On June 2, 1916, forty mostly immigrant mineworkers at the St. James Mine in Aurora, Minnesota, walked off the job. This seemingly small labor disturbance would mushroom into one of the region’s, if not the nation’s, most contentious and significant battles between organized labor and management in the early twentieth century.

My guest, Gary Kaunoen, is an International Falls labor historian and author of the book “Flames of Discontent: The 1916 Minnesota Iron Ore Strike”. He talks about the origin of the conflict, the Finnish immigrant miners who fought mining company forces with help from the Industrial Workers of the World (aka “The Wobblies”), and how the deadly conflict ultimately ended. 

The author’s University of Minnesota Press page: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/flames-of-discontent

Northern Minnesota’s Labor Wars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AklJBH6SBGA