Forging the Copper Collar: Arizona's Labor-Management War of 1901-1921
Bisbee, Arizona...July 12, 1917...6:30 a.m....

Just after dawn, two thousand armed vigilantes took to the streets of this remote Arizona mining town to round up members and sympathizers of the radical Industrial Workers of the World. Before the morning was over, nearly twelve hundred alleged Wobblies had been herded onto waiting boxcars. By day's end, they had been hauled off to New Mexico.

While the Bisbee Deportation was the most notorious of many vigilante actions of its day, it was more than the climax of a labor-management war—it was the point at which Arizona donned the copper collar. That such an event could occur, James Byrkit contends, was not attributable so much to the marshaling of public sentiment against the I.W.W. as to the outright manipulation of the state's political and social climate by Eastern business interests.

In Forging the Copper Collar, Byrkit paints a vivid picture of Arizona in the early part of this century. He demonstrates how isolated mining communities were no more than mercantilistic colonies controlled by Eastern power, and how that power wielded control over all the Arizona's affairs—holding back unionism, creating a self-serving tax structure, and summarily expelling dissidents.

Because the years have obscured this incident and its background, the writing of Copper Collar involved extensive research and verification of facts. The result is a book that captures not only the turbulence of an era, but also the political heritage of a state.
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Forging the Copper Collar: Arizona's Labor-Management War of 1901-1921
Bisbee, Arizona...July 12, 1917...6:30 a.m....

Just after dawn, two thousand armed vigilantes took to the streets of this remote Arizona mining town to round up members and sympathizers of the radical Industrial Workers of the World. Before the morning was over, nearly twelve hundred alleged Wobblies had been herded onto waiting boxcars. By day's end, they had been hauled off to New Mexico.

While the Bisbee Deportation was the most notorious of many vigilante actions of its day, it was more than the climax of a labor-management war—it was the point at which Arizona donned the copper collar. That such an event could occur, James Byrkit contends, was not attributable so much to the marshaling of public sentiment against the I.W.W. as to the outright manipulation of the state's political and social climate by Eastern business interests.

In Forging the Copper Collar, Byrkit paints a vivid picture of Arizona in the early part of this century. He demonstrates how isolated mining communities were no more than mercantilistic colonies controlled by Eastern power, and how that power wielded control over all the Arizona's affairs—holding back unionism, creating a self-serving tax structure, and summarily expelling dissidents.

Because the years have obscured this incident and its background, the writing of Copper Collar involved extensive research and verification of facts. The result is a book that captures not only the turbulence of an era, but also the political heritage of a state.
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Forging the Copper Collar: Arizona's Labor-Management War of 1901-1921

Forging the Copper Collar: Arizona's Labor-Management War of 1901-1921

by James W. Byrkit
Forging the Copper Collar: Arizona's Labor-Management War of 1901-1921

Forging the Copper Collar: Arizona's Labor-Management War of 1901-1921

by James W. Byrkit

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Overview

Bisbee, Arizona...July 12, 1917...6:30 a.m....

Just after dawn, two thousand armed vigilantes took to the streets of this remote Arizona mining town to round up members and sympathizers of the radical Industrial Workers of the World. Before the morning was over, nearly twelve hundred alleged Wobblies had been herded onto waiting boxcars. By day's end, they had been hauled off to New Mexico.

While the Bisbee Deportation was the most notorious of many vigilante actions of its day, it was more than the climax of a labor-management war—it was the point at which Arizona donned the copper collar. That such an event could occur, James Byrkit contends, was not attributable so much to the marshaling of public sentiment against the I.W.W. as to the outright manipulation of the state's political and social climate by Eastern business interests.

In Forging the Copper Collar, Byrkit paints a vivid picture of Arizona in the early part of this century. He demonstrates how isolated mining communities were no more than mercantilistic colonies controlled by Eastern power, and how that power wielded control over all the Arizona's affairs—holding back unionism, creating a self-serving tax structure, and summarily expelling dissidents.

Because the years have obscured this incident and its background, the writing of Copper Collar involved extensive research and verification of facts. The result is a book that captures not only the turbulence of an era, but also the political heritage of a state.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780816535187
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Publication date: 10/11/2016
Series: Century Collection
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 452
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

James Byrkit's interest in Arizona labor and politcs grew out of his boyhood experiences in a mining town. Born in Jerome, Arizona, he developed early a feeling for the social, economic, and political attitudes that characterized Arizona mining communities and the impact these communities had on Arizona's state-wide affairs.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Prologue xiii

The Bisbee Deportation of 1917 1

I The Enabling Context

Chapter 1 The Setting 13

Chapter 2 Labor and Politics in the West and Arizona 22

Chapter 3 Arizona Turn-Around 63

II The Triumph of Conservatism

Chapter 4 Enter Organized Resistance 97

Chapter 5 The Illusion of Change 124

Chapter 6 Moving Toward a Showdown 144

Chapter 7 Big Day in Arizona 187

III The Aftermath

Chapter 8 Securing Control 219

Chapter 9 Arizona Knuckles Under 245

Chapter 10 Clean Hands and a Blessing 264

IV The Quiet Kingdom

Chapter 11 Arizona Dons the Copper Collar 297

Chapter 12 As Time Passed 317

Epilogue 325

Reference Material

Chapter Notes 331

Bibliographic Essay 393

Bibliography 397

Index 423

Maps

Warren District, July 12, 1917 19

Southeast Arizona and Southwest New Mexico 24

Route of the Bisbee Deportation 212

Photographs

Marching from Bisbee to Warren Frontispiece

Portraits

George W. P. Hunt 39

Thomas E. Campbell 90

Walter Douglas of Phelps Dodge Corporation 106

Sheriff Harry Wheeler of Cochise County 161

Warren District, July 12, 1917

Front page of Bisbee Daily Review 195

Deputy arresting a striker in Bisbee 201

Arrested strikers marching through Lowell 201

Arrested strikers marching from Lowell to Warren 203

Vigilantes guarding arrested strikers 203

Citizens watching arrested strikers 205

Deportees being loaded from ball park to train 205

Vigilantes and deportees boarding cattle car 206

Loaded train ready to leave station 206

Columbus, New Mexico, in late summer of 1917: William Cleary with deportees at Camp Furlong 233

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