Harlan County, USA

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Harlan County, USA

Directed by	Barbara Kopple
Produced by	Barbara Kopple
Release date(s)	October 18, 1976
Running time	103 min
Language	English
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Harlan County, USA is a 1976 documentary film documenting the efforts of 180 coal miners on strike in Harlan County, Kentucky in 1974. It was directed by Barbara Kopple, who has long been an advocate of workers' rights. Harlan County, U.S.A. is less ambivalent in its attitude toward unions than her later American Dream, the account of the Hormel Foods strike in Austin, Minnesota in 1985-1986.

Kopple and her crew spent years with the families depicted in the film, documenting the dire straits they find themselves in while striking for safer working conditions, fair labor practices, and decent wages: following them to picket in front of the stock exchange in New York, filming interviews with people affected by black lung disease, and even catching an attempted murder on tape.

The most significant point of disagreement in the Harlan County strike was the company's insistance on including a no-strike clause in the contract.[1] The miners were concerned that accepting such a provision in the agreement would limit their influence over local working conditions. The sticking point was mooted when, a few years after this strike, the UMWA folded the agreement that was eventually won by this group of workers into a global contract.

The central figure in the documentary is Lois Scott, a firebrand who plays a major role in galvanizing the community in support of the strike. Several times she is seen publicly chastising those whom she feels have been absent from the picket lines. In one scene, Scott pulls a pistol from her bra and earns a comparison to bra-burning Women's Liberation activists by associate director Anne Lewis in the film's 2004 Criterion Collection special feature The Making of Harlan County, USA.

The film won the 1976 Academy Award for Documentary Feature and has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. The events were dramatized in the 2000 TV movie Harlan County War.