Figure 1. Ludlow Massacre – Tent Colony.[1] Photograph 1914. No photographer credit. From Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library. http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10060350+X-60350
When I look at old pictures from Colorado, out of context, with a few words set-typed below, I often wonder what is the rest of the story. How can I know this person? What did they go through to be photograph at that moment? But, no matter how much I wonder the stories of their plight is untenable, unobtainable, and unfixable by time and space. I cannot go back in time and fix her trauma. However, in the figure 1 photograph, haunted me, something about the woman and the image surrounding her and behind her made me wonder who she was. The life she must have had and what stuck out for me was the transitory nature and the feel of oppression. The image came from the United Mine Workers for America strike camp in 1914 it reminded me of a couple things from Killing for Coal.[2] First the cover of the book where the men are standing around and the second was about resources being used and how America fuel resources was being changed over from wood to coal. Of course, this was happening over a period of years, yet the image reminded me how fragile living conditions were and the woman reminded of a time when energy resources were dependent on the sun.[3] The tent colony was a place of working people trying to bring Colorado and America into modernity. The picture, according to the information from the Western History/Genealogy Department of the Denver Public Library, was from 1914 collection in regards to the UMWA strike after the Ludlow Massacre. It does not specify how soon afterwards, but it does show the conditions of the camp. Her imaged haunted and made me curious to do more research. The place looks to be in transition. She seems to be in a liminal state of loss. Wondering what is next for her and her family? The snow for me signified a barrier, and given enough time, one knows it would melt away. This strikes a metaphor in mind, in that, piling up of the snow, represented a “boom,” but once gone a “bust.” She looks haggard and tired, yet there is something more, the faces of the men and others are blurred. They have no features. And, this brings me to a point. Her features are barely discernible. The strike camp, where the Ludlow Massacre occurred is barely discernible. It is a picture that indicates distance and yet proximity to the heart of the devastation of change to labor and company relations set the future course for Colorado. As put forth by Andrews’ at the end of his second chapter, citing a Greek immigrant “The earth has been transformed …. And I ride the wave to survive.”[4]
It is the soul, where some believe, that the transition of oneself truly begins. In this picture of a burial, I am nostalgic for a time that I perceive as simpler and less complex. But, the truth of the matter, when clarity comes to my mind, I know with certainty it was not. I see this image and take note what is missing. I wonder where the horse is, and I speculate, in this recreated image, is this a time before Euro-Americans came to the plains? Is this a time before the Spanish came to the pueblos, before the Conquistadors sword broke the Native American’s spirit, and this a time before the horse returned? Or is this a time, layed before the transition of one’s spirit, before the night sky, simply a family gathering of a tragic loss? This is the image that came to my mind’s eye as I viewed the picture. In the book by Carl Abbott, Stephen J. Leonard, and Thomas J. Noel, Colorado –A History of the Centennial State, they document how the Anasazi, the ancient pueblos lived in Colorado.[7] After contact with Euro-Americans, life on the plains changed, and the nomadic tradition of the tribes was even more ephemeral than before; the permanency of the existence could only be measured by trade with the first pioneers, the mountain men, and fur traders.[8] The plains for Native American’s lifeways changed and the introduction of the horse changed the way they interacted with one another and the way they interacted with their environment and the energy within the context of their environment.[9] The image of the burial reminds me then of a simpler time and unification of spirit. The burial of our energy sources human, agriculture, horse, and even coal were all products of solar energy. Think of coal as fossilized solar energy. At any rate, the returning of the body to the sun to be burn in the blazing heat of the day, for me, a symbolic gesture. As Carl Sagan, oft said, “We are star stuff” and the family sitting under the burial waiting for the next day’s light are taking shelter in their ancestors presence seemingly waiting for the transition of tomorrow.
Abbott, Carl, Stephen J. Leonard, Thomas J. Noel, Colorado –A History of the Centennial State, (Boulder, Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 2005), 12-13.
Ludlow Massacre – Tent Colony. Photograph 1914. No photographer credit. From Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library. http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10060350+X-60350
Plains Indian Burial. Photograph 1940 – 1960. Photograph. No photographer credit. From Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library. http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10033695+X-33695
Poley, H. S., photographer. “Prospector, West Creek District.” Photograph 1900? From H. S. Poley Collection, http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00172578+P-2578.
[1] This photograph was taken in 1914. It was part of the Ludlow Massacre. No photographer was credited.
[2] Thomas G Andrew, Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor, (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2008), 27-49.
[6] Eliot West, The Contested Plains – Indians, Goldseekers & the Rush to Colorado, (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1996), 98, 144-170.
