Biography
Joseph Tracz was one of the union miners imprisoned at the West Virginia penitentiary in Moundsville after the July 1922 battle at the Cliftonville mine — a clash during the great coal strike in which striking union miners marched on a scab-run Panhandle mine and the county sheriff was killed. Around forty-nine men were convicted of conspiracy; Joseph Tracz was sentenced to 8 years. The ILD's Labor Defender profiled the Cliftonville prisoners in October 1926, shortly before most of the group were released. The spelling of the miners' names follows that source.
1920s release review: The September 17, 1926 dispatch identifies Joe Tracz as the remaining prisoner. The 1929 retrospective likewise explicitly excludes Joseph Tracz from the other named miners released in 1926. The unsupported October 1926 release field is therefore cleared. Neither account supplies his eventual release date. Sources: Daily Worker, September 19, 1926 scan, page 2, dispatch dated September 17; Daily Worker, August 14, 1929, page 6. Arrest and exact prison-admission dates remain unresolved.
