Matewan is the story of mine strikes in the West Virginia town of Matewan during the 1920’s. Matewan lies in the heart of Appalachia, and lies atop ground that is rich with coal. The town is primarily company owned, which includes the houses and stores.
Unions are the centerpiece in the movie. The Industrial Revolution, starting in the 1880s, had brought out the emergence of a middle and working class in America, which hadn’t really existed before. As this was a new group, they had no true representation. Companies at this time were used to exploiting their workers for little to no pay, as well as making them long hours all seven days. Because of this many unions were very reluctant, or even outright refused, to compensate their workers properly during the early 20th century. American workers saw what was happening in other countries, where worker revolution and civil unrest was taking place.
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Both the federal government and the state governments of Colorado and West Virginia did not want unions to form, because they viewed that as a form of socialism, or even worse, communism. This can be seen when the preacher at the Free Church in the movie begins talking about in his sermon the evils of unions, because it will bring socialism, which is the Devil’s work. Violence is also an important tactic used by the government to strike fear into the union. In Ludlow, both the military and the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency were brought into to protect strikebreakers that were brought in, as well as try to provoke violence by the union that would turn public attitude against the union. While several people eventually died because of violence, companies would eventually let workers unionize, and gave them more compensation than they had before, even though it may have been