Written in Blood features the work of Appalachia's leading scholars
and activists making available an accurate, ungilded, and uncensored
understanding of our history. Combining new revelations from the past
with sketches of a sane path forward, this is a deliberate collection
looking at our past, present, and future.
Sociologist Wess Harris (When Miners March) further documents the
infamous Esau scrip system for women, suggesting an institutionalized
practice of forced sexual servitude that was part of coal company
policy. In a conversation with award-winning oral historian Michael
Kline, federal mine inspector Larry Layne explains corporate complicity
in the 1968 Farmington Mine disaster which killed seventy-eight men and
became the catalyst for the passage of major changes in U.S. mine safety
laws. Mine safety expert and whistleblower Jack Spadaro speaks candidly
of years of attempts to silence his courageous voice and recalls
government and university collaboration in covering up details of the
1972 Buffalo Creek flooding disaster, which killed over a hundred people
and left four thousand homeless.
Moving to the next generation of thinkers and activists, attorney Nathan
Fetty examines current events in Appalachia and musician Carrie Kline
suggests paths forward for people wishing to set their own course rather
than depend on the kindness of corporations.
