Dissertation Topic - The Labor History of Idaho's Silver Valley

Mine-Mill Union members during the 1960 Bunker Hill strike

The history of the Coeur d’Alene Mining District spans from the late 1800s to today.  The early years in the area have been well researched.  Historians such as Robert Wayne Smith documented early, often violent, efforts by miners to establish a union.[1]  These conflicts often observed governmental involvement that was nearly always in support of mining companies.  Stanley Stewart Phipps documented the rise of union efforts from the late twenties through the beginning of the Second World War[2].  This period initially saw a reversal of governmental action as the government, through legislation, including the National Recovery Act, sought to even the playing field.  Eventually, through the efforts of the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), after its founding in 1935, grew to support union organizations across numerous industries, The Mine-Mill Union was able to dominate industrial relations in the Coeur d’Alene Mining District. 

This research seeks to understand the growth of union power during and after the Second World War, renewed conflict with management, especially at the Bunker Hill Mine, and finally, the decline and fall of the Mine-Mill Union as the leading representative of miners in Idaho’s Silver Valley. Most of the scholarship in this regard, including works by Katherine Aiken and Laurie Mercier, has focused on the impact of the Red Scare, an outgrowth of McCarthyism, on attitudes toward the Mine-Mill Union.[3]  Until now, historians have not looked at the larger picture.  There is a gap in understanding that calls for new research.  This gap includes knowledge of the economic conditions during this period, company attitudes and inputs, an understanding of the miners’ motivations, the economic and social impact on the community, and the impact that labor conflict had on the population at large. It is important to understand the labor conflicts and the community as a whole, and to understand if this history fits within national narratives of the period between 1940 and the 1980s.  Was the decline of the Mine-Mill Union the result of local pressures or was it the result of a greater national movement in response to the Taft-Hartley Act and the deradicalization of its former parent, the CIO. The CIO’s deradicalization on the national front has been well documented by Nelson Lichtenstein’s 2003 work, Labor’s War at Home: the CIO in World War II. 

In order to understand the larger picture regarding the labor history of the Silver Valley, this dissertation will focus on a variety of sources.  These include labor union records, especially those of the Mine-Mill Union archived at the University of Colorado Boulder.  Regarding this period, there exists an extensive record of community thought available in area newspapers including the Spokesman-Review, the Spokane Daily Chronicle, the Wallace Miner, the Kellogg Evening News, and the Coeur d’Alene Press.  These newspapers documented the community conflict, fears, and hopes of the time.  The newspapers also reported on the economic impact of labor strikes and on company and union positions.  After the closing of the area’s largest employer, the Bunker Hill Corporation in 1981, the company’s corporate papers were donated to the University of Idaho.  These papers include financial, human resources, and negotiating notes that have not been previously considered.  They also include meeting notes and correspondence between company management specifically addressing the corporation’s relationship with the Mine-Mill Union and its members.  The Katherine Aiken Archives at the University of Idaho provide additional information, including transcripts of interviews with union members, union flyers, and other correspondence that may be of significant value toward understanding of the period. The author recently discovered additional archival materials from the Edna Woods Grier Manuscripts Collection at the Eastern Washington Historical Society that document miners’ resistance to their union during the region’s longest labor conflict, the 1960 Bunker Hill Mine Strike. Trade publications, SEC filings, and Congressional Hearings document the financial state of the industry.  Census documents and published labor agreements can help in the understanding of wage growth versus that of the nation and region at large.

This research seeks to go beyond the traditional oppressor versus the oppressed narrative many modern labor historians have embraced to truly understand the positions of community members, labor, and the companies involved in the region’s conflicted history.

[1] Robert Wayne. The Coeur d’Alene Mining War of 1892: A Case Study of an Industrial Dispute. Corvallis. Oregon State Publications. 1961.

[2] Stanley Stewart Phipps. "FROM BULL PEN TO BARGAINING TABLE: THE TUMULTUOUS STRUGGLE OF THE COEUR D'ALENES MINERS FOR THE RIGHT TO ORGANIZE, 1887-1942 (IDAHO)." Order No. 8317402, University of Idaho, 1983.

[3] Katherine G. Aiken. “Odyssey of a Union: Communism and the Rise of the Northwest Metal Workers, 1960-1971.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 47, no. 3 (1997): 46–

61.; Laurie Mercier. ""Instead of Fighting the Common Enemy": Mine Mill Versus the Steelworkers in Montana, 1950-1967." Labor History 40, no. 4 (11, 1999).