| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 195 words from this article are provided below; about 389 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

It Is Union and Liberty: Alabama Coal Miners and the UMW. Ed. by Edwin L. Brown and Colin J. Davis. (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1999. xii, 184 pp. Cloth, $39.95, ISBN 0-8173-0999-3. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 0-8173-1000-2.)

After Kentucky and West Virginia, which had different ecologies and were in any event border states, Alabama was during the heyday of industrialism the most important coal-mining state in the industrial South. With twenty-four thousand miners in the Birmingham area in 1930, half of whom were black, Alabama also became a major bellwether of race relations in the region. Despite significant black-white cooperation in the strikes of 1894 and 1908, for much of the history of the UMWA (United Mine Workers of America), the white power structure was able to defeat its organizing efforts by invoking the specter of social equality between the races. With the exception of Robert Ward and William Roger's 1965 survey of the 1894 strike and Daniel Letwin's excellent 1998 book analyzing race relations in the coalfield up to 1921, this is the first comprehensive history of mining trade unionism in Alabama. What new light does it shed upon that history? . . .

There are about 389 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.