Arnold Miller
| Arnold Miller | |
|---|---|
| Born |
April 25, 1923 Leewood, West Virginia, U.S. |
| Died | July 12, 1985 (aged 62) Charleston, West Virginia, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Miner; Labor leader |
| Known for | President, United Mine Workers of America |
Arnold Miller (April 25, 1923 – July 12, 1985) was a miner and labor activist who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), AFL-CIO, from 1972 to 1979.
Miller was born in Leewood, West Virginia, a small town in the Cabin Creek area east of Charleston. His mother was the former Lula Burgess Hoy. Miller's father, George, had gone to work in the coal mines at the age of 9 in Bell County, Kentucky. At the age of 14, George Miller was forced to leave Kentucky by thugs employed by the mine owners because of his union activism.
When the mine owners broke the UMWA locals in the Cabin Creek area in 1921, Miller's father and maternal grandfather were blacklisted and unable to find work. Although Miller's mother was pregnant, his father George took a job in Fayette County working for the Gauley Mountain Coal Company (where he became president of the local miners' union). However, the strain proved too much on the marriage and Miller's parents divorced.
Arnold Miller was subsequently raised by his mother and maternal grandparents. His grandfather, Joseph Hoy, had been president of one of the early local miners' unions in the Cabin Creek area. But rather than follow in his grandfather's and father's footsteps, Miller wanted to attend college and become a forester. Limited income and economic opportunities led Miller to quit school after completing the ninth grade. At the age of 14 in 1939, he got a job loading coal in a local coal mine (where his grandfather worked as a miner). The Cabin Creek area had been the site of the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike of 1912, and Miller became a Mine Workers member. It was a dangerous time to be a unionist in West Virginia: Private security forces from the Baldwin-Felts detective agency outnumbered miners three to one, and had standing orders to break up any group of three or more miners wherever they were -- often beating or shooting miners as well.
In 1944, Miller volunteered for the United States Army. He was trained as a machine-gunner, and severely wounded in the Normandy invasion of Europe in World War II (most of one ear was shot away). He spent nearly two years in the hospital and underwent surgery 20 times.
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