History Commons^™

"The Bottom Would Drop Out Of Everything": A Brief History Of The Battle For Blair Mountain, Brandon Neely

Student Publications

In the summer of 1921, thousands of Appalachian miners took up arms and marched in southwest West Virginia. Fighting back against attacks on miners' unions like the United Mine Workers of America, the conflict quickly turned violent. The Battle for Blair Mountain, as it came to be known, was one of the largest labor strikes in American history and impacted the history of the Coal Wars and the United States for decades to come. This analysis uses interviews with people who experienced the battle as well as the speeches of labor leaders Samuel Gompers and John Lewis to discuss the …