Energy Citizenship

Coal and Democracy in the American Century

Trish Kahle

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English

Columbia University Press
29 October 2024

History; History of the Americas; 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000; Social & cultural history; Social classes; Public administration

The history of the modern United States is the history of coal-and of coal miners. Trish Kahle reveals miners as forgers of a coal-fired social contract that was contested throughout the twentieth century as Americans sought to define the meaning of citizenship in an energy-intensive democracy.

Energy Citizenship traces the uncertain relationship between coal and democracy from the Progressive Era to the election of Ronald Reagan, examining how miners' democratic aspirations confronted the deadly record of the country's coal mines. Miners and their communities bore the burdens of energy production while reaping far fewer of the benefits of energy consumption. But they insisted that death in the mines, far from being inevitable, was a political choice. Kahle demonstrates that coal miners' struggles to democratize the workplace, secure civil and social rights, and obtain restitution for the human toll of progress reshaped U.S. laws, regulatory administrations, and political imaginaries. Energy policy in the twentieth century was about not only managing fuels but also negotiating the relationship between coal miners and the rest of the country, which depended on the electric power and steel produced with the coal they mined.

Placing coal miners at the center of a sweeping new history of the United States, this book unmasks the violence of energy systems and shows how energy governance cuts to the heart of persistent questions about democracy, justice, and equality.

By: Trish Kahle
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780231215459
ISBN 10: 0231215452
Pages: 448
Publication Date: 29 October 2024
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Note on Graphic Content Introduction. The Paradox of Coal-Fired Democracy Part I: Forging (1880–1950) 1. Civil War in the Coalfield State 2. National Problem, National Obligation 3. War and Peace Part II: Stasis (1950–1969) First Interlude: Between Deep Time and the Future 4. Atomic Menace 5. An Inherent Danger of Explosion Part III: Renegotiation (1969–1972) Second Interlude: This Total-Energy Dream 6. Walk Out—Before They Carry You Out 7. If Letcher County Was a Pie . . . 8. Jobs, Lives, and Land Part IV: Bounding (1973–1981) Third Interlude: East and West 9. Rights and Obligations 10. A Revolution of Declining Expectations Conclusion. Energy Citizenship in Transition Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Notes Index

Trish Kahle is a historian of energy, work, and politics at Georgetown University Qatar and coleads the Energy Humanities Research Initiative at the Center for International and Regional Studies.

Reviews for Energy Citizenship: Coal and Democracy in the American Century

A marvelous study of coal’s role in fueling the possibilities and limits of modern democratic citizenship. Kahle shows that while coal helped generate new magnitudes of material prosperity, it ultimately failed in its promise to deliver democratic equality. We must learn from coal’s mistakes in our current energy transition. -- Dominic Boyer, author of <i>No More Fossils</i> With analytical rigor and moral courage, Kahle recasts the history of the modern United States by placing coal miners at its center. She shows how miners fueled the industrial nation and, in fighting for rights and protections amid workplace violence, shaped what it meant to be a citizen within it. The result is a powerful account of the contradictions between energy and democracy in America’s coal-fired century. -- Victor Seow, author of <i>Carbon Technocracy</i>