http://www.greatfallstribune.com/
The moment: Butte miners win eight-hour workday in 1901.
The story: Children grew up in Butte attuned to the sounds that signaled death and disaster in the mines, sounds that could leave them fatherless, as accidents killed a miner every other day in Butte in the 1890s.
One woman lost three husbands in a row to the mines, with children from each to support on her own, wrote Janet Finn in her “Mining Childhood.” Another former child of Butte recalled a widow with 20 children who became a midwife, rustled railroad ties, had a cow, baked bread and took in washing, which her children delivered.
Mines were opportunities and peril, bread on the table and a stake in a new land for 8,000 miners pulling 210 million pounds of copper a year from five square miles. Against a rising swell of populism, Butte unions lobbied for better pay and safer conditions. Unions helped members when they were sick, paid for funerals and gave workers a voice. A campaign for a balanced day of eight hours of work, eight hours of leisure and eight hours of sleep became a rallying cry for workers around the industrialized world. A 12- to 14-hour workday was the norm.
Copper magnates Marcus Daly and William Clark “needed allies in their battles against each other, so they competed for their workers’ loyalty and tolerated their unions,” according to “Montana: Stories of the Land.”
In 1901, Butte miners won eight-hour work days, but a new fractious era was beginning. With Daly’s death and Clark’s departure, the owners of Montana mines became more removed from the state and its workers.
Live the moment: Tour the World Museum of Mining in Butte to learn more about miners’ lives. Or, simply appreciate going home after an eight-hour work day, if you have one.
For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20140413/LIFESTYLE01/304130005/Montana-Moment-Miners-win-eight-hour-workdays?nclick_check=1