From Redstone to Ludlow: John Cleveland Osgood's Struggle against the United Mine Workers of America

By F. Darrell Munsell

The most comprehensive study of John Cleveland Osgood to date, From Redstone to Ludlow covers events from 1892, when Osgood and his associates organized the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, to 1917, when Osgood signed a contract with the United Mine Workers of America, marking the end of his long history of battling the union. Called the Fuel King of the West, Osgood was the leading coal baron in the western mountain region and the most prominent spokesperson for the coal industry for over three decades. During this time, his anti-union policies made him the UMWA's most formidable foe in its effort to organize the Colorado coalfields.

From Redstone to Ludlow depicts the bipolarity of his approach to the threat of unionism. The "Redstone experiment," a model industrial village designed to improve the lives of workers through social programs, showed Osgood's efforts to attain his anti-union goals through compassion. Conversely, the Ludlow tent colony and the events that transpired there, marked by armed gunmen and machine guns paid for by Osgood, illustrate his willingness to resort to violence and intimidation for the same purpose. A leading participant in the transformation of the West, Osgood helped to shape the character of the Gilded Age. Today, the beautiful village of Redstone and a granite memorial at Ludlow are reminders of Osgood's complex role in the clash between labor and management during the most violent industrial struggle in American history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Release date: May 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781607320005

F. Darrell Munsell

F. Darrell Munsell, professor emeritus, West Texas A&M University, is the author of three other books on historical subjects. He received a PhD degree in British history from the University of Kansas and was an exchange scholar at the University of Birmingham, England. He has served on the Redstone Historic Preservation Commission and is actively involved in several area historical societies. He and his wife, Jane, live in the Crystal River Valley south of Carbondale.

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