WV local 1440 group

West Virginia Mine Wars Museum 2.0

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Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

Photo above: UMWA Local 1440 Members lend a hand to clean out the Museum’s new home.

Lou Martin headshot

Please welcome guest author Lou Martin. Martin is a founding board member of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum, an honorary member of UMWA Local 1440, and an associate professor of history at Chatham University. He participated in the 2011 March on Blair Mountain and is looking forward to the Blair Centennial events being planned for Labor Day weekend 2021.


When the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum opened its doors on May 16, 2015, in historic Matewan, it was located in a building known as the old Chambers Hardware and Furniture Store. It is in a row of red brick buildings that dated back to the Battle of Matewan.

Sharing the history of the conflict

That fateful day in 1920, Chief of Police Sid Hatfield had ordered men from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to stop their evictions of striking miners. Later that day, Hatfield, his deputy Ed Chambers, Mayor C. C. Testerman, and a number of deputized coal miners had a shootout with thirteen mine guards that left seven of the agents, two miners, and the mayor dead.

While some have debated exactly what transpired in that quick exchange of gunfire, miners still remember Sid Hatfield as the lawman who stood up to the gun thugs. And bullets from the battle are still lodged in the back of one of those red brick buildings.

Shell casings from the Battle of Blair Mountain, unearthed by Kenneth King nearly 70-90 years after the fact.
Shell casings from the Battle of Blair Mountain, unearthed by Kenneth King nearly 70-90 years after the fact. 

The West Virginia Mine Wars Museum is dedicated to sharing the history of the conflict over miners’ efforts to unionize between 1902 and 1922, with exhibits on Coal Camp Life, the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike, and the March on Blair Mountain.

Museum relocation, overhaul and expansion

Being in that historic building enriched visitors’ experience. But this year, the board of directors made the difficult decision to leave Chambers Hardware and move into a newer building that was the Bank of Matewan (and more recently a BB&T branch).

First, it is a much larger space with triple the square footage for exhibits, a lobby, and the Solidarity Art Gallery. Second, the artifacts will be safer and better preserved in this very solid building with better climate control. Finally, the new owner of the building has been one of the museum’s closest partners: UMWA Local 1440 of Matewan. So now, the museum has a long-term lease for the space with an organization that is just as dedicated to preserving this history as the museum board and staff.

Overseeing the relocation and redesign of the museum and its exhibits is executive director Mackenzie New Walker. Walker joined the museum in November 2018 and had only been on the job for a few months when the board tasked her with a complete overhaul and expansion of the museum.

Chuck Keeney and Marvin Jones laying down subflooring before the carpet in the Museum can be installed.
Chuck Keeney and Marvin Jones laying down subflooring before the carpet in the Museum can be installed. 

A people’s history of the Mine Wars

She rose to task and worked with a carpenter’s crew from the Coalfield Development Corporation, carpet installers, and a small army of helpers and volunteers that included the board members and Local 1440 members. Most importantly, Walker worked closely with Creative Director Shaun Slifer and the board members who actively reimagined the exhibits, including Wilma Steele, Catherine Moore, and Chuck Keeney. 

Slifer worked closely with the board. He designed the first set of exhibits in the Chambers Hardware building. Having worked as a contractor for museums in Pittsburgh, he was used to being told exactly what the exhibits should be. Thinking about designing the first museum back in 2014 and 2015, he wrote, “I had one way I knew to do things, and creating this museum was an incredible exercise in compromise, trust, telling a story with people, not for them.” 

That was true with the second incarnation of the museum as well. One of the core values of the Mine Wars Museum is making sure that coalfield residents have a say in how this history is told. The museum strives above all for historical accuracy, but it is equally important that this be the people’s history of the Mine Wars as opposed to an “official” history  or state-sanctioned history, which have too often been silent on working-class struggles.

Many work days, many jobs to do

It was a big challenge to make the empty bank feel like a museum, and there were several discussions about where to begin. One day in the middle of meetings about grants, fundraising, and logistics, store manager and docent Kim Perkins McCoy said that we shouldn’t cover one of the windows because it looked right onto the railroad tracks where the 1920 battle took place. This became the starting point for all the museum designs from that point forward, and Slifer took on the challenge of arranging the exhibits in such a way that visitors would come to that window at the right point in their experience to learn about the Battle of Matewan.

A behind the scenes look of Roger May and Shaun Slifer photographing the museum's artifacts.
A behind the scenes look of Roger May and Shaun Slifer photographing the museum’s artifacts. 

Slifer worked with a large team of artists, historians, and craftspeople, and in a blog about the experience, he writes, “We really can’t thank Danny Collins enough, as he ran around like a hero and did every single thing we couldn’t figure out, from all the electrical work to anything needing an expert craftsman.”

Danny Collins is a retired miner and active member of UMWA Local 1440. He was a great help when the museum remodeled the Chambers Hardware storefront. And when a miner’s daughter from Red Jacket suggested that our first new exhibit be a miners’ memorial, Collins turned the plans of West Virginia designer and illustrator Liz Pavlovic into a reality. When we began the renovation of the larger space across the street, Collins came and offered his help one day. One day turned into many, many days and many, many different jobs.

Mine Wars Museum members make it all possible

The expanded and reimagined Mine Wars Museum includes versions of all the previous permanent exhibits—Paint Creek-Cabin Creek, the March on Blair Mountain—but it includes more, including an exhibit on Women’s Resistance. Slifer collaborated with board members Wilma Steele and Catherine Moore to capture the actions of women, especially during the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike. Another new exhibit, The Mine Wars: Memory & Legacy, explores how the Mine Wars have been remembered (and forgotten at times) and the role of citizen archaeologists like Kenneth King to recover some of this history.

The exhibit includes items from the 2011 protest march to save Blair Mountain from strip mining and archeological findings from the Mountain.
The exhibit includes items from the 2011 protest march to save Blair Mountain from strip mining and archeological findings from the Mountain. 

In 2013, at the first meeting to consider creating the museum, we agreed that if there was not enough support to do it right, we wouldn’t try to “force it,” so to speak. One of the first indications that there was support came in the form of our first grant from the West Virginia Humanities Council. Then, the National Coal Heritage Area Authority awarded the museum the second, even larger grant. 

While the museum has received support from wonderful organizations around the region, it became clear that there was no wealthy foundation that would bankroll the whole effort. Knowing that we could not pay staff salaries, rent, or utilities from these grants, we knew we would need the support of donors. So we began our first membership drive, and the amount of support, usually at $10 a month, has been remarkable. While grants have made the exhibits and some of the remodeling possible, it would not have lasted a month without the now more than two hundred card carrying Mine Wars Museum Members.

Please join in supporting the museum’s work

The museum continues to dream big. Director Walker is taking on a new project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, to digitize our artifacts. Mingo County native and renowned photographer Roger May expertly photographed each artifact—some five hundred in all. Those images will form the basis of a new database that Slifer is creating, which will allow the museum to record details about the artifacts, and will be available as a tool for students and researchers.  Also as part of the project, Walker is working with West Virginia schoolteachers to create lesson plans that students can still do in remote learning situations. While it is disappointing that COVID-19 is not allowing McCoy to welcome the public into the new space, Walker is finding new ways to get the history of the Mine Wars to the public and to students.

working with West Virginia schoolteachers to create lesson plans
Working with West Virginia schoolteachers via Zoom to create lesson plans.

Next year, Walker is leading an effort to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain. This will bring together a number of museums, civic groups, and historical societies to have events over the 2021 Labor Day Weekend. If it is safe to once again have events, there are plans for a concert, film series, walking tours, festivals, and meals as well as a re-enactment of the 1921 Miners’ March led by the United Mine Workers of America.

I believe the Mine Wars have special significance to us today. Blair Mountain calls to us. The echoes of the voices of miners and their families call to us. And we—many of us in West Virginia, in Appalachia, and around the country—hear those voices. If many of us had not answered that call, the Mine Wars Museum would not exist. I believe that many of us feel in our bones that this history calls out to be understood, shared, and preserved. 

I am entering my fifth year as a member of the Mine Wars Museum, and I invite you to join me in supporting this work if you have not already. In less than three minutes, you can become a Mine Wars Museum Member. Click on this link, enter your information, choose your donor level, and join the team. You will receive your member card in the mail as well as our museum journal In These Hills

And I hope we can all meet on Blair Mountain, Labor Day, 2021.

Links:

http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1576

https://www.wvnews.com/news/wvnews/preserving-and-expanding-history-mine-wars-museum-reopens-in-matewan-in-new-building-with-more/article_5d5092ee-152a-5e13-a41e-900d9de05030.html

https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/mine-wars-museum-reopens-in-new-building-with-more-exhibits-room-for-growth/article_48e96954-5bd1-5a5c-8990-49512944fab1.html

More articles on the WV Mine Wars:

WV Mine Wars Museum to open May 16(Opens in a new browser tab)

The Wisdom of Old Blair Mountain(Opens in a new browser tab)

The West Virginia Mine Wars Museum: Getting Stronger by the Member(Opens in a new browser tab)

30th Anniversary Screening of the Movie “Matewan”(Opens in a new browser tab)

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