Books in the West Virginia & Appalachia series

Examines the rise and fall of organised socialism in West Virginia through an exploration of the demographics of membership, oral interview material gathered in the 1960s from party members, and the collapse of the party in 1912. Ths volume offers insight into the internal and external forces that doomed the party and serves as a cautionary tale to contemporary political leaders and organisers.

In 1986 Lon Savage published Thunder in the Mountains, a popular history now considered a classic. When Savage passed away, he left behind an incomplete book manuscript about a lesser-known Mother Jones crusade in Kanawha County. His daughter Ginny drew on his notes and files, and her own research, to complete this book-length account of the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike of 1912-13.

Provides the first comprehensive history of the area, beginning in the late eighteenth century continuing up to the "Matewan Massacre". It covers the relevant economic history, including the development of the coal mine industry and the struggles over land ownership; labour history; transportation history; political history; and the impact of the state's governors and legislatures on Mingo County.

Provides insight into how mountaintop removal has affected the people and the land of southern West Virginia. It examines the mechanization of the mining industry and the power relationships between coal interests, politicians, and the average citizen.

In the early nineteenth century, a ten-mile stretch along the Kanawha River in western Virginia became the largest salt-producing area in the antebellum United States. In his illuminating study, now available with a new preface by the author, John Stealey examines the legal basis of this industry, its labour practices, and its marketing and distribution patterns.

Takes stock of the field of Appalachian studies as it explores issues still at the centre of its scholarship: culture, industrialization, the labour movement, and twentieth-century economic and political failure and their social impact. A new generation of scholars continues the work of Appalachian studies' pioneers, exploring the diversity and complexity of the region and its people.

In 1897 a small landholder named Robert Eastham shot and killed timber magnate Frank Thompson in Tucker County, West Virginia, leading to a sensational trial that highlighted a clash between local traditions and modernizing forces. Ronald L. Lewis's book uses this largely forgotten episode as a window into contests over political, environmental, and legal change in turn-of-the-century Appalachia.

Few know the name Anna Jarvis, yet we mail the card, buy the flowers, place the phone call, or make the brunch reservation to honour our mothers, all because of her. Memorializing Motherhood explores the complicated history of Anna Jarvis's movement to establish and control Mother's Day, as well as the powerful conceptualization of this day as both a holiday and a cultural representation of motherhood.

To commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the Monongah, West Virginia mine disaster, the West Virginia University Press is honored to carry Davitt McAteer's definitive history of the worst industrial accident in U.S. history. "Monongah" documents the events that led to the explosion, which claimed hundreds of lives on the morning of December 6, 1907.Nearly thirty years of exhaustive research have led McAteer to the conclusion that close to 500 men and boys--many of them immigrants--lost their lives that day, leaving hundreds of women widowed and more than one thousand children orphaned. McAteer delves deeply into the personalities, economic forces, and social landscape of the mining communities of north central West Virginia at the beginning of the twentieth century. The tragedy at Monongah led to a greater awareness of industrial working conditions, and ultimately to the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, which Davitt McAteer helped to enact.