Ladies Auxiliary of Local 890, Mine Mill and Smelter

Grant County · NM Highway 152 -- mile marker 2.3380000000000001 -- Hanover-Fierro Intersection, southeast corner

After eight failed negotiating sessions and the expiration of their labor contract, Mexican-American workers at the nearby Empire Zinc mine struck for wage and benefit equality. When an injunction prohibited union members from picketing, the women—wives, mothers, sisters and daughters—took the union workers’ places on the line. The “striking” women persevered despite life threatening situations, violence, incarceration and tension at home. Their determination made national news and resulted in the popular documentary film, Salt of the Earth. These courageous women not only survived in solidarity until the strike ended, but they commanded recognition as well as respect.

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Marker data: Official Scenic Historic Markers program, New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, Department of Cultural AffairsMarker texts come from the Division’s published marker spreadsheet, reproduced with the Division’s written permission. Where that spreadsheet records a coordinate, the pin is the Division’s own; where it records only a highway and mile marker, an address, a junction or a named place, or where its coordinate contradicts its own highway, mile and county, the pin is ours, resolved on public road and place data and marked approximate.

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