with the Western Federation of Miners, and became Local 19.
  • The Western Federation of Miners used the success of the strike to organize almost every worker in the Cripple Creek region—including waitresses, laundry workers, bartenders, and newsboys—into 54 local unions.
  • Describe the events of the Cripple Creek Miners' Strike of 1894

• Gompers and the AFL

  • Samuel Gompers was a labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history, founding the American Federation of Labor.
  • Gompers helped found the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in 1881 as a coalition of like-minded unions.
  • In 1886, it was reorganized into the American Federation of Labor, with Gompers as its president.
  • Gompers's trade union philosophy and his devotion to collective bargaining with business proved to be too conservative for more radical leaders such as Ed Boyce, president of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), and later, WFM secretary-treasurer Bill Haywood.
  • By 1920, Gompers had largely marginalized their role to a few unions, notably coal miners and the needle trades.

• The Rise of Unions

  • Organized unions and their umbrella labor federations such as the AFL-CIO and citywide federations have competed, evolved, merged, and split against a backdrop of changing values and priorities, and periodic federal government intervention.
  • The American Federation of Labor (AFL) gradually took their place in the labor movement.
  • Gompers's trade union philosophy and his devotion to collective bargaining with business proved to be too conservative for more radical leaders such as Ed Boyce, president of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), and later, WFM secretary-treasurer, Bill Haywood.
  • The Molly Maguires were a secret Irish-American organization that consisted mainly of coal miners.
  • Gompers in the office of the American Federation of Labor, 1887.

• The Western Frontier

  • Because local governments in western frontier towns were often nonexistent or weak, westerners depended on the federal government to protect them and their rights.
  • The federal government established a sequence of actions related to control over western lands.
  • By the end of the 19th century, the federal government had amassed great size, power, and influence in national affairs.
  • For example, the Army's steamboat, the Western Engineer, of 1819 combined a very shallow draft with one of the earliest stern wheels.
  • Specifically, gold (and subsequently silver and copper) prospecting attracted thousands of miners looking to get rich quickly before returning East.

• The Coal Strike of 1902

  • The Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902 is significant as the first labor episode in which the federal government intervened as a mediator.
  • Morgan was invested in the strike, as his business interests included the Reading Railroad, one of the largest employers of miners.
  • The miners had asked for an eight-hour day and were awarded a nine-hour day instead of the standard ten hours then prevailing.
  • Organized labor celebrated the outcome as a victory for the UMWA and American Federation of Labor unions generally.
  • Furthermore, the outcome of the strike was a success for Roosevelt, who argued that the federal government could successfully intervene in conflicts between labor and capital.

• Moving West

  • Despite the Jeffersonian aversion and mistrust of federal power, the government bore more heavily in the West than any other region, and made possible the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny.
  • Since local governments were often absent or weak, Westerners depended on the federal government to protect them and their rights.
  • The federal government established a sequence of actions related to control over western lands.
  • Nonetheless, by the end of the 19th century the federal government amassed great size, power and influence in national affairs.
  • For example, the Army's steamboat "Western Engineer" of 1819 combined a very shallow draft with one of the earliest stern wheels.

• The Diversity of the West

  • European immigrants and black freedmen moved to the western portion of America in search of new opportunities, while dispossessed Hispanics struggled to survive in their stolen homeland.
  • African Americans served in westward expeditions as fur traders, miners, cowboys, Indian fighters, scouts, woodsmen, farmhands, saloon workers, cooks, and outlaws.
  • They served in numerous western forts.
  • Known as the California "Robin Hood," Joaquin Murieta led a gang in the 1850s that burned houses, killed miners, and robbed stagecoaches.
  • Workers from China were the first group to be brought to the United States in large numbers; however, the federal government curtailed immigration from China with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

• The American Indian Wars

  • The American Indian Wars were a series of conflicts between American settlers, the U.S. federal government, and the native peoples.
  • The series of conflicts in the western United States between Native Americans, American settlers, and the U.S.
  • The growing number of miners and settlers encroaching on the Dakota Territory, however, rapidly nullified the protections.
  • This trickle turned into a flood; thousands of miners invaded the Black Hills before the gold rush was over.
  • Grant to honor existing treaties and stem the flow of miners into American Indian territories.

• Federalism

  • Federalism in the United States is the evolving relationship between U.S. state governments and the federal government of the United States.
  • Federalism in the United States is the evolving relationship between U.S. state governments and the federal government of the United States.
  • Originally, federalism was the most influential political movement arising out of discontent with the Articles of Confederation, which focused on limiting the authority of the federal government.
  • One sphere of power belongs to the federal government of the United States while the other severally belongs to each constituent state.
  • With an emphasis on local autonomy and individual liberty, the theory served to unite the principles held by multiple sectional interests: the republican principles of northerners, the pro-slavery ideology of southern planters, and the laissez-faire entrepreneurialism of western interests.

• Mining on the Comstock Lode

  • The discovery of silver in Nevada (then western Utah Territory) in 1859 caused considerable excitement in California and throughout the United States.
  • Gold was discovered in this region—the Gold Canyon—in the spring of 1850 by a company of Mormon emigrants who were part of the Mormon Battalion.
  • The miners who discovered the mines and the investors who bought their claims did not know the size of the strike.
  • The size of the strike and its potential value would take many years of extensive work, thousands of miners, and the investments of millions of dollars—which none of them had.
  • The ore was first extracted through surface diggings, but these were quickly exhausted and miners had to tunnel underground to reach ore bodies.