Matewan (film)
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Matewan (film)
''Matewan'' () is a 1987 American independent drama film written and directed by John Sayles, and starring Chris Cooper (in his film debut), James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell and Will Oldham, with David Strathairn, Kevin Tighe and Gordon Clapp in supporting roles. The film dramatizes the events of the Battle of Matewan, a coal miners' strike in 1920 in Matewan, a small town in the hills of West Virginia. ''Matewan'' was a critical success but a box office flop, grossing under $2 million on an estimated $4 million budget. The film received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, and received a Criterion Collection re-release in 2019. Plot Joe Kenehan is an ex-Wobbly organizer for the United Mine Workers. He arrives in Matewan, West Virginia in 1920 to organize miners against the Stone Mountain Coal Company. His introduction to the town is his witnessing of a mob of miners angry at wage cuts beating up black miners who intended to cross the picket line. He take ...
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John Sayles
John Thomas Sayles (born September 28, 1950) is an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor, and novelist. He is known for writing and directing the films '' The Brother from Another Planet'' (1984), '' Matewan'' (1987), '' Eight Men Out'' (1988), '' Passion Fish'' (1992), '' The Secret of Roan Inish'' (1994), '' Lone Star'' (1996), and '' Men with Guns'' (1997). For ''Eight Men Out'', Sayles was nominated for the USC Scripter Award. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, for ''Passion Fish'' and ''Lone Star''. At the 56th Golden Globe Awards, ''Men with Guns'' was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His directorial debut, '' Return of the Secaucus 7'' (1980), as well as ''Matewan'' were added to the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1997 and 2023, respectively. Early life Sayles was born on September 28, 1950, in Schenectady, New York, the son of ...
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Strike Action
Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to Working class, work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when Labour economics, mass labor became important in factories and mines. As striking became a more common practice, governments were often pushed to act (either by private business or by union workers). When government intervention occurred, it was rarely neutral or amicable. Early strikes were often deemed unlawful conspiracies or anti-competitive cartel action and many were subject to massive legal repression by state police, federal military power, and federal courts. Many Western nations legalized striking under certain conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Strikes are sometimes used to pressure governments to change policies. Occasionally, strikes destabilize the r ...
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Sid Hatfield
William Sidney Hatfield (May 15, 1891, or 1893 – August 1, 1921), was a West Virginia law enforcement officer noted for his involvement in bitter labor disputes, on the side of labor, during the Coal Wars of the early 20th century. Hatfield was police chief of Matewan, West Virginia during the Battle of Matewan, a shootout that followed a series of evictions carried out by detectives from the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency. He was indicted on murder charges stemming from the conflict and was shot on the courthouse steps by Baldwin-Felts detectives. Biography Hatfield was born in Blackberry, Pike County, Kentucky, the tenth of twelve children (of whom nine survived infancy) of Jacob Hatfield (c. 1843/45 – 1923), a tenant farmer, and his wife Rebecca Crabtree (b. circa 1856). His grandfather, Jeremiah Hatfield, was a half-brother to Valentine Hatfield (1789–1867), grandfather of William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield, leader of the Hatfield family involved in the fa ...
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Eviction
Eviction is the removal of a Tenement (law), tenant from leasehold estate, rental property by the landlord. In some jurisdictions it may also involve the removal of persons from premises that were foreclosure, foreclosed by a mortgagee (often, the prior owners who defaulted on a mortgage). Depending on the laws of the jurisdiction, eviction may also be known as unlawful detainer, summary possession, summary dispossess, summary process, forcible detainer, ejectment, and repossession, among other terms. Nevertheless, the term ''eviction'' is the most commonly used in communications between the landlord and tenant. Depending on the jurisdiction involved, before a tenant can be evicted, a landlord must win an eviction lawsuit or prevail in another step in the legal process. It should be borne in mind that ''eviction'', as with ''ejectment'' and certain other related terms, has precise meanings only in certain historical contexts (e.g., under the English common law of past centurie ...
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Boarding House
A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. It normally provides "room and board," with some meals as well as accommodation. Lodgers legally obtain a licence, not exclusive possession, to use their rooms and so the landlord retains the right of access. Arrangements Formerly boarders would typically share washing, breakfast, and dining facilities; in recent years, it has become common for each room to have its own washing and toilet facilities. Such boarding houses were often found in England, English seaside towns (for tourism, tourists) and college towns (for students). It was common for there to be one or two elderly long-term residents. "The phrase "boardinghouse reach" [referring to a diner reaching far across a din ...
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Charles Lively (labor Spy)
Charles Everett Lively (March 6, 1887 – May 28, 1962) was an American private detective who worked as a labor spy for the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency. He played an active role in the Coal Wars in Appalachia and Colorado during the early 20th century. Lively spied on the United Mine Workers of America in West Virginia and five other states, sometimes while working as a coal miner. After fatally shooting a striking miner during the Colorado Coalfield War, Lively spent several years working for Baldwin–Felts in the Great Plains before his assignment in Matewan, West Virginia. Lively was so successful posing as a UMWA activist that he became a union delegate and was once photographed with Mother Jones. His cover was abandoned in the wake of the Battle of Matewan in May 1920, in which seven Baldwin–Felts detectives were killed. The following year, Lively and another Baldwin–Felts operative killed Sid Hatfield, Matewan's pro-union police chief, and his associate Edward C ...
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Baptist
Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches generally subscribe to the Christian theology, doctrines of soul competency (the responsibility and accountability of every person before God in Christianity, God), ''sola fide'' (salvation by faith alone), ''sola scriptura'' (the Bible is the sole infallible authority, as the rule of faith and practice) and Congregationalist polity, congregationalist church government. Baptists generally recognize two Ordinance (Christianity), ordinances: Baptism, baptism and Eucharist, communion. Diverse from their beginning, those identifying as Baptists today may differ widely from one another in what they believe, how they worship, their attitudes toward other Christians, and their understanding of what is important in Christian discipleship. Baptist mi ...
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United Mine Workers
The United Mine Workers of America (UMW or UMWA) is a North American Labor history of the United States, labor union best known for representing coal miners. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada. Although its main focus has always been on workers and their rights, the UMW of today also advocates for better roads, schools, and universal health care. By 2014, coal mining had largely shifted to open pit mines in Wyoming, and there were only 60,000 active coal miners. The UMW was left with 35,000 members, of whom 20,000 were coal miners, chiefly in underground mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. However it was responsible for pensions and medical benefits for 40,000 retired miners, and for 50,000 spouses and dependents. The UMW was founded in Columbus, Ohio, on January 25, 1890, with the merger of two old labor groups, the Knights of Labor Trade Assembly No. 135 and the Nationa ...
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Wobblies
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), whose members are nicknamed "Wobblies", is an international labor union founded in Chicago, United States in 1905. The nickname's origin is uncertain. Its ideology combines general unionism with industrial unionism, as it is a general union, subdivided between the various industries which employ its members. The Industrial Workers of the World philosophy and tactics, philosophy and tactics of the IWW are described as "revolutionary industrial unionism", with ties to History of the socialist movement in the United States, socialist, syndicalism, syndicalist, and Anarchism in the United States#American anarchism and the labor movement, anarchist labor movements. In the 1910s and early 1920s, the IWW achieved many of its short-term goals, particularly in the Western United States, American West, and cut across traditional guild and union lines to organize workers in a variety of trades and industries. At their peak in August 1917, IWW m ...
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Slant Magazine
''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival. History ''Slant Magazine'' was launched in 2001. On January 21, 2010, it was relaunched and absorbed the entertainment blog ''The House Next Door'', founded by Matt Zoller Seitz, a former ''New York Times'' and '' New York Press'' writer, and maintained by Keith Uhlich, former '' Time Out New York'' film critic, who was the blog's editor until 2012. In the media ''Slant''s reviews, which A. O. Scott of ''The New York Times'' has described as "passionate and often prickly", have occasionally been the source of debate and discourse online and in the media. Ed Gonzalez's review of Kevin Gage's 2005 film '' Chaos'' sparked some controversy when Roger Ebert quoted it in his review of the film for the '' Chicago Sun-Time ...
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Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of arthouse film distributor Janus Films, Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinephiles and public and academic libraries. Criterion has helped to standardize certain aspects of home-video releases such as film restoration, the letterboxing format for widescreen films and the inclusion of bonus features such as scholarly essays and documentary content about the films and filmmakers. Criterion most notably pioneered the use of commentary tracks. Criterion has produced and distributed more than 1,200 special editions of its films in VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats and box sets. These films and their special features are also available via The Criterion Channel, an online streaming service that the company operates. The ...
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