1922 The Diary of a Coal Digger In Non-Union Mines UWM IWW Powers Hapgood

This is a vintage original 1922 first edition booklet on trade union organizing in the non-union coal fields of Central and Western Pennsylvania.   The title page reads: 

IN NON-UNION MINES The Diary Of A Coal Digger In Central Pennsylvania August – September, 1921 By Powers Hapgood  Member of the U.M.W. of A.   – Published by Bureau of Industrial Research 289 Fourth Avenue New York – 50 Cents a copy 

This book is 48 pages plus the covers measuring about 9” x 6”.  The front and back covers are illustrated with a map showing the Union and Non-Union Coal Fields in Western and Central Pennsylvania with “Destined to be a Battle Map?” printed on the top of the back cover.   The Bureau of Industrial Research was created by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) trade union or Wobbilies as they were known. The IWW promoted a more radical and even revolutionary socialist trade unionism approaching Bolshevism.  

Powers Hapgood was born into prosperity in Indianapolis and graduated from the prestigious Philipps Academy and then Harvard University.  While still an undergraduate at Harvard Hopgood headed west for a few months working in a sugar beet factory in Montana and as a miner in Hibbing, Minnesota and got involved with trade union organizing.  Hapgood graduated Harvard in 1921 and then went to work for the United Mines Workers of America getting involved in organizing non-union coal mines during strikes in Somerset County, Pennsylvania in 1922-23.  Hapgood would rise in the UMWA and ultimately launch a failed campaign to seize power from John L. Lewis which subsequently made Hapgood persona non grata in the union.  Hapgood joined the Socialist Party of the United States and ran unsuccessfully for Indiana Governor in 1932.  

This vintage original booklet is fully complete, well intact and in very good condition with moderate handling wear, some toning from age and slight dust staining to the covers.  Overall condition is very good.