Document Design, Working-Class Rhetoric, and Education in the Hearl Maxwell Collection

Education, Conservation, and Preservation of Southeast Kansas

     Through the help of education, mining in southeast Kansas has changed. Initially settlers rushed into the area roughly 11 years before Kansas was even a state. This is mainly attributed to miners from Southwest Missouri and Northeaster Oklahoma in search of coal to use for blacksmith work. After Kansas became a state, people started flooding in from all parts of the United States and Europe in search of a better life for themselves and their family. In the 1870’s strip mining was the method of choice but a few short years later, four brothers from Illinois moved to Kansas with new ideas on how to shaft mine. Shaft mines were typically only 2-3 feet high so most minors were doing laborious work on their knees day in and day out.

     In 1890 in Columbus, Ohio, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) was born out of the fusion of two organizations that were out to try and get better benefits for mine workers, The Knights of Labor Trade Assembly no. 135 and National Progressive Union of Miners and Mine Laborers. The UMWA had goals of creating a better life for mine workers through 8 hour work days, the addition of worker’s compensation for workers hurt on the job, better wages for industrial workers, and the ability to retire with health insurance and benefits just to name a few of the goals the UMWA set forth to accomplish. In 1921, the Amazon Army set out as a group of mothers, daughters, sisters, and significant others to get better benefits for the men who were going to the mines everyday to support their families. This movement brought a strike on the mines for three days affecting around 8,000 mine works and made national news all the way to Washington D.C.

     Hearl Maxwell was a member of the local union out to try and better the working conditions for those of Southeast Kansas Mining fields. He and his group of men worked hard at helping to improve the working conditions for all those who were mining coal in Southeast Kansas. Kansas State Teachers College joined in on the efforts to educate the men and equip them for the jobs that they were doing out in the labor force. Classes were offered during the night hours free of charge for specific jobs in the mining industry. The problem with night classes was the distances to the camp under the conditions of the early 20th century. Cars and roads weren’t readily available to miners as they were in the latter part of the 20th century. The Great Depression hit in the 20’s and 30’s and by the 30’s strip mining became the norm of coal mining in Southeast Kansas once again.

     By the 50’s and 60’s a new era of strip mining came about with invention of the electric shovel that could move away up too 100 feet of top soil and rocks to expose the coal. The invention of the electric shovel though left large holes in the face of Southeast Kansas. That’s when the Kansas Wildlife and Conservation Agency came in to fill these leftover strip mines with water and wildlife. Hundreds of acres of land were turned into wildlife conservation areas and museum attractions such as the 16 acres around Big Brutus, including Big Brutus itself.


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