Representation and Rebellion

Representation and Rebellion
Author: Jonathan H. Rees
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2010-02-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1607320401

In response to the tragedy of the Ludlow Massacre, John D. Rockefeller Jr. introduced one of the nation’s first employee representation plans (ERPs) to the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in 1915. With the advice of William Mackenzie King, who would go on to become prime minister of Canada, the plan—which came to be known as the Rockefeller Plan—was in use until 1942 and became the model for ERPs all over the world.In Representation and Rebellion Jonathan Rees uses a variety of primary sources—including records recently discovered at the company’s former headquarters in Pueblo, Colorado—to tell the story of the Rockefeller Plan and those who lived under it, as well as to detail its various successes and failures. Taken as a whole, the history of the Rockefeller Plan is not the story of ceaseless oppression and stifled militancy that its critics might imagine, but it is also not the story of the creation of a paternalist panacea for labor unrest that Rockefeller hoped it would be.Addressing key issues of how this early twentieth-century experiment fared from 1915 to 1942, Rees argues that the Rockefeller Plan was a limited but temporarily effective alternative to independent unionism in the wake of the Ludlow Massacre. The book will appeal to business and labor historians, political scientists, and sociologists, as well as those studying labor and industrial relations.

The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company

The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company
Author: Victoria Miller and Chris Schreck
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 1
Release: 2018
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1467127086

With roots dating to 1872, the Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I) Company at Pueblo served as the principal heavy industry leader in the Rocky Mountain region, producing steel rails, spikes, and track accessories for the burgeoning railroad industry. Over the next 121 years, the company grew to manufacture dozens of other products used in the agriculture, mining, commercial, and residential industries, driving Pueblo to become the "Pittsburgh of the West." As the region's largest private employer, CF&I also played a significant role in the history of American labor relations. A vertically integrated company maintaining its own mining, transportation, land and water resources, and medical, recreational, and steelmaking facilities, CF&I played a critical role in the history and development of the products that connected the Centennial State and, ultimately, the West.

Inside Cf&i Steel Plant

Inside Cf&i Steel Plant
Author: Jack Chick
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 76
Release: 2017-11-22
Genre:
ISBN: 9781978218055

A picture book of CF&I (Colorado fuel and Iron). These pictures have not ever been available until they were donated to the Pueblo Historical Society. unbelievable picture of working in a dangerous, hot, dirty yet wonderful place.

Mining Towns of Southern Colorado

Mining Towns of Southern Colorado
Author: Staci Comden
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 0738599530

Images from the archives of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I).

Making an American Workforce

Making an American Workforce
Author: Fawn-Amber Montoya
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2014-07-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1492012580

Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the policies of the early years of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, Making an American Workforce explores John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s welfare capitalist programs and their effects on the company's diverse workforce. Focusing on the workers themselves—men, women, and children representative of a variety of immigrant and ethnic groups—contributors trace the emergence of the Employee Representation Plan, the work of the company's Sociology Department, and CF&I's interactions with the YMCA in the early twentieth century. They examine CF&I's early commitment to Americanize its immigrant employees and shape worker behavior, the development of policies that constructed the workforce it envisioned while simultaneously laying the groundwork for the strike that eventually led to the Ludlow Massacre, and the impact of the massacre on the employees, the company, and beyond. Making an American Workforce provides greater insight into the repercussions of the Industrial Representation Plan and the Ludlow Massacre, revealing the long-term consequences of Colorado Fuel and Iron Company policies on the American worker, the state of Colorado, and the creation of corporate culture. Making an American Workforce will be of interest to Western, labor, and business historians.

Killing for Coal

Killing for Coal
Author: Thomas G. Andrews
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 414
Release: 2010-09-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674736680

On a spring morning in 1914, in the stark foothills of southern Colorado, members of the United Mine Workers of America clashed with guards employed by the Rockefeller family, and a state militia beholden to Colorado’s industrial barons. When the dust settled, nineteen men, women, and children among the miners’ families lay dead. The strikers had killed at least thirty men, destroyed six mines, and laid waste to two company towns. Killing for Coal offers a bold and original perspective on the 1914 Ludlow Massacre and the “Great Coalfield War.” In a sweeping story of transformation that begins in the coal beds and culminates with the deadliest strike in American history, Thomas Andrews illuminates the causes and consequences of the militancy that erupted in colliers’ strikes over the course of nearly half a century. He reveals a complex world shaped by the connected forces of land, labor, corporate industrialization, and workers’ resistance. Brilliantly conceived and written, this book takes the organic world as its starting point. The resulting elucidation of the coalfield wars goes far beyond traditional labor history. Considering issues of social and environmental justice in the context of an economy dependent on fossil fuel, Andrews makes a powerful case for rethinking the relationships that unite and divide workers, consumers, capitalists, and the natural world.

From Redstone to Ludlow

From Redstone to Ludlow
Author: F. Darrell Munsell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2009-03-31
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

This book covers events from 1892, when John Cleveland Osgood and his associates organised the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, to 1917, when Osgood signed a contract with the United Mine Workers of America, marking the end of his long history of battling the union. Called the Fuel King of the West, Osgood was the leading coal baron in the western mountain region and the most prominent spokesperson for the coal industry for over three decades. During this time, his anti-union policies made him the UMWA's most formidable foe in its effort to organise the Colorado coal fields. The book depicts the bipolarity of his approach to the threat of unionism. The "Redstone experiment," a model industrial village designed to improve the lives of workers through social programs, showed Osgood's efforts to attain his anti-union goals through compassion. Conversely, the Ludlow tent colony and the events that transpired there, marked by armed gunmen and machine guns paid for by Osgood, illustrate his willingness to resort to violence and intimidation for the same purpose. A leading participant in the transformation of the West, Osgood helped to shape the character of the Gilded Age.

My Heart Lies Here

My Heart Lies Here
Author: Laurie Marr Wasmund
Publisher:
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2012-08-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780985967505

In 1913, the United Mine Workers of America led a daring strike against John D. Rockefeller's Colorado Fuel & Iron Company that would end in war. In this novel of the Ludlow Massacre, a young woman learns the true meaning of love, sacrifice, and what it means to be an American. Newly arrived in Colorado, Christian Scott is caught in a web of divided loyalties. Torn between her dedication to her brother, Alex, who clings to his proud Scottish heritage, and her love of Pearl, a spirited orphan whose flight from abuse and poverty lands her on the Scotts' doorstep, Christian experiences heartbreak when the two become enemies. At the same time, she secretly joins with a passionate Greek miner on a dangerous course of resistance against the coal company and the brutal Colorado National Guard that threatens to destroy everything--and everyone--she loves.