The Project: Maxwell, Lewis, and Howat
The Hearl Maxwell Collection was received by the Leonard H. Axe Library of Pittsburg State University on August 17th, 2000 from local resident Linda Knoll. The Collection was donated to the Library by the Maxwell family on November 30, 2000. The Hearl Maxwell Collection contains correspondence, broadsides, union records and circulars, convention proceedings, photographs, publications, and miscellaneous materials that primarily document his activities as an officer in the local unions within District 14 of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). Materials within the collection also documents the career of District 14 president, Alexander Howat, and the functioning of the UMWA locals in southeast Kansas during the 1920s.
As students in Dr. Jamie McDaniel's Digital Humanities course, the class worked with the employees of Leonard H. Axe Library's Special Collections department to digitize this collection over the duration of a few weeks in the Spring semester of the 2015-2016 academic year. With the newly digitized documents, we were then tasked with finding a story or theme from the materials that we could input into a Scalar project in order to tell our story.
Using the personal papers and materials from the Hearl Maxwell Collection, this project set out to retrace the heated conflict that occurred between District 14 representative, Alexander Howat, and the President of the United Mine Workers Association, John L. Lewis. By analyzing various correspondence, union circulars, and minutes, in conjunction with relevant historical context, our aim was to showcase how this conflict, as it was represented in the documents, depicts the role of education and class privilege in determining political action.
