The once-booming coal mining industry in southeast Kansas is long gone, but the legacy of striking miners and pioneering women protesters lives on through workplace regulations that are still in place today.
From about 1885 to 1930, southeast Kansas was one of the nation’s major producers of coal. In Pittsburg, Kansas, European immigrants flocked to the area for work in the mines.
Phyllis Bitner with the Miners Hall Museum in Franklin, Kansas, said they came with high hopes.
“They were told the streets were paved with gold when in reality they weren't even paved at all,” said Bitner.
The miners would strike several times for better workplace conditions and pay.
A 1920 year-long statewide strike caused the Kansas Legislature to pass the Kansas Industrial Court Act — a landmark piece of legislation that effectively banned strikes at the coal mines.
A local mine leader, Alex Howatt, refused to obey it and kept striking.
“And so that's where the standoff was for months,” said Linda O’Nelio Knoll, a local historian and educator. “There were miners who, after months, their families were hungry. They were getting no help from the international union.”
Kansas was the only state to ban this type of striking — and it attracted the attention of other states. The unions in Pennsylvania passed a resolution saying the miners opposed the Kansas Industrial Court Act.
His position resonated with some miners in Pennsylvania, where local unions passed resolutions supporting Howat and opposing the Kansas Industrial Court.
The act ultimately would later be ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Strikes were not unusual during the early 1900s. But what made Pittsburg different was the group of 6,000 women who protested in support of Howat refusing to go back to work in 1921.
Above it is a photo of the women of the Amazon Army marching in Franklin, Kansas, in 1921.
Mary Skubitz was one of the leaders of the women who joined in solidarity with the miners. An immigrant from Slovenia, she was able to speak multiple languages, making her an effective leader in the diverse community.
The women’s efforts caught the attention of local and national newspapers, who gave them the moniker “The Amazon Army.”
It started as an insult because they were deemed unladylike. They threw red pepper at counter protestors. They covered the mine entrances with American flags to deter people from entering. Their thought was that no one would want to rip the American flag to get into the mines.
O’Nelio Knoll said the solidarity the women brought to the strike was very powerful.
“Those 6,000 women were not just all miners' wives.” she said. “There were a lot of women from different countries. American women, business women, women from different areas who came to join with them.”
Police arrested some of those women in 1921 for unlawful assembly. The Special Collections Department of Axe Library at Pittsburg State University has a book of the police records at the time.
Skubitz was one of the women arrested. Her history, along with the other women, was largely forgotten until the late 1980s.
The library’s curator of special collections, Sara DeCaro, said that’s probably because many of the women involved in the march did not talk about it openly during their lives.
“Maybe they were trying to be respectful of people who had participated in those marches — and times had changed and they were trying to be respectful of where they were in life,” DeCaro said.
O’Nelio Knoll’s grandmother, Maggie O’Nelio, was 23 and pregnant at the time of the march. It wasn’t until she read a poem about the Amazon Army that her grandmother said she was a part of the march.
"Well you never asked,” her grandmother said.
O’Nelio Knoll’s grandmother’s story inspired her to look into the history of the Amazon Army. She’s researched the march and the events leading up to it.
Skubitz’s legacy would carry on with her son, Joe, who was 14 at the time of the march.
“He was making bread at home, he said, when his mom was out marching. He was very proud of her,” O’Nelio Knoll said.
Joe was a U.S. Representative for Kansas from 1963 to 1978.
He helped pass two pieces of legislation that addressed specific environmental and health hazards of the mines.
One act, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) of 1977, addressed specific hazards and environmental degradation from the mines. Another, the Black Lung Benefits Reform Act, created healthcare and benefits for coal miners who developed lung issues after working in the mines.
The state of Kansas officially recognized Mary Skubitz in October with a Kansas Walk of Honor plaque on the grounds of the Kansas Statehouse.
Sarah LaFrenz is the President of the Kansas Organization of State Employees. She said Skubitz was an activist and labor leader before those terms really existed.
“The fact that now we know, and now it's public what she's done — it opens the door to make sure that all of these people are honored for the work that they did to move forward the needs and the dignity of working people,” LaFrenz said.
The legacy of the miners and the Amazon Army is getting more recognition than in past decades. There’s a mural in the Pittsburg Public Library titled “Solidarity” that commemorates the women and the miners during the 1921 march.
“They really laid the groundwork for all of what we enjoy today,” Phyllis Bitner, the chair of the Miners Hall Museum Foundation Board of Trustees, said. “We have better working conditions. We have all of the things that they worked so hard for.”
Rachel Schnelle reports on Missouri and Kansas issues for the Kansas News Service.
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