LABOR HISTORY AT

HE GROUND LEVEL
Colorado Coalfield War Archaeology Project
 ..•.. -~-
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 NE OF THE MOST DRAMATIC LABOR

O struggles of twentieth-century U.S. history oc-

curred in the southern coalfield of Colorado.
The defining moment of this strike in popu-
lar consciousness was the Ludlow Massacre of April 20,
1914, in which the Colorado National Guard killed over
twenty people in an attack on a tent colony of striking
coal miners. At the time, Ludlow galvanized American
public opinion, but today it is a hidden history, or at least
a small one, known only to a few.
People remember the past through many means-
photo albums, family conversations, and local commemo-
rations. Often these are histories that have been excluded
or marginalized within the official version of history.!
Public memory is the result of negotiation and debate
between opponents who are often mismatched in power. ~R(CTEO 8Y T~(

UNO'EO MINE WO~KfRS OF AMERICA.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the public's lack
of awareness about labor history. Corporations sponsor
self-serving public exhibitions or produce elaborate sani-
tized company histories; workers' conflicts are ignored
or treated as brief aberrations.2
Until recently, few if any sites of labor struggles had
received official state or federal designation. They were
instead created and maintained through the efforts of
labor unions and working people themselves.3 Given the
corporate and establishment interests that tend to domi-
nate commemorative events, the silencing of labor
struggles should not be surprising. In the dominant my-
thology, the United States is a classless society: we are all
middle class. Events that bear a resemblance to class war-
fare, or even point to the presence of class, are not eas-
ily incorporated within this mythology. Overcoming this
perception of class and shedding light on the unknown
or garbled historical struggle oflabor must be the agenda Previous page: The aftermath of the Ludlow Massacre of April
of the present generation. The story must not be "quar- 20, 1914. Prominent amid the ruins of theformer colony are the
antined" in the past and "antiquarianized." Labor tent stoves with their exhaust pipes reaching above the horizon.
struggles continue today; the problems that gave rise to Left: The "death pit, " the most tragic ground at Ludlow. On
them have not been resolved. April 20, four women and eleven children took refuge in a hole
An example of how the past can be recovered by and beneath a tent in the colony town. All of the children and two of
remembered from a working-class perspective is taking the women died when the Colorado National Guard set the
place today in and around Ludlow. In an effort to un- tents on fire, destroying the town and killing other inhabitants.
earth the Ludlow workers' history and show its relevance Above: The Ludlow Massacre Memorial. In 1918, the United
in today's world, individuals at the University of Denver, Mine Workers of America bought forty acres of Ludlow land
Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, and the State and erected a monument a few feet east of the "death pit" where
University of New York at Binghamton created the Colo- women and children died.
The outlines of a tent from the Ludlow Colony unearthed by the Coalfield War Project. The stains in the soil arefrom burning and
shallow filled-in ditches. The "knobs" of soil arefrom excavation by project participants. All the soil excavated was pushed through
the screens seen in the background.
In the Colorado Fuel & Iron company town of Berwind, project
member Margaret Wood leads a tour of college students, who
are participants in the AFL-CIO's Union Summer intern pro-
gram, 1998.
rado Coalfield War Archaeology Project. The research
goal is to integrate archaeological data with archival in-
formation to understand the everyday lives of the min-
ers and their families. Historians have written about how
desperate working conditions provoked the fatal strike
but have provided only anecdotal understanding of these
conditions. For the past several summers, archaeologists,
students, and labor activists have dug deep to unearth
the gender roles, ethnic relations, and daily life of the
worker/striker community. By understanding these fac-
tors, the fateful story of Ludlow will live on to provide
instruction to present and future generations of workers.
A further goal of the Ludlow project is to create an
archaeology that is relevant for the working class, one
that extends beyond the middle-class orientation of ar-
chaeology to seek dialogues with groups that fall outside
its traditional audience. Recently many archaeologists
have been trying to expand the audience for archaeol-
ogy, trying to make it relevant to African Americans or
to Native Americans.4 At Ludlow, digging into the ground
stained with the blood of many ethnic groups provides
the working class with a new educational experience that
it can use to understand the problems facing the labor
movement today.
In 1913, the southern Colorado coalfield was an im-
portant source of coal for the nation. Heavily capitalized
industries such as railroads and steel mills, especially the
Above: Quin altra (left) a student at the Autonomous University
ofBarcelona,and Donna Bryant (center)and Patrick Morgan (right),
students at the University of Denver, taking notes on an excavation
unit at the old ColoradoFuel & Iron company town of Berwind.
Right: In April 1914, soldiers maintain a vigil over the tent-
colony rubble while newspaper reporters observe the destruction.
After the fire, authorities delayed for two days before allowing
reporters, undertakers, and Red Cross workers onto the site.

Colorado Fuel & Iron (CF&I) mills in Pueblo, extensively

developed the resource. Owned by John D. Rockefeller
family interests, CF&I was one of the largest employers
in the region. It and other large coal operators had nearly
total control over the political and economic life of
the southern coalfield counties of Las Animas and
Huerfano. The miners lived in company-owned towns
located in the canyons where erosion had exposed coal
seams. They lived in rented company houses, bought
food and supplies at company stores, and alcohol at com-
pany saloons. Deputized mine guards patrolled the gated
entries to the canyon towns.s Immigrant laborers from counted twenty-four different languages in the camps.
southern and eastern Europe comprised the workforce, In September 1913, after an organizing drive by the
many of whom had been brought in as strikebreakers UMWA, the miners went on strike, resulting in 10,000-
during a 1903 labor conflict. Before the 1913-1914 12,000 miners and their families being evicted from their
strike, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) housing. They poured from the canyons into about a
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largest of these colonies was Ludlow, with about 200 tents

and 1200 miners and their families.
Mter some violent episodes, the state brought in the
National Guard to keep order. The Guard's neutrality
quickly became hopelessly compromised. It degenerated
The smaller photograph shows
the site of the Ludlow Colony
eighty-five years after the trag-
~.. ..;.

edy. The photographer stood

...,...;;~-=---..•;:.
at the exact location as did L.
R Dodd who in 1914 cap-
tured on film the doomed tent
dwellings. The Ludlow Mas-
sacre Memorial can beseen at
the right of the photograph. By
overlaying negatives of his-
torical photographs of the tent
colony onto the current land-
scape, project participants
could get a general idea of the
layout of the colony and see
the former location of the
main tent rows, streets, and
open areas. The larger photo-
graph shows the Ludlow
Colonyprior to April 20, 1914
when the Colorado National
Guard set the tents onfire and
killed some of the inhabitants.
into little more than a heavily armed strikebreaking
force.6 General]ohn Chase, the Guard commander, ini-
tiated a regime of unofficial and illegal martial law, which
included the suspension of habeas corpus, mass jailings
of strikers, a cavalry charge on a demonstration of min-
ers' wives and children, the torture and beating of pris-
oners, and the demolition of a tent colony at Forbes.
The strike climaxed in the Ludlow Massacre on April
20, 1914when gunfire broke out at the tent colony there.
An estimated twenty-five people died, including three
guardsmen. As the strikers retreated from the colony,
the Guard moved in and set fire to the tents. Four women
and eleven children had taken refuge in a pit excavated
beneath one of the tents, and all except two of the
women died when the fire started in the tent above them.
Both of the survivors lost all of their children. Among
other victims, the Guard cold-bloodedly killed two strik-
ers and a colony leader, Louis Tikas, after they had been
taken prisoner. The pit where the women and children
died has been preserved, and nearby in 1918 the UMWA
erected a monument to the Ludlow victims.
After the massacre, the strikers went to war. For ten
days they attacked and burned mines and coal camps,
fighting a series of battles with the militia and mine guards along the forty miles from Trinidad to
Walsenburg. The violence ended when federal troops
were sent in to restore order. The strike dragged on for
another seven months until the union ended the strike
without achieving its demands. Of the over 400 arrested
strikers, 332 were indicted for murder. Cases continued
until 1920, with all charges eventually dropped and most
never coming to trial. The National Guard court-
martialled ten officers and twelve enlisted men for the
Ludlow Massacre but exonerated all of them.
Although it ended in the defeat of the union, the
Ludlow Massacre focused national attention on the con-
ditions in the Colorado coal camps, and in working con-
ditions throughout the U.S.7John D. Rockefeller,]r. was
singled out and excoriated in the press and in a spec-
tacular series of public hearings before the Commission
on Industrial Relations. The strike did lead to some sig-
nificant changes. It resulted in a general shift on the part
of management from violent confrontation with orga-
nized labor to a policy more of co-optation. It is also gen-
Pachi Balaguer, a student at the Autonomous University of erally accepted wisdom that company town conditions
Barcelona, uncovering a washtub at Ludlow. improved throughout the U.S. as a result of the Coal War.8

The Colorado Coalfield War Archaeology Project has
centered its time and resources on excavating the strike
site and the nearby CF&I coal camp of Berwind. The
project is funded by the Colorado Historical Society,
State Historic Fund. So far there have been a prelimi-
nary reconnaissance and two seasons of excavation.
The first full season of work at Ludlow in 1998 uncov-
ered the remains of a tent platform, deep trash-filled fea-
tures, and many artifacts including glass, ceramics, tin
cans, cutlery, stove parts, pieces of clothing, ammunition,
children's toys, religious medallions, and other personal
items.
In 1999, the project was able to correlate the histori-
cal photographs with at least a good deal of the modern
terrain. At a beginning stage of the study, the project
conducted a number of efforts to better understand the
layout of the Ludlow tent colony and to identifY addi-
tional features for further investigation. Those involved
used two experimental methods to see whether they were
effective at identifYing tent and feature locations. The
first of these involved laying negatives of historical pho-
tographs of the tent colony over the current landscape.9
The basic principle of this technique consists of insert-
ing the negative of the relevant photograph into a cam-
era with a removable back. Looking through the
viewfinder, one sees the current view through the his-
torical negative. By correlating features on the modern
terrain with those in the negative, it is theoretically pos-
sible to see structures that are no longer extant in their
exact locations and even to map and take measurements
of these structures. While this may sound straightforward,
there are numerous issues, such as the size of the nega-
tives, the focal length of the camera lens used to take
the photograph, as well as (at Ludlow) relocating ex-
actly the position from which the photograph was taken.
The photographs of the tent colony that were used were
taken from a railroad water tank that is no longer stand-
ing. Members of the team identified the location of the
tank and then rented a scissor-lift to get the right height.
Once these issues were resolved, this technique provided
valuable information.
Minimally it gave people working on the project an
idea of the overall layout of the colony and where the
main tent rows, streets, and open areas were located. The
corners of the tents and other structures, such as clothes-
line poles, were flagged and mapped. Team members
augured some of the identified tent locations, but this
did not reveal conclusive evidence. If there was no cel-
lar, or the augering missed the cellar, then a test exca-
vation would be necessary to determine whether a tent
was in fact present or not.
The second experimental method used was a metal
detector. Initially it was thought that this device would
be useful in locating features due to the amount of iron
and metal objects in them. The excavations of the fea-
tures so far indicated, however, that not all the features
had a lot of iron in them, and, if they did, it tended to
be at such a depth that the metal detector would not
detect it (approximately two feet). This suggested that
the surface was not littered with iron as researchers had
initially thought. It appeared, however, to be a promis-
ing method for detecting tents and other structures at
Ludlow that might be marked by clusters of iron objects
(i.e., nails, screws, ete.).
A third method used for subsurface detection of deep
features was hand-augering. Team members successfully
used this method last year, locating two deep features.
Researchers identified additional features through non-
systematic augering in an area where historical photo-
graphs indicated that there would be cellars and other
features. The most useful surface indicator appears to
be thicker grass. The auger encountered a dense arti-
fact concentration right above sterile soil, including ce-
ramics, bottle glass, and a fork or spoon handle. Under
another area of dense grass, researchers encountered a
thick layer of ash, coal, and artifacts at about twenty cen-
timeters below the surface.
Berwind, a coal camp located in a canyon west of
Ludlow, also yielded abundant remains that provide a
comparative perspective on tent colony life. Members of
the team discovered twenty-one geographically distinct
residential/use areas, including areas associated with
different classes and possible ethnic groups, including
Mrican Americans, Italians, and Hispanics. Test excava-
tions were conducted in four areas of the town where
researchers discovered intact deposits dating to the strike
period.
Another important local element of this project has
been the completion of several oral history interviews of
individuals who had grown up in the vicinity during the
early part of the last century. These interviews have been
essential for understanding the geography of the com-
munity and have added greatly to the knowledge of the
community's history. During 1998, the project completed
four oral history interviews and in 1999 another three.
Archaeology and organized labor have not often
crossed paths. The commemoration and memory of
Ludlow by working people gave project participants an
entry point and a framework within which they could
make themselves useful and begin to establish a dialogue.
Under the review of the Women's Auxiliary of the United
Mine Workers of America Local 9856, project members
and field-school students erected a permanent kiosk at
the Ludlow site, with panels on the history, the archae-
ology, and the legacy of Ludlow. While the history and
archaeology panels passed without comment, the local
union had extensive input for the legacy panel, ensur-

The Ludlow refugees at the Trades Assembly Hall, Trinidad,

Colorado, April 1914.
 LUDLOW HA5SAC,R£
A DAY OF HISTORY
ADA Y TO REMEMBER
In 1913, 10,000 coal miners organizing with the
Mine Workers lived 'With their families in a dozen tent colonies
after striking the RockefeIIer--o\\'Iled CF -I for union recognition
and better pay and benefits. Sixty·six people were killed during
the Ludlow strike, including seven miners, two women and II
children "I.ho were gunned down by the Colorado National
GU3Id.

"] believe that there will ultimately be a clash

between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I
believe thal/here will he a clash berween those who want
freedom. justice and equality for everyone and those who want /0

continue the system afexploitation. I believe that there will he

that kind of clash. but I don't think it will be based on the color
of the skin .. " Malcolm X

JOIN SHEET METAL WORKERS LOCAL #9,

YOUTH TO YOUTH PROGRAM & THE
UNIVERSITY OF DENVER ANTHROPOLOGY
DEPARTMENT FOR ADA Y OF HISTORY,
EDUCATION AND ARTIFACTS.

Above: Top pmtion of a flyer publicizing a talk by Coalfield War

ProjectDirector Mark Walker and the traveling exhibit of artifacts.
Right: Mourners line the streets in Trinidad to view thefuneral
procession of Ludlow victims.

ing that Ludlow was linked to later labor struggles in the

area, in effect making sure that it was not quarantined
or made part of a dead past. The project unveiled the
kiosk at the 1999 UMWA Ludlow Massacre Memorial
Service. Members of the project also gave talks and
showed an exhibit during a week-long series of events
commemorating Ludlow held by the United Steel Work-
ers of America.
The outreach also included a successful K-12 Teach-
ers' Institute in conjunction with the Colorado Endow-
ment for the Humanities entitled ''Work and Culture in
the Southern Colorado Coalfields (1860-1960)."10 Inter-
preting the Ludlow Massacre for people who have little
or no awareness of labor history is an important benefit
to organized labor. The exhibit and the archaeological
work have also been ways for unions to educate their
members about their history and about the sacrifices of
union members.
The silencing of labor history sites and events, such
as Ludlow, Blair Mountain, Lattimer, and Homestead,
 not just our interests, but those outside of our audi-
ences.1l The skills and specialized knowledge that archae-
ologists bring will provide important information on
what happened at Ludlow. But the carefully-mapped ex-
pended bullets scattered among the broken plates, toys,
and buttons touch us in ways that go beyond the evi-
dence. Understanding the importance of the past lies
in knowing what these "ways"are and how and why they
came to be. The authenticity of the past lies in the
struggle of the present.12 As Yolanda Romero, president
of UMWA Local 9856 Women's Auxiliary said in sup-
port of the Colorado Coalfield War Archaeology Project:
"Until now, we've only known what we've seen in pho-
tographs. But to see a real thing, an item that a person
actually handled, really brings those people and that
time to life .... workers today are still fighting for some
of the same protections the Ludlow miners wanted.
People should know how far we've come and how far
we still have to gO."13 •

Students at the University of Denver Archaeological Field School

assembling the interpretive kiosk on the Ludlow site.

as well as their commemoration, is bound up with his-

torical struggles and class interests. The erasing or
trivialization of labor struggle within the historical pub-
lic sphere involves a number of related processes and
interests at local and national levels: the conscious pub-
lic relations campaigns of wealthy corporations, middle-
class attitudes toward labor and labor unions, the
disciplinary practices of academic professionals, and the Some of the decorative clothing and personal items unearthed
anxiousness of civic leaders seeking tourist income. at Ludlow include an iron brooch; portion of a sheath for a
Archaeology is an act of commemoration. It partici- penknife; part of a hatpin; buttons; and a 'Jeff pin, " derived
pates in the creation of historical memory, creating vi- from the comic strip "Mutt and Jeff' which first appeared in
sions of the past that are rooted in present-day interests; newspapers in 1907.
NOTES
Mark Walker is a Ph.D. candidate at SUNY-Binghamton and the director of the Colorado Coalfield War Ar-
chaeology Project at the University of Denver. This article is a product of the entire project. Currently the
project includes Dean Saitta, Donna Bryant, and Patrick Morgan from the University of Denver; Randall McGuire
and Paul Reckner from SUNY-Binghamton; Phil Duke from Fort Lewis College, Colorado; and Margaret Wood
from Syracuse University. Saitta, McGuire, and Duke established and continue to oversee the project. Wood
directed the work at the CF&I coal camp of Berwind and is conducting research on women's labor in the coal
camps. McGuire and Dan Broockmann managed the historical photo overlay. This article is based in part on the
author's "The Ludlow Massacre: Archaeology, Labor Struggle, and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado,"
presented at Commemoration, Conflict and the American Landscape, University of Maryland, November 12,1999.
The project members wish to thank the Colorado Historical Society-State Historic Fund, who funded the
project. The work at Ludlow was conducted with the gracious permission of District 22 of the United Mine
Workers of America. We particularly wish to acknowledge Local 9856 of the UMWA and the Women's Auxil-
iary, who maintain the monument and the site, and work hard at keeping the memory of Ludlow alive.
lPopular Memory Group, Americans and the Practice of A merican Industrial &lations Archaeology," American
"Popular Memory: Theory, Archaeology," Annual Reviews in (Philadelphia: University of Antiquity 61 (1) ] 996:75-88.
Politics, Method," in Making Anthropology 25 (1996): 63-79; Pennsylvania Press, 1988). l2Michel-Rolph Trouillot,
Histories: Studies in History Philip Duke and Dean]. Saitta, BMargaret Crawford, Building Silencing the Past: Power and
Writing and Politics, eds. "An Emancipatory Archaeology the Workingman's Paradise: The the Production of History
RichardJohnson, Gregor for the Working Class," Design of American Company Towns (Boston: Beacon Press,
McLennan, Bill Schwarz, and Assemblage 4 (http//www.shef (London: Verso, 1995); Leland 1995); Deetz, Flowerdew
David Sutton (Minneapolis: .ac. uk/ assem/ 44duk_sai.html); Roth, "Company Towns in the Hundred; Prince, "Photogra-
University of Minnesota Douglas]. McDonald, Larry ]. Western United States," in The phy for Discovery," pp. 112-
Press, 1982), pp. 205-52; Roy Zimmerman, A.L. McDonald, Company Town: Architecture and 16.
Rosenzweig and David William Tall Bull, and Ted Society in the Early Industrial Age, ""Lest We Forget: Ludlow
Thelen, The Presence of the Rising Sun, "The Northern ed. John S. Garner, (New York: Project Puts Massacre in
Past: Popular Uses of History in Cheyenne Outbreak of ]879: Oxford University Press, 1992), Spotlight," United Mine
American Life (New York: Using Oral History and pp. 173-205. WorkersJournal, March-April
Columbia University Press, Archaeology as Tools of 'James Deetz, Flowerdew 1999, p. 13. See also Jonna
1998). Resistance," in The Archaeology of Hundred: The Archaeology of a Sampson, "Remember
2Mildred Allen Beik, 'Who Inequality, ed. Randall McGuire Virginia Plantation, 1619-1864 Ludlow!," a thirty two page
Owns the Past?: Windber, and Robert Paynter (Oxford: (Charlottesville: University Press illustrated pamphlet funded
Pennsylvania, and the Basil Blackwell, 1991), pp. 64- of Virginia, 1993); Gene Prince, by the Colorado Historical
Berwind-White Coal Mining 78. "Photography for Discovery and Society, State Historic Fund;
Company," paper presented 'Barron B. Beshoar, Out of the Scale by Superimposing Old it is available free to libraries,
at the Oral History Associa- Depths: The Story ofJohn R. Photographs on the Present-Day schools, museums, and
tion Meeting, Buffalo, 1998; Lawson, a Labor Leader (Denver: Scene," Antiquity 112 (1988): 112-18. historical societies by
Mildred Allen Beik, Colorado Historical Commis- lOIn conjunction with the contacting Public Informa-
"Commemoration and sion & Denver Trades & Labor institute, a webpage was established tion Officer, State of
Contestation: Remembering Assembly, 1957), p. 2; George S. as a resource for teachers: http: Colorado Division of
the Unsung Miners of McGovern and Leonard F. www.coloradodigital.coalliance.org/ Minerals and Geology, 1313
Windber, Pennsylvania," Guttridge, The Great Coalfield cfindex.html. Sherman Street, Room 215,
paper presented at the North War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin "Michael Shanks and Randall Denver, CO 80203 or
American Labor History Company, 1972), p. 23; Priscilla H. McGuire, 'The Craft of loretta. pineda@state.co.us
Conference, Detroit, 1999. Long, "The Voice of the Gun:
'Archie Green, "Labor Colorado's Great Coalfield War
Landmarks: Past and of 1913-1914," Labor's Heritage
Present," Labor's Heritage vol. vol. 1, no. 4 (October 1989): 4-
6, no. 4 (Spring 1995): 26-53. 23; and Zeece Papanikolas,
'For the relationship Buried Unsung: Louis Tikas and
between archaeologists and the Ludlow Massacre (Lincoln:
audiences, see Mark Leone, University of Nebraska Press,
Potter B. Parker,Jr., and Paul 1982).
A Shackel, "Toward a Critical 6Alvin R. Sunsieri, The Ludlow
Archaeology," Current Massacre: A Study in the Mis-
Anthropology 28:3 (1987): 283- Employment of the National Guard
302; Carol McDavid and (Waterloo, Iowa: Salvadore
David W. Babson, eds., In the Books, 1972).
&alm of Politics: Prospects for 'Graham Adams, The Age of
Public Participation in African- Industrial Violence, 1910-1915:
American and Plantation The Activities and Findings of the
Archaeology (California & US. Commission on Industrial
Pennsylvania: Society for &lation (New York: Columbia
Historical Archaeology, University Press, 1966); Howard
] 997). For Native Americans M. Gitelman, Legacy of the
The skeleton of a dog unearthed in a trash pit at Ludlow.
see T J. Ferguson, "Native Ludlow Massacre: A Chapter in Also visible are several tin cans.