To Save the Land and People: A History of Opposition to Surface Coal Mining in Appalachia / Edition 1

by Chad Montrie

Overview

Surface coal mining has had a dramatic impact on the Appalachian economy and ecology since World War II, exacerbating the region's chronic unemployment and destroying much of its natural environment. Here, Chad Montrie examines the twentieth-century movement to outlaw surface mining in Appalachia, tracing popular opposition to the industry from its inception through the growth of a militant movement that engaged in acts of civil disobedience and industrial sabotage. Both comprehensive and comparative, To Save the Land and People chronicles the story of surface mining opposition in the whole region, from Pennsylvania to Alabama.

Though many accounts of environmental activism focus on middle-class suburbanites and emphasize national events, the campaign to abolish strip mining was primarily a movement of farmers and working people, originating at the local and state levels. Its history underscores the significant role of common people and grassroots efforts in the American environmental movement. This book also contributes to a long-running debate about American values by revealing how veneration for small, private properties has shaped the political consciousness of strip mining opponents.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807854358
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	03/10/2003
Edition description:	1
Pages:	264
Sales rank:	871,127
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Chad Montrie is assistant professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

A valuable contribution to the history of the region . . . raises interesting questions about what happened, about the role of the local, state, and national environmental groups, and about the effects of class differences among membership in these groups.—Journal of Appalachian Studies



Montrie's study not only provides us with an excellent understanding of the history of America's strip-mining debate but offers guidance for dealing with it in the future.—Journal of American History



An admirable study of real importance to historians of the environment and Appalachia.—Journal of Southern History



Montrie's study of the resistance by the farmers and people directly affected by surface strip mining is an important study for environmental activism. Using a wealth of sources such as manuscript collections, oral histories, government documents, and other primary sources, he provides a thorough examination of the efforts to control surface coal mining in Appalachia by a coalition of forces.—Enterprise & Society



Montrie's book will no doubt find a welcome spot on the shelf of many an Appalachian scholar. Anyone with broad interests in twentieth-century American environmentalism, mining history, and environmental justice also will find it a compelling read. Meticulously researched and highly readable, To Save the Land and People tells a story that needs to be heard.—Environmental History



[Montrie] has produced a first-rate history of the campaign to abolish strip mining. . . . Well written and carefully researched, the book captures the ebb and flow of reform coalition building, and is a welcome addition to the growing literature on business and the environment.—Business History



What a long overdue addition to the body of books about Appalachia, and how fabulous that someone of Chad Montrie's sensibilities stepped forward to take on the challenge.—Appalachian Heritage



To Save the Land and People makes a clear and concise contribution to our understanding of environmental activism and adds yet another chapter to the (in)famous story of coal mining in America.—Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography



This book tells the untold story of some of the heroic activists who attempted to abolish or restrict surface mining in Appalachia. It contains many worthwhile lessons for those who continue the ongoing struggle to halt the utter destruction of this fragile and beautiful region through unsustainable resource extraction practices.—Albert J. Fritsch, Director of Appalachia—Science in the Public Interest



With uncommon eloquence, Chad Montrie tells the important and moving story of the efforts of the farmers and working people of Appalachia to put a halt to the strip mining that was despoiling their land and their livelihoods. This struggle necessarily moved beyond the usual tactics of lobbying and petitioning that were easily ignored to civil disobedience and strategic violence. This is a movement that reminds us of the great historical struggles of ordinary people.—Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York

Editorial Reviews

"A valuable contribution to the history of the region . . . raises interesting questions about what happened, about the role of the local, state, and national environmental groups, and about the effects of class differences among membership in these groups."
-- "Journal of Appalachian Studies"

"An excellent and timely study of resistance, courage, and disappointment."
-- Ronald Eller, University of Kentucky

"Contains many worthwhile lessons for those who continue the ongoing struggle to halt the utter destruction of this fragile and beautiful region through unsustainable resource extraction practices."
-- Albert J. Fritsch, director of Appalachia--Science in the Public Interest

"Montrie offers a look at real grassroots environmental activism by real people, showing a long-neglected dimension of American environmentalism."
-- Hal Rothman, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

"With uncommon eloquence, Chad Montrie tells the important and moving story of the efforts of the farmers and working people of Appalachia to put a halt to the strip mining that was despoiling their land and their livelihoods."
-- Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York

An excellent and timely study of resistance, courage, and disappointment. (Ronald Eller, University of Kentucky)

Contains many worthwhile lessons for those who continue the ongoing struggle to halt the utter destruction of this fragile and beautiful region through unsustainable resource extraction practices. (Albert J. Fritsch, director of Appalachia--Science in the Public Interest)

Montrie offers a look at real grassroots environmental activism by real people, showing a long-neglected dimension of American environmentalism. (Hal Rothman, University of Nevada, Las Vegas)

With uncommon eloquence, Chad Montrie tells the important and moving story of the efforts of the farmers and working people of Appalachia to put a halt to the strip mining that was despoiling their land and their livelihoods. (Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York )

"Chad Montrie offers a look at real grassroots environmental activism by real people, showing a long-neglected dimension of American environmentalism.... A moving story."

From the Publisher

As the hunt for alternative fuels intensifies, the world finds itself looking to the past to secure the future. Barbara Freese's Coal: A Human History offers an unflinching history of life in the mines: "Sometimes I sing when I've light, but not in the dark," an eight-year-old mineworker told a parliamentary commission on child labor in the eighteen-forties. During a visit to Manchester, Alexis de Tocqueville found that sulfurous smoke reduced the sun to a flattened "disc without rays." But in the industrial revolution, coal was also seen as "our species' salvation." It still provides more than half of the electricity in the United States, and, according to some estimates, ninety new coal-fired power plants are in planning stages.

Bituminous veins in Appalachia may have fed industry, but strip mining has also caused erosion, stream pollution, and mud slides. In 1945, the governor of Ohio, Frank Lausche, called the practice "sheer butchery." To Save The Land and People, by Chad Montrie, chronicles resistance to surface mining in Appalachia, as companies left behind gutted communities that were no more than "rural slums."

The average American mining town lost between twenty-five and fifty per cent of its population after the Second World War, Ed Dougert notes in The Black Land. His photographic essay on Pennsylvania's anthracite region collects scenes from the scarred country: a shack built of Hercules gunpowder crates, spindly white trees stitched into a blackened hillside. In an empty park, a valentine-shaped sign with "We Love Centralia" hangs on a tree. Centralia's residents had to evacuate their town in 1980, fleeing a coal fire that had burned for twenty years and, even now, is expected to continue for fifty more.

(Lauren Porcaro)

The New Yorker