Mother Jones and the Miner Rebellion at Paint and Cabin Creeks

Lon Kelly Savage & Ginny Savage Ayers
Paperback, 360 pages
August 2018
West Virginia University Press

From Lou Martin, historian and founding museum board member:
What an honor it was to be asked to write the introduction to Never Justice, Never Peace. Ginny Ayers picked up where her father, Lon Savage, left off and finished off with this book manuscript. His Thunder in the Mountains introduced the Mine Wars to many, many students of West Virginia history, including me, and Never Justice, Never Peace is written in the same engaging style and is based on extensive research. This should be a particular favorite of those interested in the life of Mother Jones because it chronicles one of the most important episodes in her career. Ayers has done us all a great service in completing this book.

From the publisher:
In 1986 Lon Savage published Thunder in the Mountains: The West Virginia Mine War, 1920–21, a popular history now considered a classic. Among those the book influenced are Denise Giardina, author of Storming Heaven, and John Sayles, writer and director of Matewan. When Savage passed away, he left behind an incomplete book manuscript about a lesser-known Mother Jones crusade in Kanawha County, West Virginia. His daughter Ginny Savage Ayers drew on his notes and files, as well as her own original research, to complete Never Justice, Never Peace—the first book-length account of the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek Strike of 1912–13.

Savage and Ayers offer a narrative history of the strike that weaves together threads about organizer Mother Jones, the United Mine Workers union, politicians, coal companies, and Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency guards with the experiences of everyday men and women. The result is a compelling and in-depth treatment that brings to light an unjustly neglected—and notably violent—chapter of labor history. Introduced by historian Lou Martin, Never Justice, Never Peace provides an accessible glimpse into the lives and personalities of many participants in this critical struggle.