First, briefly list some of the items we have studied this semester that appeared in the film Matewan.
Then, use the Barrett article (last week’s reading) to analyze one topic (described below) that was prominent in Matewan.
Both the article and the film deal with the issue of unity and division in the labor movement when the labor market consists of white, black, and immigrant workers. Companies often encouraged division among workers in order to keep them fighting among themselves rather than uniting to fight their employers. But in many cases in American labor history, the labor movement overcame divisions to unite all workers across race, ethnicity, and gender, though in other cases the results were less positive.
In his article, Barrett identified several factors that tended to….