The Ludlow Massacre

A lot more than 2,000 miles separated the Rockefeller estate from Southern Colorado when on Monday April 20, 1914, the first shot was fired at Ludlow. One of history’s most dramatic confrontations between capital and labor — the so-called Ludlow Massacre — took place at the mines of the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I).

The face-off raged for 14 hours, during which the miners’ tent colony was pelted with machine gun fire and ultimately torched by the state militia. A number of people were killed, among them two women and 11 children who suffocated in a pit they had dug under their tent. The deaths were blamed on John D. Rockefeller, Jr. For years, he would struggle to redress the situation — and strengthen the Rockefeller social conscience in the process.

Contemporary voices provide a rare window into the divide that separated the Rockefellers from some of the harsh realities tiedto their business decisions. They powerfully illustrate the clashing viewpoints that were at the heart of the crisis and shed light on Rockefeller’s ultimate transformation.