The Challenges Of Surviving The Industrialization Era

Caleb Holbrook Catherine Herdman APP 200 October 27, 2014 The Challenges of Surviving the Industrialization era This is a historical fiction book that takes place in Appalachia, near the border of West Virginia and Kentucky between the late 1800s and early 1900s. This is the same area where the Hatfields and McCoys were feuding just a few years earlier, although none of these characters mention them. We see railroads and coal companies taking the land of the townspeople. With their land gone, they have no choice but to work in the coal mines, living in company towns and at the mercy of the company store. Any efforts to organize to get better working and living conditions were brutally put down by the coal companies and their hired gun†¦show more content†¦Marcum and Rondal. In chapter one the book is outlined giving a setting and it starts with the roaring railroads companies wanting to expand and began to take the mineral rights of coal from the farmers so that they can sell it to coal companies, Which then sell it too big business such as steel industries or it is used to fuel machines with the power discovered in coal. This allowed the booming steel industry to grow which then turned around and produced the railing for railroads. This mineral grows under the top soil which was in the land that the farmers plowed and worked to make their living on. Coal companies convinced farmers that they owned the legal right to mine this coal off of the farmers land and forced and used intimidation to get them to sign their lands away. The main concept to take from the first few chapters is that of the â€Å"company store† the coal miner’s families were required to do all of their buying of groceries, clothing, and other necessary items through coal company’s stores. The prices were set at the liking of the coal company. The company deducted whatever had been spent in the stores the amount from the workers pay. Often workers had purchased more than they earned even though most bought only what they needed to survive until the next week. Until 1919 the businesses ran their companies. There was a laissez faire approach to the economy, which meant government was really hands off,