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Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 1, 1920
New Kensington, Pennsylvania – Monument Erected for Mine Workers’ Martyrs
From the United Mine Workers Journal of October 1, 1920:
A beautiful monument was unveiled in memory of the late Fannie Sellins and Joe Starzeleski at their graves in Union Cemetery, New Kensington , Pa., Sunday, September 12, 1920.
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 19, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1910, Part I:
-Found in the Thick of the Fight on Behalf of Working Class Men and Women
From the Mt. Vernon, Ohio, Democratic Banner of April 5, 1910:
DROP THEIR PICKS AT STROKE OF TWELVE.
———-
Coal Miners’ Strike Is a Reality.
—–200,000 MEN ARE IDLE
—–
D. H. Sullivan Falls Heir
to Ohio Situation.
—–THINKS SETTLEMENT IN SIGHT
—–
General Belief Is That Suspension
Will Be of Short Duration and That
Country Will Experience No
Serious Result From Shutdown
-Pittsburg Operators Anxious to Sign.
—–Columbus, O., April 1- Dennis H. Sullivan of Coshocton today assumed his duties as president of the Ohio miners’ union, and made the announcement that nearly every union miner in the state is now idle, work at all mines having been suspended in response to the general order to quit work until new agreements are signed between the operators and officials of the union, in accordance with the 5-cent increase demanded as an ultimatum by the miners present at the Cincinnati conference.
Mr. Sullivan said:
The miners of Ohio stopped work at midnight, but this is in accord with an understanding with the operators. Every miner in the state went out, with the exception of cases in which there has been special permission granted for them to run.
Some mines are run to furnish coal for some specific purpose. For instance, there will be a mine whose entire output is taken by certain locomotives or by a furnace. Here is a contract [picking one from his desk] signed by an eastern Ohio operating company. A furnace is absolutely dependent on these mines, and if they were closed the business would so to some other mine, outside the state, or the furnace would close. We’re not driving business from the state; we’re for Ohio. So in all these cases privilege is given to continue work, pending adjustment of local differences at some later time.
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From The Woman Today of September 1936:
Fannie Sellins
-by Lillian Henry
Gold flows down the Alleghany [Allegheny] and Monongahela Rivers and up the Ohio river to coffers in tall buildings in downtown Pittsburgh. There is a steady stream from the coal mines and steel mills-from the coal mines and the steel mills-from the plants of Jones and Laughlin, Bethlehem Steel, Carnegie, U. S. Steel, Alleghany Steel, Alleghany Valley Coal. These and many other sources fill the banks and strong boxes in Pittsburgh.
Blood has flowed along these rivers-shed at the command of the owners of the strong boxes in tall buildings, and one of their victims was Fannie Sellins, mother of four children.
Fannie Sellins’ grave stands in New Kensington on the Alleghany River. The tombstone, erected by the United Mine Workers of District No. 5, stands as a monument to those “killed by the enemies of organized labor”.
We went to see Fannie Sellins’ daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Broad, to learn about the life of this heroic woman.
[Said the former
Dorothy Sellins:]My father died when I was two years old, and mother went to work in a garment factory in St. Louis to support her four children. We all come from the South.
Grandfather was a painter-had a regular job painting Mississippi River boats. He used to take mother and the children around to union meetings. I’ve heard union talk ever since I was a baby.
Mother worked hard to organize, not only the men, but also their women. She used to go around to the women to tell them how important it was for them to organize. She was jailed for six months in West Virginia for doing that.
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 3, 1908
Marianna, Pennsylvania – Gertrude Gordon Interviews Lone Survivor
The heart-rending reporting of Gertrude Gordon continues from the scene of the Marianna Mine Disaster.
From the Pittsburg Press of November 30, 1908:
FEARFUL SCENES WERE ENACTED AT PIT MOUTH
[Continued.]
—–BY GERTRUDE GORDON.
Staff Corespondent of the Press
—–
—–
SOLE SURVIVOR TELLS STORY OF CATASTROPHE
—–The first body taken out was that of Fred Elvarna who is in all probability, the only man living of all who were in the mine at the time of the explosion. He was badly burned and his leg was wrenched, but he was living. In a talk with him, which, with surprising vitality he was able to give within a few hours of his rescue, he described some of his sensations in the mine. He is a bricklayer and was repairing a wall when the explosion occurred.
[He told me:]
I had just put up a brick, and was putting some mortar on it when I felt the explosion coming. It was just like a cold breath from somewhere, not exactly cold, but there was something awful seemed to come and I knew that terrible danger of some kind was there. Of course the worst danger is fire damp, after any explosion that kills more than fire or the falling timbers, and I just threw myself on the ground and dug a hole with my hands to put my face in, and threw my coat over my head.
Of course I did all that in a second and I didn’t really dig a hole, but just scooped out a handful of earth to lay my face in, so that I could breathe.
After the crash I laid quiet for a little and then when I had to move to breathe I tried to look around. It was pitch dark, of course, and the air was pretty bad, but still I could get enough to keep me going.
COULD NOT MOVE.
I couldn’t move and didn’t know how bad I was hurt, but I started yelling right away so that the boys could tell where I was when they came to hunt us. I could hear the men moaning and crying all around me, but we couldn’t get to one another. The men didn’t seem able to talk, and I cannot tell how long they moaned. I guess it was hours, but one by one they stopped, and I guess they all died.
