25m; France
Synopsis: This is one of the first documentaries ever made that show the lives of coal miners and their families. This film is a social documentary describing the fate of some 15,000 miners in the Borinage, who in 1932 staged a strike in protest against the announcement by Belgian mine-owners of a 5% cut in wages. The film is still extremely moving and portrays men who were often treated worse than animals.
29m; U.S.
Director: Arthur Young
Synopsis: Davitt McAteer is one of America’s leading experts on coal mine safety. In 1984, he founded the Occupational Safety and Health Law Center (OSHLC), a public interest law firm based in Shepherdstown that engages in education, training and policy analysis of issues involving workplace safety and health. While director of this Center, he produced this film. In 1993, he was named assistant secretary for the Mine Safety and Health Administration in the U.S. Department of Labor under President Clinton. This film tells the story of the struggle for mine safety in the U.S., focusing on the tragedy of Monongah, WV, in which 362 miners died. In December 2007, WVU Press released his book on the subject, “Monongah: The Tragic Story of the 1907 Mine Disaster.”
Contact: Debbie Roberts, droberts@mcateer-assoc.com
30m; U.S.
Director: Peter Argentine
Synopsis: About the greatest loss of life as the result of a coal mine disaster in American history, the December 6, 1907 the Monongah Mine Disaster
Contact: www.argentineproductions.com http://www.monongahmovie.com/
90m; U.S.S.R.
Director: Vsevolod Pudovkin
Synopsis: Set in Russia during the harsh winter of 1905. A mother finds herself caught in emotional conflict between her husband and son when they find themselves on opposite sides of a worker’s strike. The son is a supporter of the workers but the father has been blackmailed into supporting the bosses and blacklegs. Despite the grief which follows the mother gradually comes to support the strikers and eventually is prepared to risk everything in standing up to police and Cossak troops in a demonstration endangering both herself and her precious son.
60m; U.S.
Director: Harold Meyer
Synopsis: This roaring railroad film (1968) reveals the incredible history of railroading from the 1830s until today. The Hell on Wheels towns, the Chinese and Irish immigrants building a railroad with their sweat and brawn but battling each other along the way, the robber barons and their union busting, Mr. Pullman and his Pullman car, the glitter of the “golden age”, Eugene V. Debs, the glory days of the passenger trains of the 1930s and 40s.
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