Women were essential to coal miner strikes

By Jamie Hansen

Women of the world unite: Maria Montoya speaks on women in the Wobbly movements of the 1920s.

Maria Montoya spoke to a small, diverse audience Thursday about the role of gender in Rockefeller’s Colorado coal mining company towns. The lecture was entitled “Work, Women and Wobblies: The 1927 IWW strikes in Colorado’s Coal Fields.” Montoya is the Director of Latin-American Studies at the University of Michigan. She is writing a book, I Owe my Soul to the Company Store: Race, Gender and Space in America’s Company Towns, 1915-1960, and much of the information she related during her lecture comes from the research she has done for this book.

Montoya began her presentation by describing the “company towns” that Rockefeller set up as a part of his corporation union, which was an attempt to replace worker-run unions. Montoya emphasized that the company towns strove to create an “American Ideal” within their boundaries. The company town included “YMCA saloons,” where men were offered milk, sandwiches and wholesome activities in place of alcohol, according to Montoya.

The racially and ethnically diverse workers were integrated in work and living situations. There was a sharp division between the space that men occupied in the town and the space that women occupied. Kindergarten teachers, on the side, taught women how to be good American wives.

Montoya spoke about a concept called “lost manhood.”

“Rockefeller felt that the miners had a desire to see themselves as men, which, he believed replaced their desire for higher wages,”
Montoya said.

Montoya moved on to talk about women’s roles in union strikes within the context of the Industrial Workers of the World strikes that occurred in 1927 in Denver, Colo.

“Women were often more militant than men, and learned in the company towns to defend their homes and speak their mind,” Montoya said. They were also less conspicuous than men when communications needed to be carried out in secret. Montoya also spoke of women’s value on the front line of the protests, where their presence prevented severe acts of violence from the state militia.

The Gender and Women’s Studies Department of Oberlin sponsored Montoya’s presentation. She was received warmly, and the audience stayed on after her speech to inquire more deeply into the subject and learn more about Montoya’s project. Montoya will be in Wilder to speak with interested students
on Friday.