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Matewan
''Matewan'' () is a 1987 American drama film written and directed by John Sayles, and starring Chris Cooper (in his film debut), James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell and Will Oldham, with David Strathairn, Kevin Tighe and Gordon Clapp in supporting roles. The film dramatizes the events of the Battle of Matewan, a coal miners' strike in 1920 in Matewan, a small town in the hills of West Virginia. ''Matewan'' was a critical success but a box office flop, grossing under $2 million on an estimated $4 million budget. The film received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, and received a Criterion Collection re-release in 2019. Plot Joe Kenehan is an organizer for the United Mine Workers. He arrives in Matewan, West Virginia in 1920 to organize miners against the Stone Mountain Coal Company. His introduction to the town is his witnessing of a mob of miners angry at wage cuts beating up black miners who intended to cross the picket line. He takes up residence at a boa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Matewan
The Battle of Matewan (also known as the Matewan massacre) was a shootout in the town of Matewan in Mingo County and the Pocahontas Coalfield mining district, in southern West Virginia. It occurred on May 19, 1920 between local coal miners and their allies and the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency. The dead included two brothers of the detective agency's founder and Matewan's mayor Cabell Testerman, who supported the union. History Employed by the Stone Mountain Coal Company, a contingent of the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency arrived on the No. 29 morning train to evict families that had been living at the Stone Mountain Coal Camp just on the outskirts of town. The detectives carried out several evictions before they ate dinner at the Urias Hotel and, upon finishing, they walked toward the train depot to catch the five o'clock train back to Bluefield, West Virginia. While the detectives made their way to the train depot, they were intercepted by Matewan Chief of Police Sid Hatf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matewan, West Virginia
Matewan () is a town in Mingo County, West Virginia, United States at the confluence of the Tug Fork River and Mate Creek. The population was 499 at the 2010 census. The Norfolk Southern Railway's Pocahontas District passes through the town. It was a center of bitter labor coal mining labor conflict in the early 20th Century, which culminated in the Battle of Matewan in 1920. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , all land. Demographics 2010 census At the 2010 census there were 499 people, 261 households, and 117 families living in the town. The population density was . There were 301 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 91.6% White, 6.4% African American, 0.2% Native American, and 1.8% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.6%. Of the 261 households 19.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.4% were married couples living together, 10.3% had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Lively (labor Spy)
Charles Everett Lively (March 6, 1887 – May 28, 1962) was an American private detective who worked as a Labor spying in the United States, labor spy for the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency. He played an active role in the Coal Wars in Appalachia and Colorado during the early 20th century. Lively spied on the United Mine Workers, United Mine Workers of America in West Virginia and five other states, sometimes while working as a coal miner. After fatally shooting a striking miner during the Colorado Coalfield War, Lively spent several years working for Baldwin–Felts in the Great Plains before his assignment in Matewan, West Virginia. Lively was so successful posing as a UMWA activist that he became a union delegate and was once photographed with Mother Jones. His cover was abandoned in the wake of the Battle of Matewan in May 1920, in which seven Baldwin–Felts detectives were killed. The following year, Lively and another Baldwin–Felts operative killed Sid Hatfield, Matew ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency
The Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency was a private detective agency in the United States from the early 1890s to 1937. Members of the agency were central actors in the events that led to the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921 and violent repression of labor union members as part of the Coal Wars in such places as the Pocahontas Coalfield region of West Virginia, the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek strike of 1912 in West Virginia, 1913–1914 Colorado Coalfield War (including the Ludlow Massacre in 1914), and the Battle of Matewan in 1920. The agency was founded in the early 1890s by William Gibbony Baldwin as the Baldwin Detective Agency. Formation Baldwin, the senior member of the firm, was a native of Tazewell County, Virginia. An avid reader of detective novels in his youth, Baldwin was a small storekeeper in his early days. He then studied dentistry but left that profession to become a detective. He began his career in 1884 with the Eureka Detective Agency in Charleston, West Virg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Sayles
John Thomas Sayles (born September 28, 1950) is an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor, and novelist. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, for ''Passion Fish'' (1992) and ''Lone Star (1996 film), Lone Star'' (1996). His film ''Men with Guns'' (1997) was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. His directorial debut, ''Return of the Secaucus 7'' (1980), has been added to the National Film Registry. Early life Sayles was born on September 28, 1950, in Schenectady, New York, the son of Mary (married and maiden names, ''née'' Rausch), a teacher, and Donald John Sayles, a school administrator. Both of Sayles's parents were Catholic and of half-Irish descent. Sayles has referred to himself as a "Catholic atheist". He attended Williams College with frequent collaborators Gordon Clapp and David Strathairn, as well as his longtime partner, Maggie Renzi. Sayles earned a B.A. in psychology in 1972. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is an American actor. He has been described as "one of America's most distinguished and versatile" actors for his performances in film, television, and theater, and "one of the greatest actors in American history". With a career spanning six decades, Jones is among the few performers awarded an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT). Jones's voice has been praised as a "a stirring basso profondo that has lent gravel and gravitas" to his projects, including live-action acting, voice acting, and commercial voice-overs. Born with a childhood stutter, Jones has said that poetry and acting helped him overcome the disability. A pre-med major in college, he served in the United States Army during the Korean War before pursuing a career in acting. Since his Broadway debut in 1957, he has performed in several Shakespeare plays including '' Othello'', ''Hamlet'', ''Coriolanus'', and ''King Lear''. Jones made his film debut in Stanley Kubrick's 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris Cooper
Christopher Walton Cooper (born July 9, 1951) is an American actor. He has appeared in several major Hollywood films, including '' American Beauty'' (1999), ''October Sky'' (1999), '' The Bourne Identity'' (2002), ''Seabiscuit'' (2003), '' Capote'' (2005), ''Syriana'' (2005), '' The Kingdom'' (2007), ''Where the Wild Things Are'' (2009), '' The Town'' (2010), ''The Muppets'' (2011), ''Cars 3'' (2017), ''A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood'' (2019), and '' Little Women'' (2019). He also portrayed Sheriff July Johnson in the acclaimed miniseries ''Lonesome Dove'', which became one of the most successful Westerns in history. Cooper won both the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as John Laroche in the 2002 film ''Adaptation.'' He played a lead role in the historical and political thriller ''Breach'' (2007), playing FBI agent and traitor Robert Hanssen. He played Daniel Sloan in the 2012 political thriller '' The Company You Keep'', and Norm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peggy Rajski
Peggy M. Rajski is an American filmmaker, best known for directing and co-producing the 1994 American short film ''Trevor'', which won an Academy Award for "Best Live Action Short Film" at the 67th Annual Academy Awards in 1995. She is also a co-founder of The Trevor Project, a crisis-intervention organization for LGBTQ+ youth, and an academic who has taught producing and filmmaking. In June 2018, Rajski became dean of the Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television in Los Angeles, California. In November 2022 she became Interim CEO of The Trevor Project. Early life and filmmaking career Rajski was born and raised in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, in the large family of Pat A. Rajski and Patricia A. (Simon) Rajski. After graduating from Pacelli High School,"Bennett and Rajski Bring Us Pride", ''Stevens Point Journal'' (March 29, 1995), p. 4. Rajski received a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, and a master of fine arts degree from the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Will Oldham
Joseph Will Oldham (born January 15, 1970) is an American singer-songwriter and actor. From 1993 to 1997, he performed and recorded in collaboration with dozens of other musicians under variations of Palace (Palace, Palace Flophouse, Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, and Palace Music). After briefly publishing music under his own name, in 1998 he adopted Bonnie "Prince" Billy as the name for most of his work. Early life and education Oldham was born on January 15, 1970, in Louisville, Kentucky. His mother, Joanne Lei Will Tafel Oldham, was a teacher and artist. His father, Joseph Collins Oldham, was an attorney and photographer. Oldham graduated from the J. Graham Brown School in 1988. He attended Brown University sporadically while pursuing a career as an actor, and living between Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and Bloomington, Indiana. He began making music during this time, initially as a project for his professor Jeff Todd Titon, an ethnomusicologist at Brown University. Career O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Mine Workers
The United Mine Workers of America (UMW or UMWA) is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada. Although its main focus has always been on workers and their rights, the UMW of today also advocates for better roads, schools, and universal health care. By 2014, coal mining had largely shifted to open pit mines in Wyoming, and there were only 60,000 active coal miners. The UMW was left with 35,000 members, of whom 20,000 were coal miners, chiefly in underground mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. However it was responsible for pensions and medical benefits for 40,000 retired miners, and for 50,000 spouses and dependents. The UMW was founded in Columbus, Ohio, on January 25, 1890, with the merger of two old labor groups, the Knights of Labor Trade Assembly No. 135 and the National Progressive Miners Union.The Unite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haskell Wexler
Haskell Wexler, ASC (February 6, 1922 – December 27, 2015) was an American cinematographer, film producer, and director. Wexler was judged to be one of film history's ten most influential cinematographers in a survey of the members of the International Cinematographers Guild. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography twice, in 1966 and 1976, out of five nominations. In his obituary in The New York Times, Wexler is described as being "renowned as one of the most inventive cinematographers in Hollywood." Early life and education Wexler was born to a Jewish family in Chicago in 1922. His parents were Simon and Lottie Wexler, whose children included Jerrold, Joyce (Isaacs) and Yale. He attended the progressive Francis Parker School, where he was best friends with Barney Rosset. After a year of college at the University of California, Berkeley, he volunteered as a seaman in the Merchant Marine in 1941, as the U.S. was preparing to enter World War II. He became friends wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Strathairn
David Russell Strathairn (; born January 26, 1949) is an American actor. Known for his leading roles on stage and screen, he has often portrayed historical figures such as Edward R. Murrow, J. Robert Oppenheimer, William H. Seward, and John Dos Passos. He has received various accolades including an Independent Spirit Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Volpi Cup, and has been nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. Strathairn made his acting debut in his fellow Williams College graduate John Sayles' film ''Return of the Secaucus 7'' (1980). He continued acting in films such as ''Matewan'' (1987), ''Eight Men Out'' (1988), '' City of Hope'' (1991), ''A League of Their Own'' (1992), '' Sneakers'' (1992), ''Passion Fish'' (1992), '' The Firm'' (1993), ''The River Wild'' (1995), ''L.A. Confidential'' (1997), and ''Limbo'' (1999). Strathairn gained prominence for his portrayal as journalist Edward R. Murrow in G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
