Talk:Wilder, Tennessee

The previous 1920s estimated population of 20,000 came from the U.S. National Archives,[1] but many other sources say 2,000. The 20,000 is likely an error, as the population of Fentress County, Tennessee was only 10,435 in the 1920 census and 11,036 in the 1930 census. There is more historic information readily available about Wilder due to historic relationship to coal mining, the United Mine Workers Union, the Tennessee Valley Authority and so on. Jack N. Stock (talk) 18:58, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Appears to be one mine guard, one deputy

...which makes some question about the accuracy of some of the sources used. Anmccaff (talk) 16:04, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

As with most (perhaps all) historic events, there are some conflicts with sources. What source did you read that said there was a "deputy" involved, and what sort of "deputy"? Jack N. Stock (talk) 18:30, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Against the Grain: Southern Radicals and Prophets, 1929-1959 p9 Worth reading the account of the other violence; there was a lot of things dynamited, and no small part of the striker's misery was shared with the strikebreakers, cause when you blow up a bridge or a power station, everybody has to walk around, or live in the dark. The deputies appear to have been polarized, and there doesn't seem to have been any doubt that "Doc" Thompson was a company man. Anmccaff (talk) 19:33, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

PS: Although it is easy enough to find stuff saying otherwise, it looks to me like only Greeen faced trial. Anmccaff (talk) 19:37, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

PPS:This cite gives a single arrest. 'Tennessee Coal Mining, Railroading & Logging in Cumberland, Fentress, Overton, and Putnam Counties Duke, Jason Turner Pub Co, 2003 (looks kinda Arcadioid, this does) explicitly states Thompson was not charged, and mentions J[ackson].B[ates]. Cravens as also suspected. Anmccaff (talk) 20:15, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I saw several reports of other violence, but didn't want to go into great detail as the article is about the community, not the strike. For example, I found newspaper reports [2][3] of the shooting death of Roscoe Brewer, who was one of the non-union workers brought in to keep the mine operating during the strike. I was going to add it to the list of worker deaths in United States labor disputes when I had time.

The sources that mention Thompson being charged say it was about a month later, so one would expect early newspaper reports within a few days to only mention one person charged, as that was true at the time. This is not a contradiction. Maybe one of our legal eagles can find the court case, but I couldn't find it (probably requires a subscription). Piecing the various reports together, it seems that Thompson was charged a month later but not taken to trial.

Another concept to explore is whether the strike actually ended. Notice that the death of Roscoe Brewer was 30 May 1933,[4] a month after the death of Barney Graham. Did the union miners return to work? I'm not sure that's what happened. It looks like many simply left Wilder for other opportunities. For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority started hiring around this time. Jack N. Stock (talk) 21:11, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Yupper. One federal jobsite -with its associated housing - was more or less a Wilder colony. Can't remember which, though. Anmccaff (talk) 21:51, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Against the Grain: Southern Radicals and Prophets indicates that a "deputy" and a "mine guard" were pretty much the same thing. It talks about "deputies" and "mine police" but these were just employees of the mining company. Perhaps they gave mine guards a badge, but they were still mine guards with a badge. In any case, as there is doubt that there was more than one person charged, I'm going to edit appropriately, and the work title of Thompson will no longer be an issue. Jack N. Stock (talk) 22:14, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

As at a good many other places, you had permanent mine employees -sometimes themselves union members- as full-time watchmen and security, hired muscle brought in as guards during a strike, and sometimes outright criminals brought in as "guards" but intended as head-breakers or worse. Overlayed on this, you had deputization, which included full or part-time local peace officers -some of which might have union connections and whose salary wasn't directly payed by the mine, some of whom were locals with some standing -the third man rumored to have shot Graham was the local school teacher, and you had company employees, some of them in the third, career criminal category, who were deputized, so the two groups didn't exactly line up. Some deputies were just deputies. Anmccaff (talk) 22:28, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Balance

I don't think the section on the Barney Graham is WP:UNDUE. Any history of Wilder details this incident, usually much more in depth. See WP:PROPORTION – " treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject." After the article is expanded with a section on the decline of Wilder, and something about Wilder today (what little there is), it should be balanced enough. Jack N. Stock (talk) 22:30, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

I think the article was essentially a very biased coatrack. Supposedly about an old dead mine town, actually about eevvull forces machine gunning dadz in front of their daughtersss!!!! Far more about the strike -which was a small part of the company and the towns shared history- than about other aspects. As a couple of the sources used here make clear, it wasn't a bad place to live and work for its first 30 years.

Enough of that is gone now that I think the tag might no longer be needed....or wouldn't be if some of the intervening 85 years were fleshed out a little. The last mine closed in...what, '51?...it had the usual uptick during WWII. This should have more Wilder in it, or be renamed and refocused just on the mine, or just the strike, etc. Anmccaff (talk) 22:46, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

For the most part, I wrote the section about the strike, and I didn't intend for it to be a coatrack. I didn't know any of the history, was just Googling for info about Wilder's historic population after the article appeared on my watchlist due to the addition of Fahrenkamp and removal of an unsourced sentence about the peak population. I found sources about the population boom in the 20s and 30s, but it was in the context of this strike/murder history. As it is such widely reported part of Wilder's background, it was appropriate to include it. My intention was (and is) to add more recent information (hence the "Decline" subheading), I was just writing the article chronologically. Sometimes you have to give editors a bit of time. WP:NORUSH Jack N. Stock (talk) 01:26, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Body covered by a machine gun.....

Despite the lurid, and inexplicable, pictures painted of the company thugs placing a machine gun directly atop Mr. Graham's battered corpse, it appears that a more technical use of the phrase "covered by fire" was being used. I can find no contemporaneous accounts of someone placing a tripod mount over a body, but several suggesting that the area where Graham's body lay was covered from a rooftop emplacement.

Several of the sources suggest it's amateur hour, and some of them might circle right back here to Wiki. Anmccaff (talk) 00:44, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

There are quite a few mirror sites, but the cited sources can't circle back here to Wiki because I just wrote the section about the strike and killing of Graham within the last few days. Almost all the sources precede my edits by more than a decade, and I doubt the Tennessee State Museum web site is sourced from Wiki! Jack N. Stock (talk) 01:26, 14 July 2017 (UTC)