Storming Heaven

2 Pages 557 Words

Industrialization brought about many changes to the people of Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. The work place changed dramatically. Before factories and big offices there were things such as farms, people working in barns, merchants, and artisans. People were beginning to work outside the home and an agricultural society had a lot more value than working at home did.
Most of the factories were built in the cities and this brought a lot of immigrants to the United States. Not only were immigrants involved but women as well.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries almost all of the land of West Virginia was taken over by coal companies. If people didn’t sell their land they were forced to without knowing what consequences laid in front of them. The coal companies had control of almost every aspect of life. In the novel Storming Heaven the lives of many individuals are drastically changed. You really get a sense of what it was like to actually live the lives that these people did. The novel starts out in Justice and Payne counties which are under the rule of Sheriff Don Chafin. He is working with the coal mines and prohibits the right to organize which keeps unions out of the countries. This is where the lives of these four characters unfold.
C.J. Marcum is the first character that is introduced. He sees the evil schemes of the coal companies in their efforts to take the land. “I was proud of it. My papaw, Henry Marcum, had refused the sign the paper giving the minerals to the railroad. Still he was scared.” (pg.4). You can feel the irony of how it felt for these people to stand up for what they believed in. You can also feel the terror of losing their land.
The next character introduced is Rondal Lloyd. Rondal is a smart boy who enters the coal mining with his father at a young age. Rondal and C.J’s paths cross when they join together to go against the coal mining companies. “American Coal Company ow...