Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Bill Pancoast’s Road to Matewan
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Bill Pancoast’s Road to Matewan
I could not put this away. Once I saw what happened here: the orange Tug River from the strip mines…the strip mining, the desecration, the poverty. I owed it to the world to tell what happened.
William Trent Pancoast has worked as a construction laborer, gas station attendant, railroad section hand and brakeman, factory laborer, commercial laundry foreman, and machinist. He’s been an English teacher and a journeyman die-maker.
In 1986 The Wall Street Journal dubbed Pancoast a "Blue collar writer" and that’s just fine with him, as he told the Journal, "The reason I write about work is that that's just about damn near all I've ever done."
His working-class-flavored short stories and essays have appeared in many Midwestern and international magazines and newspapers.
Pancoast's novel Crashing was published in 1983. In 1986, his United Auto Worker's union history was published. Pancoast spent the next twenty years as the editor of a monthly union newspaper-the Union Forum-while continuing to publish his fiction, essays, and editorials not only in the Union Forum but also in the UAW's 1.2 million circulation Solidarity magazine.
A revised version of his novel The Road to Matewan has just been published and yesterday Bill Pancoast drove down from his home in Ohio to give a reading and talk at the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum so I figured the least I could do was make the 7-hour drive down – my own 300-mile Road to Matewan – to record it for you.
By the way, as you’ll hear, the train still runs through town right across from the museum.
On this week’s Labor History in Two: the year was 1965; that was the day acclaimed photojournalist Dorothea Lange died.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]
Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
@WarsWV #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory
View all episodes
By laborhistorytoday
5
2222 ratings
I could not put this away. Once I saw what happened here: the orange Tug River from the strip mines…the strip mining, the desecration, the poverty. I owed it to the world to tell what happened.
William Trent Pancoast has worked as a construction laborer, gas station attendant, railroad section hand and brakeman, factory laborer, commercial laundry foreman, and machinist. He’s been an English teacher and a journeyman die-maker.
In 1986 The Wall Street Journal dubbed Pancoast a "Blue collar writer" and that’s just fine with him, as he told the Journal, "The reason I write about work is that that's just about damn near all I've ever done."
His working-class-flavored short stories and essays have appeared in many Midwestern and international magazines and newspapers.
Pancoast's novel Crashing was published in 1983. In 1986, his United Auto Worker's union history was published. Pancoast spent the next twenty years as the editor of a monthly union newspaper-the Union Forum-while continuing to publish his fiction, essays, and editorials not only in the Union Forum but also in the UAW's 1.2 million circulation Solidarity magazine.
A revised version of his novel The Road to Matewan has just been published and yesterday Bill Pancoast drove down from his home in Ohio to give a reading and talk at the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum so I figured the least I could do was make the 7-hour drive down – my own 300-mile Road to Matewan – to record it for you.
By the way, as you’ll hear, the train still runs through town right across from the museum.
On this week’s Labor History in Two: the year was 1965; that was the day acclaimed photojournalist Dorothea Lange died.
Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at [email protected]
Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
@WarsWV #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory
More shows like Labor History Today
View all
The NPR Politics Podcast
25,872 Listeners
Jacobin Radio
1,449 Listeners
Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio
2,982 Listeners
Rev Left Radio
3,308 Listeners
Citations Needed
3,907 Listeners
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
14,313 Listeners
Working Class History
606 Listeners
Strict Scrutiny
5,769 Listeners
5-4
3,517 Listeners
Blowback
3,080 Listeners
Labor Radio-Podcast Weekly
14 Listeners
Labor Heritage Power Hour
5 Listeners
The Ezra Klein Show
16,051 Listeners
On the Nose
233 Listeners
The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
10,910 Listeners