The United Mine Workers of America moves west: Race, working class formation, and the discourse on cultural diversity in the Union Pacific coal towns of southern Wyoming, 1870--1930

This study examines the racial, ethnic, and cultural dimensions of working class formation in the Union Pacific Coal Company towns. Working class formation in southern Wyoming took place in two stages. From the 1870s to the 1890s, American-born and northern European immigrant miners' opposition to the use of Chinese labor divided the working class along racial lines. In 1885, white miners in Rock Springs attacked Chinese miners imported by the coal company. The "Chinese Massacre" stands as the most infamous of many anti-Chinese riots in the American West during the 1880s.; A second stage of working class formation began in the late 1890s, as the Union Pacific Coal Company recruited miners from a wider variety of racial and ethnic groups. The convergence of African American, Japanese, Mexican, and southern and eastern European workers in southern Wyoming, combined with the UMWA's move west, prompted workers to redefine themselves as a class. In 1907, the UMWA in southern Wyoming gained union recognition and, at the same time, admitted Japanese and Chinese miners into its ranks. Over the next decade, unionists developed a language and practice of cultural inclusiveness that strengthened the working class. Members of racial and ethnic groups gained opportunities to participate in union and community affairs on an equal footing. The labor movement in southern Wyoming succeeded in putting the Union Pacific Coal Company on the defensive.; World War I narrowed opportunities for cultural expression in the Union Pacific towns, and a postwar coal industry depression weakened the UMWA. The Union Pacific Coal Company reasserted its dominance. The discourse on diversity survived and continued to resonate among coal town residents, but the union no longer controlled it. Company officials took up the discourse in order to broaden the company's influence among working-class immigrants and foster cooperation among diverse groups of workers in an intensely nativist postwar climate. At the same time, the company put into place a policy of hiring more American miners and became complicit in postwar racism against African Americans. Company practices tended to revive racial hierarchies that the union's campaign for inclusiveness had successfully submerged.