Historical Drama
World
In the Brandy Patch, everything—the coal mine, the company housing, the general store, the church, the school, and the police—is company run and owned, and the miners have no choice but to put the little money they earn right back in the hands of the company. At the head of the streets, you’ll find nice, comfortable houses for the mine bosses and supervisors, but walk a little down the road and you’ll discover that where the miners live is essentially a shantytown. The houses are small and poorly constructed; there’s open sewage in the streets. And the company charges such high rent that most households take in boarders from the old country who are hoping to save enough money to send for their wives and children. Of course, not all is bleak; yes, there is plenty of grief, but there’s also the shouts of children playing, the sound of neighbors conversing with one another in different languages, and the smell of foods of various ethnicities wafting through the air.
This is where our story begins, in a small “mining patch” village near Pittston, Pennsylvania. It’s where Sal and Russell Bufalino, Giuseppe LaTorre, the Sciandra brothers, and so many other immigrants from Italy, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Poland, and so on have come looking for a better life only to discover that American capitalism is a particularly brutal system—a system in which workers’ wages are depressed and income inequality prospers. A system in which workers are incentivized by punishment, not promotion, and in the mines, where the privately-run Coal and Iron Police have considerable power, the company’s retaliatory methods can be violent, even fatal. But though Giuseppe and the Sciandra brothers are angry and simmering to do something to shift the balance of power, Sal Bufalino has been keeping everyone in line.
Up the street, Harry Carson, the mine’s executive manager, is living comfortably and under the impression that he’s got everything under control. Indeed, Carson mistakenly believes that the few concessions made to miners four years earlier after the strike of 1902—a strike that lasted 165 days caused so much public consternation that Teddy Roosevelt had to intervene—were enough. But Carson isn’t tuned in; he doesn’t have his finger on the pulse of the mine. He’s focused on the business side of things, making sure that he meets the quota to keep Richard Harrison, the owner, satisfied.