I assume this was given when a miner was killed but it is only an assumption.

🔗Personal-Album-272-Image-177[linkphoto]Personal-Album-272-Image-177[/linkphoto][/link]

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Looks like a certificate issued to the member of a Fraternal Group. Migrating miners were encouraged to join a fraternal society as it helped to ease their passage into a receiving community regarding jobs and accommodation. If the miner lost his life or suffered unemployment, his family would be catered for. The fraternal network among Cornish miners was particularly strong.

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I was wondering about that but the union kept intruding. There was another one.

🔗Personal-Album-272-Image-178[linkphoto]Personal-Album-272-Image-178[/linkphoto][/link]

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The UMWA was founded in Columbus, Ohio in 1890 by the merger of Knights of Labor Trade Assembly No. 135 and the National Progressive Union of Miners and Mine Laborers.

UMWA members campaigned to get the eight-hour day in 1898, collective bargaining rights in 1933, health and retirement benefits in 1946, and health and safety protections in 1969 and has also been active in miners' health and safety. In 1969, the UMWA convinced Congress to enact the landmark Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act. That law changed a number of mining practices to protect miners' safety and provided compensation for miners suffering from black lung disease.

Maybe these are membership certificates?

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This from a contact of mine in Wisconsin. Much what you were saying with some interesting detail of his own,

Thanks for the interesting e-mail and colorful certificates. These relate to the United Mine Workers of around the turn of the century who were almost exclusively the coal miner's union having been a consolidation of two weaker unions in the coal areas in 1890. The scenes on the certificates are coal mining scenes and I would guess that they were the "diploma" that was given to the new union member to frame on the wall when he joined the UMW. It appears that there was a "swearing in" and some sort of standardized activities or "rites" when a new member was taken in. This would be similar to being inducted into a fraternal group such as the Odd Fellows, the Masons or the Knights of Columbus and, I suppose, the union was similar to a fraternal group providing social benefits, and monetary benefits when injured or killed. It was probably the only "game' in town for the coal miners.

Union activities were not looked upon with favor by the mine owners and operators, most of whom were financial "big-wigs" from the big cities. They opposed unionization and this led to a number of strikes and walkouts - and this often led to bloodshed when the mine owners called in the state militia to put down the strikes - or used Pinkerton or some "goons" to "break up" a few heads to "straighten out" those stupid miners.

Thus on the second certificate it says to remember Virden and Lattimer and some other things. Lattimer, Pennsylvania was the site of a massacre on September 10, 1897 involving the UMW members. Likewise, Virden, Illlinois - in the coal belt south of Chicago, was the site of a bloody fight in October of 1898. Thus, I would think that these certificates might come from the time period of from 1900 to 1910.

In the lead and zinc mines in Wisconsin, there was no union until the mid 1950's when one was organized at the Calumet Eagle-Picher Mine near Shullsburg. It was not a very effective union and probably was started because the two companies that had owned the mine - the Calumet and Hecla Consolidated Copper Company of upper Michigan and the Eagle Picher Company (who bought out the Calumet and Hecla interest in the late 1940's -early 1950's may have had unionized mines in the Tri-State region of Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri.

I think one reason the unions never succeeded in the Wisconsin mining district was that the mines were too small, the companies operating them were too small and the whole industry here was not worth the effort of the unions to organize. Also, the mining companies could have closed down any mine that attempted to organize and the miners would be out of work. In the period of from 1900 to 1908, the Zinc mining effort was just getting off the ground and most of the small mine owners could not afford to modernize and make it - so they sold to one of about 4 or 5 larger companies. Then from about 1910 to 1919, there was so much demand for zinc, there were hundreds of foreign workers brought from Eastern European mines to work here - you couldn't unionize then. And the whole industry went into a tailspin in 1919-20 and barely got back in operation before the great depression of the 1930's. Then the war years of 1941-46 saw a fixed wage and price for ore - no unionization here here then.

It is an interesting thing to see the differences between the Wisconsin lead and zinc mines and the coal mines - coal was needed all the way from the 1890 organization of the UMW up through the present time - the unions could and did organize the coal regions.

Excuse me for going on with all this, but it interesting to think of the reasons our area was different

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In the annals of unionisation, Butte MT was one of the front lines and this was especially critical for the Cornish.

The earlier skilled miners to this mining town were Cornish, but the Irish soon followed in their hundreds, many of them from County Cork, and by the early C20th they had displaced the Cornish as the largest ethnic group.

In 1899, Irishman, Marcus Daly created one of the biggest trusts of the early C20th by partnering with Rockefeller’s Standard Oil to create the Amalgamated Copper Mining Co. By 1910 this had changed its name to the Anaconda Copper Mining Company which quickly bought up many smaller mining companies, some Cornish operated, which caused resentment as Irish labour was favoured in Anaconda controlled mines. One of my favourite contemporary quips comes from an old Cornishman on his last day at the Parrot Mine which had been bought out by Daly. Turning to his mate as they left the mine he stated: 'bye bye birdie, savage bought 'ee, no more work for we'.

The emergence of Anaconda caused many problems in the form of management and labour disputes began to happen. The battle between Daly, and copper barons, F. Augustus Heinze and the Clarks is a significant chapter in Montana history. Numerous strikes on behalf of labour and strike-breaker actions on the part of the companies became commonplace and were exacerbated by ethnic rivalry between the Cornish and the Irish, the former usually staunch Methodists and Republicans, the latter, Catholic and Democrat. But religious, ethnic and political differences were not the true cause of tension; this was created by the battle for control of the mining industry.

Caught up in the strife was Cornishman, W.J Penrose, editor of the Butte Mining Journal, who switched his allegiance from Republican to Democrat in his attempt to get Irish and Cornish to unite as one over worker solidarity. The confrontations between labour and management became evermore intense and Penrose was vilified for his volte-face on the 8 hour day which he had initially supported.

He came to be despised by the Irish for criticising several of their labour leaders and for forming the Peace and Harmony Lodge of the Sons of St George which he urged his fellow countrymen to join. The Cornish never truly trusted him either for becoming a Pro-Irish Democrat and when he was found shot dead in 1891 it could not be proved with any certainty that the Irish had murdered him.

Labour disputes continued into the C20th; the Miner’s Union Hall was bombed in 1914, and in 1917 Industrial Workers of the World organiser Frank Little was lynched and executed by six masked men for helping to organise a strike against the Anaconda Copper Mining Company.

Through the actions of Anaconda, the Cornish were gradually squeezed out, retreating to their traditional US strongholds such as the mines of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula or those of Grass Valley, California, leaving the Irish to dominate Butte for the next 70 years.

However, they still sell pasties there today and the old inter-Celtic rivalry is thankfully a thing of the past! Well worth a visit is Butte, if just to visit the fabulous old art nouveau bars and the mansions of the copper barons. :thumbup:

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Thanks for posting that CP very interesting and informative. By coincidence a friend of mine is doing a family tree for a friend in Four Lanes and found that two brothers emmigrated to Butte in the late 19th century, I assume to work the copper mines as he thinks one was Gambetta. I said I would try to find out somerhing about it but with little success so far. In fact they both died there.
I was recently looking at an album of photos of Butte in the LoC and it sure has fine architecture.
Birmingham, Alabama seems another area full of strife for different reasons. Some of the stuff that went on there is definately X certificate.

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The Silver Bow Archive Center in Butte might have some data on those two immigrant miners' deaths. The place is an absolute gem, wooden cases, bookshelves, glass cases, really Victorian and crammed full of newspapers and other archival material. It even has the Funeral Home ledgers recording the death and burial of 'customers'. The Cornish Society in Butte have done some transcription work on C19th-early C20th immigrants I think, but it's a while since I was last at the archives in Butte.

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There are many stories behind a photo. Striking miners in Pennsylvania 1909.

🔗Personal-Album-272-Image-181[linkphoto]Personal-Album-272-Image-181[/linkphoto][/link]

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