John Mitchell the Miners Champion 1903 solo xmas tree Franz Sigel 19th Century —

Franz Sigel 19th Century — the German-born Union general rendered in the formal idiom of his adopted republic

and the brick canyons of Market Street where penny postcards once moved faster than the trolleys

when the outcome of the wager was at last no longer in doubt

the kind of likeness commissioned when a surname had already become an industry

rendered in the gaunt geometry of a man who had read too many casualty lists

John Mitchell the Miners Champion 1903 solo xmas tree Franz Sigel 19th Century —John Mitchell the Miners Champion 1903 a tribute portrait to the United Mine Workers president who faced down the anthracite coal operators, rendered in the sober reverence reserved for labor's saints in an age when industrial confidence still believed it could be answered. About the Source Bella Frye sources artifacts from the great American historical archive the Library of Congress, the National Archives, regional historical societies, and the