Another Civil War - (North's Civil War) (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Winner of the Avery O. Craven Prize of the Organization of American Historians

Another Civil War explores a tumultuous era of social change in the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania. Because the Union Army depended on anthracite to fuel steam-powered factories, locomotives, and battle ships, coal miners in Schuylkill, Luzerne, and Carbon Counties played a vital role in the Northern war effort. However, that role was complicated by a history of ethnic, political, and class conflicts: after years of struggle in an unsafe and unstable industry, miners expected to use their wartime economic power to win victories for themselves and their families. Yet they were denounced as traitors and draft resisters, and their strikes were broken by Federal troops.

Focusing on the social and economic impact of the Civil War on a group of workers central to that war, this dramatic narrative raises important questions about industrialization and work-place conflicts in the mid-1860s, about the rise of a powerful, centralized government, and about the ties between government and industry that shaped class relations. It traces the deep, local roots of wartime strikes in the coal regions and demonstrates important links between national politics, military power, and labor organization in the years before, during, and immediately after the Civil War.

Review Quotes

. . .An importnat contribution to the study of the relationship of labor and management in the Pennsylvania coal fields.-- "--Civil War News"

"Demonstrates convincingly that, in the midst of a national civil war, coal miners and operators fought another civil war . . . a first-rate piece of scholarship."-- "--The Journal of American History"

A meticulously researched and insightful analysis....an excellent rereading of the opposition to conscription and the rise of labor in the anthracite region....For students of labor, the Civil War, or ethnicity...provides a fresh perspective.-- "--American Historical Review"

Demonstrates how [workers'] struggles became enmeshed in the battle over the Union itself....Palladino shows how owners linked the miners' economic struggles and opposition to management's authority with criminal resistance to the draft and disloyalty to the Union .... a masterful job.-- "--Reviews in American History"

This classic study has been republished by Fordham University Pres. Originally published in 1990, this book has not lost any of its relevance or force as it dissects the alliance that emerged between the federal government and big business during the Civil War-- "--The Historian"

About the Author

Grace Palladino is codirector and an editor of the Samuel Gompers Papers project at the University of Maryland. Her other books are Teenagers: An American History and Skilled Hands, Strong Spirits: A Century of Building Trades History.