Harlan County, USA
Encyclopedia
Harlan County, USA is an Oscar-winning 1976 documentary film
covering the "Brookside Strike
" or "Bloody Harlan", an effort of 180 coal miners
and their wives against the Duke Power Company-owned Eastover Coal Company's Brookside Mine and Prep Plant in Harlan County, Kentucky
in 1973. Directed by Barbara Kopple
, who has long been an advocate of workers' rights, Harlan County, U.S.A. is less ambivalent in its attitude toward unions than her later American Dream
, the account of the Hormel Foods strike in Austin, Minnesota
in 1985-86.
, struck in June 1972, Kopple went there to film the strike against Duke Power Company and UMWA's response (or lack thereof). The strike proved a more interesting subject, so Kopple switched the focus of her film.
Kopple and her crew spent years with the families depicted in the film, documenting the dire straits they find themselves in while striking for safer working conditions, fair labor practices, and decent wages: following them to picket in front of the stock exchange in New York, filming interviews with people affected by black lung disease
, and even catching miners being shot at while striking.
The most significant point of disagreement in the Harlan County strike was the company's insistence on including a no-strike clause
in the contract. The miners were concerned that accepting such a provision in the agreement would limit their influence over local working conditions. The sticking point was mooted when, a few years after this strike, the UMWA folded the agreement that was eventually won by this group of workers into a global contract.
Rather than using narration to tell the story, Kopple chose to let the words and actions of these people speak for themselves. For example, when the strike breakers and others hired by the company show up early in the film — the strikers call them "gun thugs" — the company people try to keep their guns hidden from the camera. As the strike drags on for nearly a year, both sides eventually openly brandish their weapons.
Kopple also relays statistics about the companies and the workers to support the strikers, such as the fact that Duke Power Company's profits increased 170 percent in a single year. Meanwhile, the striking miners, many of whom are living in squalid conditions without utilities like running water, received a 4% pay increase despite an estimated 7% cost of living increase for that same year.
Joseph Yablonski
was a passionate, populist union representative who was loved by many of the miners. Yablonski challenged W.A. "Tony" Boyle for the presidency of the UMWA in 1969, but lost in an election widely viewed as corrupt. Later that year, Yablonski and his family were found murdered in their home. Tony Boyle is shown early in the film in good health. Later he is seen frail, sickly and using a wheelchair, being carried up the courthouse steps to face a conviction for giving $20,000 to another union executive council member to hire the killers.
Almost a full year into the strike a striking miner named Lawrence Jones is fatally shot during a scuffle. Jones was well liked, young and had a 16-year-old wife and a baby. His mother collapsed from grief at his funeral. This moment more than anything else finally forces the strikers and the management to come to the bargaining table.
A central figure in the documentary is Lois Scott, who plays a major role in galvanizing the community in support of the strike. Several times she is seen publicly chastising those she feels have been absent from the picket lines. In one scene, Scott pulls a pistol from her bra. Associate director Anne Lewis compares Scott to Women's Liberation activists in the film's 2004 Criterion Collection special feature The Making of Harlan County, USA.
praised the film, writing, "The film retains all of its power, in the story of a miners' strike in Kentucky where the company employed armed goons to escort scabs into the mines, and the most effective picketers were the miners' wives -- articulate, indominable, courageous. It contains a famous scene where guns are fired at the strikers in the darkness before dawn, and Kopple and her cameraman are knocked down and beaten."
Film critic Dennis Schwartz liked the documentary, yet believed it provided only one point of view. He wrote, "One of the better and more rousing labor strike films that calls attention to class war in America, though it doesn't offer enough analysis or balance on the issues (it sees the struggle solely through the miners' eyes)...The film does a good job chronicling the plight of the miners and telling their personal stories in a moving way, and the meaningful catchy coal mining songs add to the emotional impact of the historical event. Hazel Dickens
's folk song lyrics of 'United we stand, divided we fall' and Florence Reece
's lyrics of 'Which side are you on?' give one the full-flavor of the miners' mood and the union fervor sweeping the mining community in the black mountains of Appalachia."
Jerry Johnson, one of the striking Eastover miners, attributes the ultimate conclusion of the strike to the presence of Kopple and her film crew: "The cameras probably saved a bunch of shooting. I don’t think we’d have won it without the film crew. If the film crew hadn’t been sympathetic to our cause, we would’ve lost. Thank God for them; thank God they’re on our side"
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
covering the "Brookside Strike
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
" or "Bloody Harlan", an effort of 180 coal miners
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
and their wives against the Duke Power Company-owned Eastover Coal Company's Brookside Mine and Prep Plant in Harlan County, Kentucky
Harlan County, Kentucky
Harlan County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It was formed in 1819. As of 2000, the population was 33,200. Its county seat is Harlan...
in 1973. Directed by Barbara Kopple
Barbara Kopple
Barbara Kopple is an American film director, primarily known for her work in documentary film.-Biography:She grew up in Scarsdale, New York, the daughter of a textile executive and studied psychology at Northeastern University, after which she worked with the Maysles Brothers.Kopple has won two...
, who has long been an advocate of workers' rights, Harlan County, U.S.A. is less ambivalent in its attitude toward unions than her later American Dream
American Dream (film)
American Dream is a cinéma vérité documentary film directed by Barbara Kopple and co-directed by Cathy Caplan, Thomas Haneke, and Lawrence Silk....
, the account of the Hormel Foods strike in Austin, Minnesota
Austin, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 23,314 people, 9,897 households, and 6,076 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,168.2 people per square mile . There were 10,261 housing units at an average density of 954.3 per square mile...
in 1985-86.
Synopsis
Kopple initially intended to make a film about Kenzie, Miners for Democracy and the attempt to unseat Tony Boyle. When miners at the Brookside Mine in Harlan County, KentuckyHarlan County, Kentucky
Harlan County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It was formed in 1819. As of 2000, the population was 33,200. Its county seat is Harlan...
, struck in June 1972, Kopple went there to film the strike against Duke Power Company and UMWA's response (or lack thereof). The strike proved a more interesting subject, so Kopple switched the focus of her film.
Kopple and her crew spent years with the families depicted in the film, documenting the dire straits they find themselves in while striking for safer working conditions, fair labor practices, and decent wages: following them to picket in front of the stock exchange in New York, filming interviews with people affected by black lung disease
Coalworker's pneumoconiosis
Coal workers' pneumoconiosis , colloquially referred to as black lung disease, is caused by long exposure to coal dust. It is a common affliction of coal miners and others who work with coal, similar to both silicosis from inhaling silica dust, and to the long-term effects of tobacco smoking...
, and even catching miners being shot at while striking.
The most significant point of disagreement in the Harlan County strike was the company's insistence on including a no-strike clause
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
in the contract. The miners were concerned that accepting such a provision in the agreement would limit their influence over local working conditions. The sticking point was mooted when, a few years after this strike, the UMWA folded the agreement that was eventually won by this group of workers into a global contract.
Rather than using narration to tell the story, Kopple chose to let the words and actions of these people speak for themselves. For example, when the strike breakers and others hired by the company show up early in the film — the strikers call them "gun thugs" — the company people try to keep their guns hidden from the camera. As the strike drags on for nearly a year, both sides eventually openly brandish their weapons.
Kopple also relays statistics about the companies and the workers to support the strikers, such as the fact that Duke Power Company's profits increased 170 percent in a single year. Meanwhile, the striking miners, many of whom are living in squalid conditions without utilities like running water, received a 4% pay increase despite an estimated 7% cost of living increase for that same year.
Joseph Yablonski
Joseph Yablonski
Joseph Albert "Jock" Yablonski was an American labor leader in the United Mine Workers in the 1950s and 1960s. He was murdered in 1969 by killers hired by a union political opponent, Mine Workers president W. A. Boyle...
was a passionate, populist union representative who was loved by many of the miners. Yablonski challenged W.A. "Tony" Boyle for the presidency of the UMWA in 1969, but lost in an election widely viewed as corrupt. Later that year, Yablonski and his family were found murdered in their home. Tony Boyle is shown early in the film in good health. Later he is seen frail, sickly and using a wheelchair, being carried up the courthouse steps to face a conviction for giving $20,000 to another union executive council member to hire the killers.
Almost a full year into the strike a striking miner named Lawrence Jones is fatally shot during a scuffle. Jones was well liked, young and had a 16-year-old wife and a baby. His mother collapsed from grief at his funeral. This moment more than anything else finally forces the strikers and the management to come to the bargaining table.
A central figure in the documentary is Lois Scott, who plays a major role in galvanizing the community in support of the strike. Several times she is seen publicly chastising those she feels have been absent from the picket lines. In one scene, Scott pulls a pistol from her bra. Associate director Anne Lewis compares Scott to Women's Liberation activists in the film's 2004 Criterion Collection special feature The Making of Harlan County, USA.
Interviews
- Norman Yarborough - Eastover Mining President
- Houston Elmore - UMW organizer
- Phil Sparks - UMW staff
- John Corcoran - Consolidation Coal President
- John O'Leary - former Bureau of Mines director
- Donald Rasmussen - Black Lung Clinic, WV
- Dr. Hawley Wells Jr.
- Tom Williams - Boyle campaigner
- Harry Patrick - UMW secretary-treasurer
- William E. SimonWilliam E. SimonWilliam Edward Simon was a businessman, a Secretary of Treasury of the U.S. for three years, and a philanthropist. He became the 63rd Secretary of the Treasury on May 8, 1974, during the Nixon administration. He was reappointed by President Ford and served until 1977. Outside of government, he was...
- U.S. Secretary of Treasury
Critical response
When the film was re-released film critic Roger EbertRoger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
praised the film, writing, "The film retains all of its power, in the story of a miners' strike in Kentucky where the company employed armed goons to escort scabs into the mines, and the most effective picketers were the miners' wives -- articulate, indominable, courageous. It contains a famous scene where guns are fired at the strikers in the darkness before dawn, and Kopple and her cameraman are knocked down and beaten."
Film critic Dennis Schwartz liked the documentary, yet believed it provided only one point of view. He wrote, "One of the better and more rousing labor strike films that calls attention to class war in America, though it doesn't offer enough analysis or balance on the issues (it sees the struggle solely through the miners' eyes)...The film does a good job chronicling the plight of the miners and telling their personal stories in a moving way, and the meaningful catchy coal mining songs add to the emotional impact of the historical event. Hazel Dickens
Hazel Dickens
Hazel Jane Dickens was an American bluegrass singer, songwriter, double bassist and guitarist. She was the eighth child of an eleven-child mining family in West Virginia. Her music was characterized not only by her high, lonesome singing style, but also by her provocative pro-union, feminist songs...
's folk song lyrics of 'United we stand, divided we fall' and Florence Reece
Florence Reece
Florence Reece was an American social activist, poet, and folksong writer. Born in Sharps Chapel, Tennessee, the daughter and wife of coal miners, she is best known for the song, "Which Side Are You On?" written in 1931 during a strike by the United Mine Workers of America in which her husband,...
's lyrics of 'Which side are you on?' give one the full-flavor of the miners' mood and the union fervor sweeping the mining community in the black mountains of Appalachia."
Jerry Johnson, one of the striking Eastover miners, attributes the ultimate conclusion of the strike to the presence of Kopple and her film crew: "The cameras probably saved a bunch of shooting. I don’t think we’d have won it without the film crew. If the film crew hadn’t been sympathetic to our cause, we would’ve lost. Thank God for them; thank God they’re on our side"
Awards
Wins- Academy AwardsAcademy AwardsAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
: Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature (Oscar), Best Documentary, Features, Barbara Kopple; 1977 - Los Angeles Film Critics AssociationLos Angeles Film Critics AssociationThe Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
: Special Award, Barbara Kopple; 1977
Other distinctions
- In 1990 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film RegistryNational Film RegistryThe National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
by the Library of CongressLibrary of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"
See also
- Harlan County WarHarlan County War (film)Harlan County War is a television film directed by Tony Bill and written by Peter Silverman.-Plot:A Kentucky woman whose mine-worker husband is nearly killed in a cave-in, and whose father is slowly dying of black lung, joins the picket lines for a long, violent strike.-Principal cast:*Holly...
- Labor historyLabor historyLabor history may refer to:* Labor history , a subfield of the discipline of history**Labor history of the United States, describes the history of organized labor, as well as the more general history of working people, in the United States...
External links
- Harlan County, USA film trailer
- Harlan County, USA film at HuluHuluHulu is a website and over-the-top subscription service offering ad-supported on-demand streaming video of TV shows, movies, webisodes and other new media, trailers, clips, and behind-the-scenes footage from NBC, Fox, ABC, and Obstacle on October 20th 2011 Nickelodeon and CBS and many other...
- Harlan County, USA essay by Paul Arthur at The Criterion CollectionThe Criterion CollectionThe Criterion Collection is a video-distribution company selling "important classic and contemporary films" to film aficionados. The Criterion series is noted for helping to standardize the letterbox format for home video, bonus features, and special editions...
- Film director John Sayles discusses Harlan County, USA