On December 13, 1889, Franklin Benjamin Gowen will die in his room at the Wormley Hotel, in Washington D.C., with a single bullet hole in his head. His eulogists will refer to him as the former president of the Reading Railroad, attorney, philanthropist, and patron of the arts.
The obituaries will say that Mr. Gowen inherited the intellectual and moral characteristics of his father, James, a pious Protestant merchant from Northern Ireland. Sobriety and piety, of course, form the foundation of good society, and Franklin was alike his father in this way. But James was also a staunch Democrat, a character flaw for which I have little patience. Their home in Mount Airy was the only one in the neighborhood without crepe after President Lincoln was assassinated. And James Gowen went to his grave insisting that there was nothing to those nasty rumors about James Buchanan, with whom he was close. Well, I knew Aunt Nancy, too. I can assure you those rumors were entirely true, though such behavior coming from a Democrat is hardly surprising.
AUTHOR TAKEOVER coming this Monday, Jan 15, 2024!
Where I'll introduce my new novel, ANYWHERE BUT SCHUYLKILL, and you can ask me questions about the book, the historical context in which it takes place, my research, the characters, and other related questions. AND I’ll be giving away FREE copies of my novel!!!
About ANYWHERE BUT SCHUYLKILL: In 1877, twenty Irish coal miners hanged for a terrorist conspiracy that never occurred. Anywhere But Schuylkill is the story of one who escaped, Mike Doyle, a teenager trying to keep his family alive during the worst depression the nation has ever faced. Banks and railroads are going under. Children are dying of hunger. The Reading Railroad has slashed wages and hired Pinkerton spies to infiltrate the miners’ union. And there is a sectarian war between rival gangs. But none of this compares with the threat at home.
AUTHOR TAKEOVER coming Monday, Jan 15, 2024!
Where I'll introduce my new novel, ANYWHERE BUT SCHUYLKILL, and you can ask me questions about the book, the historical context in which it takes place, my research, the characters, and other related questions. AND I’ll be giving away FREE copies of my novel!!!
About ANYWHERE BUT SCHUYLKILL: In 1877, twenty Irish coal miners hanged for a terrorist conspiracy that never occurred. Anywhere But Schuylkill is the story of one who escaped, Mike Doyle, a teenager trying to keep his family alive during the worst depression the nation has ever faced. Banks and railroads are going under. Children are dying of hunger. The Reading Railroad has slashed wages and hired Pinkerton spies to infiltrate the miners’ union. And there is a sectarian war between rival gangs. But none of this compares with the threat at home.
Today in Labor History December 6, 1889: The trial of the Chicago Haymarket anarchists began amidst national and international outrage and protest. None of the men on trial had even been at Haymarket Square when the bomb was set off. They were on trial because of their anarchist political affiliations and their labor organizing for the 8-hour work-day. 4 were ultimately executed, including Alber Parsons, husband of future IWW founding member Lucy Parsons. One, Louis Ling, cheated the hangman by committing suicide in his cell. The Haymarket Affairs is considered the origin of International Workers Day, May 1st, celebrated in virtually every country in the world, except for the U.S., where the atrocity occurred. Historically, it was also considered the culmination of the Great Upheaval, which a series of strike waves and labor unrest that began in Martinsburg, West Virginia, 1877, and spread throughout the U.S., including the Saint Louis Commune, when communists took over and controlled the city for several days. Over 100 workers were killed across the U.S. in the weeks of strikes and protests. Communists and anarchists also organized strikes in Chicago, where police killed 20 men and boys. Albert and Lucy Parsons participated and were influenced by these events. I write about this historical period in my Great Upheaval Trilogy. The first book in this series, Anywhere But Schuylkill, came out in September, 2023, from Historium Press. Check it out here: https://www.thehistoricalfictioncompany.com/it/michael-dunn and https://michaeldunnauthor.com/
There was a drug store in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania that plays prominently in my novel, ANYWHERE BUT SCHUYLKILL. It was run by a Polish immigrant known as Doc Luks. He was sympathetic to the miners and would often provide medicine and treatment for free during strikes, when the workers had no money to pay him.
His son, George Luks, became a successful artist, of the Ashcan School, a politically rebellious art movement that was influenced by Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” and which portrayed the everyday lives of working class people and immigrants. Luks’s art, in particular, was influenced by the poverty and oppression suffered by the miners he grew up with.
“In the tradition of Upton Sinclair and Jack London, Michael Dunn gives us a gritty portrait of working-class life and activism during one of the most violent eras in U.S. labor history. Anywhere but Schuylkill is a social novel built out of passion and the textures of historical research. It is both a tale of 1870s labor unrest and a tale for the inequalities and injustices of the twenty-first century.”
—Russ Castronovo, author of Beautiful Democracy and Propaganda 1776.
“Michael Dunn has created the characters that bring the 19th Century's Mine Wars to life for today's readers. Anywhere but Schuylkill will remind readers of John Sayles and Tillie Olsen and the best in the long tradition of labor literature.”
—James Tracy, co-author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power: Interracial Solidarity in 1960s-70s New Left Organizing
Today in Labor History October 13, 1902: Teddy Roosevelt threatened to send in federal troops as strikebreakers to crush a coal strike. The strike by anthracite coal miners in eastern Pennsylvania was led by the United Mineworkers of America (UMWA). The region had had dozens of previous strikes led by earlier and now defunct unions like the WBA. The UMWA was created 12 years prior, when the Knights of Labor Assembly #35 merged with the National Progressive Miners Union. Over 100,000 miners participated in the strike, threatening to cut off heating fuel for most of the country. It was also the first strike settled by federal arbitration. The miners won a 9-hour work day (down from 10) and a 10% wage increase.
This was the same region where, in 1877, 20 Irish union activists were hanged on false charges of Molly Maguire terrorism to crush the WBA, brought on by the shenanigans of agent provocateur James McParland, working for the Pinkertons. That struggle is depicted in my novel, Anywhere But Schuylkill, which you can purchase here: https://www.thehistoricalfictioncompany.com/michael-dunn
Today in Labor History September 26, 1874: Sociologist and photographer Lewis Hine is born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. In 1908, he became the photographer for the National Child Labor Committee and spent the next decade documenting exploited child labor to help the organization’s lobbying efforts to end child labor in American industry. The book cover for my novel, Anywhere But Schuylkill, is based pm a Hine photograph.
"Anywhere but Schuylkill" by Michael Dunn - coming soon from Historium Press! Check it out!! http://wix.to/M9gMx11
“The Banshees of Inisherin and 1917 are two of the best historical films I’ve seen in recent years, particularly the cinematography. Yet the visuals Michael Dunn creates in Anywhere But Schuylkill, are richer, more vivid, more imaginative, and more haunting and indelible than what I recall in those brilliant films. It’s like the author transports himself to each scene and brings to life each physical detail, each expression, each emotion, and each word of dialogue with the care of a Renaissance painter.”
—David Aretha, award-winning author of Malala Yousafzai and the Girls of Pakistan and Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1963 March on Washington.
Coming soon, “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” my historical novel about the Pennsylvania coal wars. The blue image in the background is the painting, “The Breaker Boys,” by George Luks (1925). Luks was associated with the “aggressively realistic” Ashcan School of American painting. He was also from Shenandoah, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, where my novel takes place, and makes a cameo appearance as a child, working in his father’s pharmacy. His father, Emil (Doc) Luks was a physician and pharmacist, and a well-known friend of the miners, often treating them for free or at discounted prices during strikes and economic depressions.