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This interdisciplinary colloquium will be presented in the arts and collective memory section of the conference. The session will combine literature, film and drama on coal miners, strikers and subsequent violence and labor struggles. Participants will include scholars, film-makers, and dramatists from the United States and United Kingdom.

Earl Hutchison (English, Tennessee Technological University) is author of Growing Up on the Illinois Prairie During the Great Depression and the Coal Mine Wars. He will read from the chapter titled "The Day the Reds Came to Virden" and describe the creativity involved in plumbing the deep well of personal memory.

Greg Boozell (author and film maker, Invisible Hand: The Deindustrialization of Southern Illinois) is completing a film about the coal-mining war that ensued when Illinois miners formed the Progressive Miners of America in 1932. The film documents the collusion of the UMWA, Peabody Coal and local and federal government agencies to defeat the Progressives. Material from the film will be presented and discussed.

Lynn Smith (Work-in Productions, Scotland) has worked with the Royal Scottish Academy and is author of a play about the coal miners strike (and currently is completing the script for a movie about the work-in by shipyard laborers. She will present readings/short rehearsed excerpts/scenes from this work. Jimmy Reid, the union convenor during the shipyard dispute, is expected to participate.

Rosemary Feurer (History, Northern Illinois University) is a labor historian and author of documentary website titled “Remember Virden” about Illinois coalminers and their struggle for human rights (www.remembervirden.niu.edu). Mother Jones, the famous labor activist, asked to be buried alongside the Virden Martyrs. A trailer from the website and other materials will be viewed and discussed at the session.

Ray Hutchison (Urban and Regional Studies, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay) is the organizer of this colloquium, and will serve as convenor at the session. He also will discuss the importance of keeping memory alive of these and other labor struggles given the lack of attention to these and other events in recent scholarship and political debate.

Stream: Arts Agendas

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Ray Hutchison is professor and chair of Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He grew up in Nashville and completed graduate study in sociology at the University of Chicago. He is co-author of The New Urban Sociology (Perseus), series editor of Research in Urban Sociology (Elsevier), and senior editor of the three-volume Encyclopedia of Urban Studies (SAGE).

Greg Boozell (author and film maker, Invisible Hand: The Deindustrialization of Southern Illinois) is completing a film about thecoal-mining war that ensued when Illinois miners formed the Progressive Miners of America in 1932. The film documents the collusion of the UMWA, Peabody Coal and local and federal government agencies to defeat the Progressives. Material from the film will be presented and
discussed.

Rosemary Feurer (History, Northern Illinois University) is a labor historian and author of documentary website titled "Remember Virden" about Illinois coalminers and their struggle for human rights (www.remembervirden.niu.edu). Mother Jones, the famous labor activist, asked to be buried alongside the Virden Martyrs. A trailer from the website and other materials will be viewed and discussed at the session.

Earl Hutchison (English, Tennessee Technological University) is author of Growing Up on the Illinois Prairie During the Great Depression and the Coal Mine Wars. He will read from the chapter titled "The Day the
Reds Came to Virden" and describe the creativity involved in plumbing the deep well of personal memory.

Lynn Smith (Work-in Productions, Scotland) has worked with the Royal Scottish Academy and is author of a play about the coal miners strike (and currently is completing the script for a movie about the work-in by
shipyard laborers. She will present readings/short rehearsed excerpts/scenes from this work. Jimmy Reid, the union convenor during the shipyard dispute, is expected to participate.