Lattimer Massacre
In 1897, an incident occurred near Hazleton known as the Lattimer Massacre.
►Explore the website of the Lattimer Massacre Project.
- What perspectives are presented?
- What were the conditions that led up to the massacre?
- What were the effects of the massacre?
- What questions remain?
- Where could one search for more evidence?
►Now explore the the website of the Colorado Coal Field War Project (Ludlow Massacre, 1914).
►Compare the conditions of the 2 massacres.
- What was different? What was similar?
- How are they remembered?
Read its nomination to the National Park Service here.
Historian Howard Zinn made the following observation:
The Politics of History, 1990 edition (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1970, 1990), pp.100."How shall we read the story of the Ludlow massacre? As another “interesting” event of the past? Or as supporting evidence for an analysis of that long present which spans 1914 and 1970 [the year in which he was writing]. If it is read narrowly, as an incident in the history of the trade union movement and the coal industry, then it is an angry splotch in the past, fading rapidly amidst new events. If it is read as a commentary on a larger question — the relationship of government to corporate power and of both to movements of social protest — then we are dealing with the present."
►Watch the Introduction to the film Plutocracy (the first 17 minutes). Although the examples are of West Virginia miners in the early 1900s, many of the conditions the miners lived under and the tactics of the mine owners were similar. Newspapers of the times undoubtedly informed people across the county about these incidents.
►Find an additional website that discusses the Lattimer Massacre and post it on the class wiki. The review the websites your classmates have posted. How do the presentations differ? Who created these websites? What is their purpose? What effects their presentations?
►On your blog, write a reflection about the Lattimer Massacre, considering the questions about and the other sites you visited, and its place in U.S. History.