John Brophy's 'Miners' Program': Workers' Education in UMWA District 2 During the 1920s.

In the 1920s, the elected officers of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) District 2 (Central Pennsylvania) developed a workers' education program based on the idea that the organization and education of workers had to be carded on simultaneously and were the principal jobs of the union's leadership. During this period, they used educational activities to assist organizing drives in the Pennsylvania bituminous coal fields and to give support to beleaguered miners battling a well-financed open shop campaign. While educational programs included classes to improve basic literacy and union-related organizational skills, they focused primarily on enlarging the coal miner's identification with his union, community and the labor movement. In District 2, workers' education also included efforts by miners to educate other workers and the general public about the problems plaguing the coal fields. These educational programs played an important part in the lives of bituminous coal miners. However, when trade union organization finally collapsed under the weight of a massive open shop campaign, even the most elaborate workers' education programs could only temporarily sustain union miners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]