Lewis versus Howat: An Analysis of Labor Rhetoric, Education, and Class Privilege in Early Twentieth Century Mining Politics

Lewis versus Howat: A Timeline

The timeline is a record of letters, minutes, and bulletins that involve Hearl Maxwell, John L. Lewis, Alexander Howat and the United Mine Workers of America in order by date. The timeline gives an overall image of the connections between Maxwell, Howat, and Lewis through their various correspondence over mine workers’ rights. First, is a letter written by Maxwell, presumably to Lewis, concerning mining cases involving Howat. Next is two sets of ten page minutes from meetings of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) in Indianapolis, Indiana on days two and three for the eighth consecutive and fifth biennial convention, which took place on February 15 and 16, 1922. Then occurs a bulletin from 1926 written and published by Howat to District 14 of the UMWA; the bulletin asks the miners for support against restrictive actions made by President Lewis. Next is three letters of correspondence between District 14 President M.L. Walters and International President John L. Lewis. The first letter, from Walters to Lewis, discusses reinstating Howat and the old board to their rights and privileges in the organization. Lewis replies with not wanting to discuss Howat and previous board members and rather focusing on the Anthracite Strike. Walters responses with how annoyed he was with Lewis and how he believed he was doing the best thing for the UMWA. Then, there are three pages of handwritten minutes from the March 1926 meeting of local Union 2397. Lastly, there is a letter from Lewis to Maxwell. The letter regards a statement made by Maxwell and mentions Howat (presumably Alexander Howat) and Mr. Searles, the Editor of the Mine Worker’s Journal. In the following pages, various images from this timeline have been selected for Voyant analyses, where we will further discuss the significance of these documents.

This page has paths:

This page has tags:

Contents of this tag: