The Greater Evil: Radical Unions and the End of Industrial Feudalism

In the coalfields of the American West, radical labor unions waged some of the most intense and consequential struggles in American history. The Greater Evil examines how organizations like the Industrial Workers of the World (the “Wobblies”) and the United Mine Workers challenged the system of industrial feudalism that kept mining families in conditions of virtual serfdom.

Eric Margolis and Mary Romero analyze the strategies, conflicts, and ultimate outcomes of these labor struggles, arguing that the radical unions — despite being crushed by a combination of corporate power, state violence, and internal divisions — played a decisive role in ending the most extreme forms of industrial exploitation in the western coalfields.

Published in Research in Social Policy, this article connects the history of western mining to broader questions about class conflict, state power, and the possibilities and limits of radical labor organizing in America.