Company Propaganda

9/21/1921 Front Page of The Greenbrier Independent

Three articles to observe:
In a Nut Shell.
All Quiet in Warzone.
The Reds are Active.

One of the ways the coal companies tried to prevent unions from forming in West Virginia was by manipulating the media. This can be seen in the following text which is part of a column from the Sept. 9, 1921 issue of the The Greenbrier Independent newspaper. The newspaper discusses the battle of Blair Mountain, but as you read down the column you can see that the articles shift from the coverage of Blair Mountain to an article on the spread of communism in America. Comparing unionizing to concepts like communism, or labeling unions as "unamerican" were some of the ways the coal companies tried to prevent unions from forming. This was so common in central Appalachia during the 1920s and 30s that the word "redneck" was used to describe a communist.