'' Harlan County , USA '' is a 1976 documentary film covering the " Brookside Strike " , an effort of 180 coal miners and their wives against the Duke Power Company-owned Eastover Coal Company 's Brookside Mine and Prep Plant in Harlan County , southeast Kentucky in 1973 . Directed and produced 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 - – 86 . It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 49th Academy Awards
49th Academy Awards
49th Academy Awards
Harlan County, USA