Wiki for Dr. McClurkens Courses

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====== Errors in fact ======

The union organizer character, Joe Kenehan (played by Chris Cooper) did not exist in the Matewan massacre.  Kenehan is essentially a metaphorical stand-in for Eugene V. Debs (founder of the IWW) and Kenehan’s background is loosely based on Debs: democratic socialist, pacifist, spent time in prison, etc.

I wasn’t sure if this should go under ‘Errors in Fact’ or ‘What the movie got right’, but although C.E. Lively (the store owner with the glasses, played by Bob Gunton) was an undercover snitch for the Baldwin-Felts detectives, I could find no record of him orchestrating the murder of the young Elkins.  In the movie Lively’s true allegiance is discovered right before the Matewan massacre gunfight in the street, but according to **Doyle Green** in //The American Worker on Film: Critical History, 1909-1999//, pg. 170, Lively’s loyalties weren’t revealed until the subsequent trial for murder of Sheriff Hatfield. --Andrew Mullins

Coal miners in West Virginia were ethnically desegregated long before the 1920s. In the movie, the creation of unity between both groups is a major plot point. -Kyle Moore

Both Joe and Danny were fictional characters in the  film --Lindsey Sowers

====== Things the Movie got right ======

The movie had two characters who were Baldwin-Felt detective agents, Hickey and Griggs who came to town and began evicting the workers that were on strike from their home in their battle against the union. In class we spoke about how Baldwin-Felts were often violent towards people, for example when the Felts put kerosene into the milk being delivered by the red cross to the children of the town. The movie did a good job depicting them as violent and awful people (when the killed Hillard Elkins). --Caroline Collier

The movie clearly shows a company man explaining to the miners how they will be paid in company script and that they can find everything they need in the company store. This is accurate because coal mining towns and houses were controlled and owned by the coal companies. – Courtlyn P.

In class, we have discussed the importance of a good ending in a historical film many times. This movie does a really good job with its closing scene. In the first scene, the viewer got a true sense of what it was like inside of a mine- dark, dirty, scary, and quiet. By ending the movie with Danny? (I could not really tell who it was with the coal dust on his face) back inside of the mine after going through everything with the strike and the massacre, it shows that there was no final resolution to the issue at this time. They were right back where they started. The mood of the final scene is very somber. It emphasizes the futility of the efforts of miners in Mingo County to stop the corruption of the mine company. -Maddie Shiflett

The movie was filmed in West Virginia (although not the actual town of Matewan), so the landscape and scenery is accurate. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093509/locations?ref_=tt_dt_dt --Maryanna Stribling

The movie did a great job at showing the dangers of working in the mines. As was explained in the readings, the work there was in horrible conditions were workers could be caught in an explosion or suffocate to death. Children were also employed in these mines and were similarly at risk for these dangers.-- Grace Corkran

The movie did a really good job of showing the working condition of the miners in the mine and then also the conditions of the company like was said before. It did a really good job of showing how much the mining companies controlled the towns around where their mines were and show how miners were trapped in their social statuses due to company script and other controlling factors. --Ellora Larsen
====== Questions about interpretation ======
This film did a great job of portraying the Baldwin-Felts agency as total assholes. The film goes to great lengths to display the hardships honest, hardworking Americans had to endure. I was wondering if this film was motivated by a anti-big business sentiment that happened in the '80s? Why did the directors choose to side with the miners, and show disdain for the company men in 1987? --Jessica Lynch

I have to compare this film to Last of the Mohicans in regards to a fictional character being the main protagonist in a historical film. In the case of Daniel Day Lewis' character Hawkeye, his role is protagonist is played down to where his place in the story doesn't imply that his participation influenced the outcome of history. In opposition of that, Chris Cooper's character in Matewan (Joe Kenehan) seems to be the driving force of nearly every event in this movie, both historical and not. I understand that he's supposed to symbolize the Unions, but could they not have found a key figure that may have more accurately driven the people of the town to act in the way they did? Did they realize what they were doing by having a fictional character be the catalyst for the film's historical interpretation? --Robert Dallas

The film does well to touch on the issue of racial division between miners. Most of the white miners are not very willing to work with African American or Italian miners. However, as the movie goes on they reach an understanding and start to work together. Was this depiction of unity historically accurate to the story of Mingo County, or did issues continue to persist? -Maddie Shiflett

How much of a role did religion play in the incident? we see the son preach on the topic of unionization and the immigrants (who are Catholic) set up statues of Mary to pray to. --Grace Corkran

Director John Sayles uses Kenehan’s character to super-impose the larger ideological goals of Eugene V. Debs and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), namely, “industrial unionism, pacifism, the State’s relationship to class struggle, and a political vision of industrial democracy, if not democratic socialism.” (Green,2010, in The American Worker on Film, pg. 171).  Kenehan appears to be sent in to help the miners organize in Matewan, but in reality, he serves a higher master, that of the Big Union: IWW and their nationalist goals.  This is evident when he tries to explain the ‘bigger picture’ and how the national union prioritizes support to the various union skirmishes around the country. Subsequently, we see only token support in the form of food rations that help the striking miners to barely survive.  Also interesting how Sales portrays the contrast between the blacks and immigrants who are inclined to be more passive, and the gun toting white locals who feel the union has let them down and only violence is the answer.--Andrew Mullins

====== The movie as a primary source of its time ======

The fact that Kenehan is apparently a "Red" and is sympathetic to the socialist ideas that were popular with labor unions in the 1920's is interesting considering the movie was made in the 80's. 1987, right at the end of the Cold War during the Reagan administration, was not a popular time to be a communist sympathizer in the US. It is interesting that they made him the heroic main character. Perhaps his ultimate death had something to do with his political ideas the way they were viewed in the 80s. --Jessie Fitzgerald

The movie does a good job at showing the race relations which is characteristic of the 1980's because the film industry was more open to looking at both sides of the story. The movie explores that hardships that immigrants and African Americans faced during the time of unions and low standards for working conditions. The movie does not only focus on white characters which opens up the discussion for larger race roles during this time. This movie would not have bothered exploring these issues had it been made in an earlier decade. -- Grace Corkran 
====== Comparing the reading to the movie ======
As correspondents of the Ohio Bureau of Labor describe in "The Tyranny of the company store," the miners in Matewan are subjected to the doctors, washrooms, and store goods provided by the company. They are paid in company scrip and will lose their job without pay if they go somewhere else for business. They lack the freedom to actually buy what they want, pay inflated prices, and risk losing their livelihood if they do not pay into the company's pocket. --Jessica Lynch

In the reading, “Store Pay Is Our Ruin”: The Tyranny of the Company Store, it discusses how miners and some other worked for store pay and scrip wages. Store pay was wages paid only as credit and scrip wages was money redeemable only the company. The scrip wages can be compared to how the coal miners are paid in Matewan. They are paid through company script and were told that everything is available at the company store. – Courtlyn P.

It is interesting to look at the reading of the Tennessee Coal Miners’ Last Words and compare it to the movie. The one takeaway I got from the reading is that all the miners who had died were pretty religious. You see those same parallels with those in the mining town, as a recurring element of the story is the townsfolk's religious beliefs. A lot of the major developments for Danny Radnor comes when he's preaching to the people in town. The film portrays their spiritual beliefs as a driving force, and it makes me wonder how much influence religion had in not just their actions, but also their sanity in these unfavorable conditions. --Robert Dallas

Like Robert, I thought reading the Tennessee Coal Miners' Last Words and then seeing how dangerous the conditions of the mines were in the movie really struck home what a risky job mining is. It was interesting in one of the letters where a paster advises people to not be miners and to protect their children from joining the mine because the conditions were so bad. It also showed the minors making plans to protect their families in their final moments because these minors were the main supporters of these families and without the main income winner, these families would be pushed deeper into poverty. The movie showed the rough conditions of mining families and the readings just pushed the desperation. -- Ellora Larsen
====== The "So, what?" question ======
This film focuses less on entertainment value and more on creating a true depiction of the miners' struggle for better conditions in Mingo County. Although it is not completely perfect, it is one of the best films we have watched in terms of historical accuracy. The importance of this film is that it brings to life an event that is largely unknown today without being over-dramatic or changing the storyline to give well-known actors more screen time. -Maddie Shiflett

Telling a little-known story without big-name actors or big advertising makes a film with much more historic credibility. This seems to be far more true to the story, people, and time it depicts than some of the other movies we've watched. -Jessie Fitzgerald

Going off of Maddie's comment, by making the film less about entertainment, having to follow the dialogue, and it's fairly slow-moving pace, it makes the viewer concentrate more on what's happening. It creates a sense of time and place where you feel like you know the Matewan community. This is rather successful considering this is a story that most people aren't familiar with. --Maryanna Stribling

Like Jessie said, this is a smaller indie film, and it is important that we look at those as well as mainstream Hollywood films in this class. Even though indie films don’t have the same large budgets and audiences as major pictures, they are still influential in the public’s view of historical events. This is one event that many people would not know about unless learning in a history class or stumbling upon this movie, but people are still influenced by it, making it important in this course. – Carolyn Stough

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