1870-1919
Labor Leader

Background.

John Mitchell, a driving force behind the organization of America's coal miners, endured a difficult childhood that included being orphaned at age six and that mixed hard work with irregular schooling. Mitchell was born in Briadwood, Illinois, in 1870. He never finished school; instead he entered the mines at the age of twelve in 1882. For the next several years Mitchell traveled around the West and Midwest from mine to mine. At age fifteen Mitchell joined the Knights of Labor, which was attempting to organize both skilled and unskilled workers in industry, mining, and railroads. The young miner returned to Illinois in 1888, where he found the mining towns filled with immigrants and wages down by 20 percent. Mitchell felt the working conditions in the mines were equal to slavery. After a prolonged but futile strike in 1891, Mitchell returned to the West but only stayed one...