West Virginia

West Virginia is a U.S. state formed in 1863 from counties that separated from Virginia during the Civil War. Its mountainous terrain and coal industry have strongly shaped its history and economy.

Virginia Secession Convention of 1861: A convention that debated Virginia’s response to the Civil War and voted for secession in April 1861. Its secession vote prompted Unionist western Virginians to organize a rival government.
Appalachian Mountains: A mountain system extending across eastern North America from Canada to the southern United States. The Appalachians define much of West Virginia’s terrain and have shaped travel and settlement.
Mother Jones: An Irish-born American labor organizer who campaigned for workers’ rights in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She organized coal miners in West Virginia and became a prominent figure in its labor conflicts.
Battle of Blair Mountain: A 1921 armed conflict in Logan County, West Virginia, between striking coal miners and law-enforcement forces. It was the largest labor uprising in United States history and exposed the coal fields’ deep divisions.
Appalachian coalfield communities: Communities in the Appalachian region whose economies and social life developed around coal mining. Their histories reflect the rise and decline of West Virginia’s dominant extractive industry.
Wheeling Conventions: Two 1861 meetings of western Virginia Unionists that created a government loyal to the United States. They supplied the political institutions that claimed authority to form a new state.
Allegheny Plateau: A dissected plateau region of the Appalachian Highlands extending across parts of the northeastern United States. Its rugged terrain covers much of West Virginia and contains extensive coal deposits.
United Mine Workers of America: A labor union founded in 1890 to represent coal miners in the United States and Canada. Its organizing drives and strikes deeply affected West Virginia coal towns.
Matewan Massacre: A 1920 gunfight in Matewan, West Virginia, between coal miners, townspeople, and company agents. The confrontation became a defining episode in West Virginia’s mine-worker organizing struggle.
Mountaintop removal mining: A surface-mining method that removes mountain summits to expose underlying coal seams. Its use in West Virginia has altered landscapes and fueled disputes over environmental and economic costs.

Linked from 7 pages