Smoldering Fire on the Mountain: The Wider Context of the Battle of Blair Mountain

Smoldering Fire on the Mountain: The Wider Context of the Battle of Blair Mountain

Oral - Textual or Investigative

The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest labor uprising in American history, and the climactic end to the West Virginia Coal Wars. Most modern scholars focus on the events in the year leading up to the battle. This is understandable, as a gunfight between a union-sympathizing sheriff and company-back detectives is a thrilling event to begin a book or journal article with and acts as a good starting point to explain year-long escalation that ended with the military being called in to put down the uprising. However, the West Virginia Coal Wars were not simply those events leading up to the Battle of Blair Mountain, but the final chapter of a decade long labor dispute. Furthermore, the largest labor uprising in American history only took place because of the second largest labor uprising, the First West Virginia Coal War, which occurred a decade prior. During that conflict, the miners took up arms, killed several company employees, and still managed to garner mostly positive consequences for themselves and their union. This paper aims to show that the Battle of Blair Mountain only occurred because a precedent had been set that violence was a viable way for miners to get their demands met.