| In April 1918, a Collinsville, Illinois mob lynched Robert Prager. In executing this German-American coal miner, accused of spying and sabotage, area miners seemed to demonstrate their supreme loyalty to the war effort. But paradoxically, southwestern Illinois was a hotbed of antiwar sentiment, wildcat strikes and political radicalism both during and after World War I. The dissertation uses this episode of patriotic murder as a window into the contradictory consciousness and experiences of working people in these highly unionized coalfields, as they were torn by cross-currents of patriotism and class solidarity during the World War I era. These divided loyalties lie at the center of this study.;This dissertation is divided into three main sections, which follow a chronological scheme. The first, comprising the two initial chapters, traces the transformation of the coal industry following the Civil War, patterns of migration, miners' evolving political perspectives, and the rise of the United Mine Workers in Illinois. The second section, consisting of chapters 3-5, explores the conflicting loyalties of working people based on ethnicity, class and gender, as they confront the challenges of family survival, the divisive effects of chronic unemployment and the hazards of mining coal, on the eve of the World War. The third section, covering chapters 6-10, chronicles the debates, strikes and repression of the war years, culminating with the Prager lynching and the upsurge of working-class radicalism which followed the Armistice.;This dissertation aims to contribute to scholarship on lynching, working people and World War I, and, more generally, on the relationship between working-class solidarity and working-class patriotism. First, whereas earlier studies of the Prager lynching relied on the concept of "war hysteria," this study argues for examining the rich context of social conflict to provide clues for its underlying meaning. Second, the discussion of working people and war mobilization attempts to help break down the artificial barriers between political and social history. Finally, the contradictory and fatal results of working-class patriotism in southwestern Illinois suggest that scholars need to reexamine recent claims for a benevolent "working-class Americanism" made by Gary Gerstle and others. |
