United Mine Worker's Union Card

This card certifies Daniel Whalen as a dues-paying member of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) for the year 1898. Bound together by shared work experience and ways of life, coal mining communities often had strong ties to organized labor. The dangerous and exploitative conditions of coal mining meant the profession was a hotbed for union activity. Coal miners infused their communities with the shared belief in workers’ rights to better pay, safe working conditions, and human dignity.  

At the turn of the 20th century, many mining communities consisted of immigrants and ethnic minorities, such as Irish or Germans. Daniel was possibly Irish or of Irish descent, as Whalen is the anglicized version of a Gaelic surname. Ethnic identity represented another facet of coal mining culture that intersected with union membership in a significant manner. Organized labor often articulated itself as fighting for equal rights for workers and for Americans ideals of hard work leading to a better life. This provided an avenue for workers who were marginalized by wider society to view themselves as Americans.

 Sources: 

Barrett, James R. “Americanization from the Bottom Up: Immigration and the Remaking of the Working Class in the United States, 1880-1930.” The Journal of American History vol. 79, no. 3 (1992): 996-1020. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2080796
Barrett, James R. “Gatekeepers and ‘Americanizers’: Irish Americans and the Creation of a Multicultural Labor in the United States, 1880s-1920s.” In Frontiers of Labor: Comparatives Histories of the United States and Australia, edited by Greg Patmore and Shelton Stromquist. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2018. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctv80c9ks.12
Dickey, Susan Karma. “Bishop James A. Griffin and the Coal Miners’ War.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society vol. 101, no. 1 (2008): 22-34. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40204712