Bloody Williamson: a chapter in American lawlessness
by Paul M. Angle
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Description
This is a horror story of native American violence. It carries a grim lesson for the whole country. Political doctrines have played no part in the violence and murder that have brought much ill fame to one corner of Illinois. On the map, Williamson is just another county. But in history it is a place in which a strange disease has raged for more than eighty years'a disease marked by a pathological tendency to settle differences by force. Fascinated by this, Paul M. Angle, the well-known show more historian, set out to discover what really had happened. Through enormous research he has been able to reconstruct the whole story in all its horrible, scarifying detail. Using the best techniques of reportage, without editorializing, without subjective coloration, he has produced a narrative beyond imagination. It begins with the "Bloody Vendetta," a feud that rampaged in the 1870s. It deals with labor's success in organizing coal mines in southern Illinois, an affair that twice blew up in violence. It covers the Herrin Massacre of 1922'perhaps the most shocking episode in the history of organized labor in this country'and the subsequent trials. The Ku Klux Klan provides material for four chapters that come to a climax in a fatal duel between the Klan and its opponents. And it ends with the story of the gang war between Charlie Birger and the Shelton brothers. It is a tale to shake the most phlegmatic reader. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
This is one of the "histories" that often get overlooked by people with sentimental views of a former golden age before the handbaskets; it was Hell back then too.
Hard to believe it's non-fiction. I think the word "gripping" applies.
A wonderful read in the turbulent history of a Southern Illinois county.
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Author Information
70+ Works 1,590 Members
Series
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Bloody Williamson: a chapter in American lawlessness
- Original publication date
- 1952; 1992 (University of Illinois edition with new Introduction by John Y. Simon) (University of Illinois edition with new Introduction by John Y. Simon)
- People/Characters
- Carl Shelton; Charlie Birger; Carlos E. Black; Arlie O. Boswell; Samuel T. Brush; Delos Duty (show all 16); George Galligan; DeWitt T. Hartwell; Samuel N. Hunter; Angus W. Kerr; Joseph Leiter; Art Newman; Conrad Ritter; Earl Shelton; Fred Wooten; S. Glenn Young
- Important places
- Williamson County, Illinois, USA; Carterville, Illinois, USA; Herrin, Illinois, USA; Zeigler, Illinois, USA
- Important events
- Herrin Massacre
- Epigraph
- Socialism, communism, and other doctrines have played no part in the violence and murder which have brought such ill fame to this "queen of Egypt." The issues are strictly American, and the wrongs done are native products of ... (show all)the United States.
William L. Chenery in The Century,
December 1924. - First words
- INTRODUCTION [to the 1992 edition by John Y. Simon]
Paul M. Angle's Bloody Williamson has sold briskly for forty years and never disappointed readers.
FOREWORD
My interest in the subject of this book started with the Herrin Massacre. - Disambiguation notice
- UK title: Resort to Violence
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 331.89 — Society, government, & culture Economics Labor economics Labor unions, labor-management bargaining and disputes Labour-management bargaining and disputes
- LCC
- HD8039 .M62 .U612 — Social sciences Industries. Land use. Labor Industries. Land use. Labor Labor. Work. Working class By industry or trade
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 87
- Popularity
- 369,674
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (4.05)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 2
