FIRE IN THE HOLE BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION GUIDE The protagonist, Alex MacFarlane, is loosely based on an actual woman. Discuss her role as an attorney and its effect as shown in the novel. How does the role of women today compare with women in 1913? What was the relationship between Alex MacFarlane and Maria Ferrera? What did women in the coal camps do that had an impact on the strike? What was the relationship between management and labor in 1913? How does it compare to today? What role, if any, did politics play in the novel? RESEARCH NOTES On September 29, 1913, a strike was called against the coal mine owners in the rich southern fields of Colorado. Earlier strikes had failed, but the United Mine Workers of America believed this one would succeed. And on that rainy, cold September day 12,000 men speaking 23 different languages and their families walked out of the coal camps, most owned by the Rockefellers, to live in tents for more than a year. Seven months later, the night after Greek Easter, 1914, soldiers from the Colorado National Guard surrounded the Ludlow tent camp, set up a machine gun and opened fire. By morning, survivors sifted through the ashes and discovered twenty-five women and as many children dead. History now knows the tragedy as the Ludlow Massacre. News of the Massacre hit the international front pages. A Congressional investigation was called. Extensive hearings were held. Yet it wasn't until the 1930s during the Roosevelt Administration that the Wagner Act was passed, legalizing the 8-hour day and requiring workers be paid in legal tender rather than company script. A memorial to those who died in the Massacre erected on the site is located directly off Interstate 25, 17 miles north of Trinidad, Colorado.