Carvalho: The Ludlow Massacre

Michelle Carvalho

April 4, 2013

The Ludlow Massacre and America’s Outcry over the Killing of

Women and Children Caught in the Crossfire

On April 20, 1914, the Colorado National Guard and guards of several coal mining industry giants stormed the tent camp of a group of 1,200 striking coal miners in the town of Ludlow, Colorado, leading to the deaths of many coal miners in addition to women and children who had been living in the tents. The event, which would become known as the Ludlow Massacre, sparked violence which spanned several weeks and over eighty miles and eventually would claim the lives of up to 200 people. The Ludlow Massacre stands out as an important moment of labor violence in U.S. working class history because women and children outside of the conflict between the coal barons and the coal miners got caught in the crossfire. The death of these innocent family members sent shockwaves across the country and turned the event into a “massacre,” which had the affect of improving conditions for the Colorado coal miners.

Prior to the Ludlow Massacre, the state of Colorado had already seen serious labor disturbances and violence arising from labor strikes in its past. After a nationwide railroad strike in 1877, the Colorado legislature formed their state militia, the National Guard, to “have a strikebreaking force on hand capable of crushing the labor unrest many believed would become more common.”¹ Over the next fifty years, the Colorado National Guard was called out twenty-three times, with seventeen of those times into strike situations, where it was almost always called on to break the strike.² In addition, the state’s mining companies had developed a reputation for “vigorously and violently resisting any attempt to unionize their mines.”³ This heightened residents’ emotions when the 1913 strike leading up to the Ludlow Massacre began.⁴

In the middle of 1913, the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) led a campaign to have the coal companies in Colorado officially recognize the unions.⁵ The primary coal company involved was Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I), controlled by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.⁶ CF&I was one of the 100 largest corporations in the U.S. and the largest employer in Colorado.⁷ While media sources reported that the coal companies were willing to listen to certain demands by the union, including a slight increase in wages, the crucial demand of union recognition went unmet by the coal companies.⁸ Rockefeller declared before a Congressional Committee investigating the coal strike that “the interests which he represented would lose all their millions invested in the Colorado coal fields before they would yield recognition to union labor.”⁹ Because of this, the UMW staged a walkout with approximately 9,000 miners which would last from September 1913 to December 1914.¹⁰

During the strike, the Colorado militia was called in to address the situation. Strikers perceived the National Guard to be “henchmen” of the coal companies.¹¹ “Scores of murderous mine guards” and “hired gunmen” in the employ of the coal mining companies were suspected to be fighting alongside and in the militia.¹² Mine guards and hired gunmen of the coal companies were eager to join the National Guard since it meant they could draw another paycheck for doing what the coal barons were already paying them to do, i.e., break the strike.¹³ After several months of sporadic outbursts of violence, on April 20, 1914, fighting broke out with troops encircling the tent encampment at Ludlow for over twelve hours.¹⁴ Ludlow was the largest of eleven tent colonies that had been constructed by the UMW for the coal miners and their families after they had been evicted from company housing.¹⁵ Reportedly, troops set up a machine gun on a hill overlooking the tent colony and opened fire.¹⁶ The head of the colony, Louis Tikas, protested when the militia set up the machine gun but was shot repeatedly in response.¹⁷

Although similar industrial warfare had occurred in Colorado’s past, the Ludlow Massacre caused a public outcry when the tents were burned and reportedly eleven children and two women were found dead of suffocation or burns in the aftermath.¹⁸ The youngest victim was Elvira Valdez, only three months old.¹⁹ Newspapers across the country reported horrific stories concerning the victims. The Washington Post described the account of Mrs. N. H. Thomas who had initially sought the protection of a nearby well along with 50 children when the gun battle began, but stated that soon thereafter, the militia began firing on the group.²⁰ Mrs. Mary Petrucci saw all of her three children killed when their tent shelter was set aflame.²¹ Over a week later, the Day Book in Chicago reported that “[w]omen and children of the strikers were still missing, and it was thought that the gunmen might have buried bodies near the colony.”²²

Within a week of the massacre, one thousand Denver women, including working women and wives of professional men, gathered on April 25^th at the state capital.²³ There, they chose a committee of five women to wait on the Governor and demand that he telegraph the President for troops.²⁴ Although the Governor initially protested, the group of women waited until he finally yielded and sent a telegram appealing for federal aid.²⁵ The wide-spread reports of the Ludlow Massacre and the deaths of the women and children also created immense pressure on the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson to find a solution. The Rocky Mountain News wrote to the President days after the massacre that “[w]ithout your speedy aid the poor and the needy, betrayed by the state, may be slaughtered to the last smiling babe.”²⁶ Public opinion forced President Wilson to order federal troops in only eight days later on April 28, 1914.²⁷

Although the strike would ultimately end in favor of the coal barons, the Ludlow Massacre and deaths of the innocent would have a lasting affect. Normally in labor relations, the death of men are largely ignored, but when the lives of women are lost, it is remembered as a tragedy and, in the instance of when children are killed, it becomes a “massacre.”²⁸ After the Ludlow Massacre, there was a general shift on the part of corporate managers from violent confrontation with organized labor to a policy of working with the unions.²⁹ For example, CF&I established a new plan for employee representation within their coal mines and steel mills of Colorado and Wyoming.³⁰ The plan called upon employee and company representatives to meet regularly to address the needs of the workers, not only in the workplace but also within their respective communities.³¹ Nationwide, the conditions in company made towns where the workers resided improved throughout the U.S. as a result of the Colorado coal war.³² Due to the level of violence against those seen as “innocent,” the Ludlow Massacre was a shocking event which symbolized industrial violence in the U.S. and led directly to improved conditions for the workers and reforms in labor relations.³³

1. Anthony R. DeStafanis. “The Road to Ludlow: Breaking the 1913-1914 Southern Colorado Coal Strike.” The Journal of the Historical Society Vol. 12, No. 3 (Sep. 2012): 346.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid., 352.

4. Billie Barnes Jensen, “Woodrow Wilson’s Intervention in the Coal Strike of 1914,” Labor History, Vol. 15, no. 1 (1974): 64.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Anthony R. DeStafanis. “The Road to Ludlow: Breaking the 1913-1914 Southern Colorado Coal Strike.” The Journal of the Historical Society Vol. 12, No. 3 (Sep. 2012): 351.

8. Billie Barnes Jensen, “Woodrow Wilson’s Intervention in the Coal Strike of 1914,” Labor History, Vol. 15, no. 1 (1974): 65.

9. Helen Ring Robinson, “The War in Colorado,” The Independent…Devoted to the Consideration of Politics, Social and Economic Tendencies, History, Literature, and the Arts (New York, NY), May 11, 1914.

10. Ibid.; Anthony R. DeStafanis. “The Road to Ludlow: Breaking the 1913-1914 Southern Colorado Coal Strike.” The Journal of the Historical Society Vol. 12, No. 3 (Sep. 2012): 341, 343.

11. Billie Barnes Jensen, “Woodrow Wilson’s Intervention in the Coal Strike of 1914,” Labor History, Vol. 15, no. 1 (1974): 68.

12. Edward A. Evans, “Colorado’s Gunmen Soldiers Loot Strikers’ Tent Colony,” The Day Book (Chicago, IL), April 28, 1914; Helen Ring Robinson, “The War in Colorado,” The Independent…Devoted to the Consideration of Politics, Social and Economic Tendencies, History, Literature, and the Arts (New York, NY), May 11, 1914.

13. Anthony R. DeStafanis. “The Road to Ludlow: Breaking the 1913-1914 Southern Colorado Coal Strike.” The Journal of the Historical Society Vol. 12, No. 3 (Sep. 2012): 367..

14. Billie Barnes Jensen, “Woodrow Wilson’s Intervention in the Coal Strike of 1914,” Labor History, Vol. 15, no. 1 (1974): 66, 68.

15. Anthony R. DeStafanis. “The Road to Ludlow: Breaking the 1913-1914 Southern Colorado Coal Strike.” The Journal of the Historical Society Vol. 12, No. 3 (Sep. 2012): 343.

16. Helen Ring Robinson, “The War in Colorado,” The Independent…Devoted to the Consideration of Politics, Social and Economic Tendencies, History, Literature, and the Arts (New York, NY), May 11, 1914.

17. Ibid.

18. Billie Barnes Jensen, “Woodrow Wilson’s Intervention in the Coal Strike of 1914,” Labor History, Vol. 15, no. 1 (1974): 68.

19. Fawn-Amber Montoya, “Mines, Massacres, and Memories: Colorado Fuel and Iron’s Creation of a Community in Southern Colorado, 1880-1919” (doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona, 2007), 210.

20. “Saw Colorado Riots: Judge Lindsey Head of party to Plead to President,” The Washington Post (Washington, D.C.), May 21, 1914.

21. Ibid.

22. Edward A. Evans, “Colorado’s Gunmen Soldiers Loot Strikers’ Tent Colony,” The Day Book (Chicago, IL), April 28, 1914.

23. Helen Ring Robinson, “The War in Colorado,” The Independent…Devoted to the Consideration of Politics, Social and Economic Tendencies, History, Literature, and the Arts (New York, NY), May 11, 1914.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.

26. Billie Barnes Jensen, “Woodrow Wilson’s Intervention in the Coal Strike of 1914,” Labor History, Vol. 15, no. 1 (1974): 71.

27. Ibid., 74.

28. Fawn-Amber Montoya, “Mines, Massacres, and Memories: Colorado Fuel and Iron’s Creation of a Community in Southern Colorado, 1880-1919” (doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona, 2007), 106.

29. Mark Walker, “The Ludlow Massacre: Class, Warfare, and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado,” Historical Archaeology, Vol. 37, no. 3 (2003): 70.

30. Fawn-Amber Montoya, “Mines, Massacres, and Memories: Colorado Fuel and Iron’s Creation of a Community in Southern Colorado, 1880-1919” (doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona, 2007), 132.

31. Ibid.

32. Mark Walker, “The Ludlow Massacre: Class, Warfare, and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado,” Historical Archaeology, Vol. 37, no. 3 (2003): 70.

33. Ibid., 67.