Story of workers’ rights remains important part of history more than a century later
It’s been more than 100 years since approximately two dozen miners, including women and children, were killed in what is known as the Ludlow Massacre (or the Colorado Coal Field War). The tent colony in Ludlow, Colo., was inhabited by some 1,200 striking coal miners — some of them recent immigrants — seeking safer working and better living conditions and better pay.
The killings at the mine, which was owned by John D. Rockefeller, were carried out by the Colorado National Guard, which was sent in by the governor months after the strike began and after miners had already been evicted from their company-owned homes, forcing them to live in tent cities around the mine. The massacre outraged a nation and shed an important light on the treatment of workers in numerous American industries.