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Comment by bombcar | Hacker News Reader

The railway heyday in the US was famous for this, extremely high wages at the time, but company town, company store, and miles and miles from anywhere. Few were able to come out the other end much better off.

  You load 16 tons, what do you get?
  Another day older and deeper in debt
  St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
  I owe my soul to the company store

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Coal also. Lead to things like Blair mountain[0], where poison gas bombs from WWI were dropped on American workers, in America.

There's four boxes.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

Thank you. Most people haven't heard of this (even in KY/WV), which is odd, being one of the few instances where the military was used against citizens, helping illustrate that labor is to remain docile when abused.

There are a handful of regional books detailing the mine wars (Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields, The WV Coal Wars/more elementary and Robert Shogan's The Battle of Blair Mountain) that are worth checking out. PBS (American Experience?) also had a 2 hour special a few years back that focused on WV and Mother Jones that was worth watching.

Soap box, ballot box, jury box, and cartridge box?

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