Introduction

Abstract This Introduction provides a thematic and chronological overview of the book. It begins by describing the industrial landscape of Colorado’s mining areas, both how they look today and how they might have looked in the early part of the twentieth century. It then provides an overview of the main characters of this book: John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Josephine Roche, and the Colorado coal miners and their families. Finally, the Introduction lays out the four Progressive reforms that attempted to achieve industrial peace in the Colorado coalfields: local producerism, business sovereignty, summit arbitration, and maternalism.