Industrial Structure, Union Strategy, and Strike Activity in American Bituminous Coal Mining, 1881-1894

Abstract

The goal of this article is to describe and explain the specific strike pattern of American bituminous coal miners in the last part of the nineteenth century (between 1881 and 1894).The central thesis is that the evolution of strike patterns in bituminous coal mining differed substantially from the development of strike patterns in other industries during this period. According to scholars like Gerald Friedman (1988) and Kim Voss (1993), the evolution of the American labor movement until 1886 was strongly determined by the Knights of Labor’s strategy of inclusive unionism, which sought to increase worker power through solidarity and broad-based strikes. As this strategy proved unsuccessful—especially in 1886—American labor unions later conducted a different type of walkout: planned, small strikes of strategically located, skilled workers, which were more successful.