King Coal

Published in 1917, this novel by the muckraker Upton Sinclair grew out of the bloody 1913 to 1914 Colorado coal strikes and the Ludlow Massacre that followed. Its hero, Hal Warner, is the son of a wealthy family who goes undercover in the coalfields as an ordinary laborer named Joe Smith to see the industry for himself. What he finds is a company town run like a private kingdom: rigged scales that cheat miners of their pay, unsafe shafts, blacklists, and armed guards who crush any hint of a union. When a mine disaster strikes, Hal is pulled from observer to organizer. Sinclair blends reporting and fiction to speak for the men underground. Free here as a PDF and EPUB.