Contesting “the Insatiable Maw of Capital”: Mine Workers’ Struggles in the Civil War Era.

The article provides a historical account of the struggle of mine workers in the U.S. in the Civil War era. Information is provided on the union organized by immigrant Illinois coal miners and their manifesto that called for emancipation of labor, the miners' marching strike following a pay cut, expansion of the miners union and the growing control of Belleville track operators of the coal market, and the collective counteroffensive of Illinois mine operators against the union.