Horrors of History: Massacre of the Miners A Novel

The fourth book in the Horrors of History historical fiction series recounts the untold story of the Ludlow Massacre. 

Colorado, 1914. A tent colony of coal miners has been on strike for seven months, bargaining for fair wages and safer working conditions. The Snyder family—Eleven-year-old Frank, his parents, and his four siblings—are doing their best to hold firm with their fellow strikers in the face of threats from the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company. But the simmering threat of violence from the Colorado National Guard and the company strike-breakers grows ever more oppressive. Something terrible is coming soon.

On April 20, 1914, gunfire breaks out in a Colorado tent colony of coal miners on strike. Men, women, and children run for their lives or cower in crude dirt cellars under their tents. In a single day of chaos, six strikers, two women, ten children, and two babies die. These are the facts. But why did it happen? What was it like to be there?

T. Neill Anderson is fascinated—and often horrified—by the countless true tales of America’s past stories. The Horrors of History series are his first books for young readers. He lives and writes in Brooklyn, New York.