Epilogue

Abstract This last chapter looks at what happened to both Roche and Rockefeller after they left the coal industry. Rockefeller took on a very public proxy fight to oust the Chairman of Standard Oil of Indiana, who he believed was corrupt and ruining the reputation of the Standard Oil brand, and by proxy the Rockefeller name. Roche left government and the coal industry and spent the remainder of her career work with John Lewis and the United Mine Workers Retirement Fund. Roche never gave up on her efforts to improve the lives of America’s miners. The issues that Roche and Rockefeller faced in managing their workers, as well as the hurdles miners faced to improve their lives, still plague American workers today. A Workplace of Their Own sheds light on how these issues formed over the course of the twentieth century, and hopefully, also provides insight into how to improve the current American workplace.