Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-2004

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Communication

Major Professor

Dwight Teeter

Committee Members

Paul Ashdown, Ed Caudill

Abstract

The coal strike in Alabama, especially in Birmingham, Cullman, and Jasper during January and February 1921, have not been studied. In the early 1900s, newspapers were generally the only sources of information and news for people, both in rural and urban areas. The coal strikes during this time were some of the bloodiest in Alabama history. Beatings, lynchings, and murders of strikers were common. Strikebreakers, or scabs, also were abused. While northern Alabama farmers were treated worse than others because union miners felt the farmers were taking their jobs only out of spite. Some simply disappeared and later were presumed to be murdered. The Alabama National Guard was called in by Governor Thomas E. Kilby to put down and prevent the violence.

The Birmingham News, Birmingham Age-Herald, Birmingham Post (all Jefferson County), The Mountain Eagle (Jasper, Walker County), Cullman Tribune and Cullman Democrat (both Cullman, Cullman County) were each examined for coverage of the coal strikes in January and February 1921.

Questions examined in this research were: 1) How were the coal strikes in January and February 1921 in Cullman, Jefferson, and Walker counties in Alabama covered in the mainstream press rather than in labor advocacy newspapers in the city of Birmingham and the smaller surrounding towns of Cullman and Jasper?; and 2) Were the strikes covered similarly in the urban Birmingham newspapers as in the rural Cullman and Jasper newspapers?

Some of the newspapers covered the strikes, while others did not. Coverage of a trial of National Guardsmen who lynched a man taken out of jail in Jasper usually made the front-page more than the general coverage of the strikes. If the strikes were so terrible, and violence so common, then why were the strikes not discussed more in the newspapers?

The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Palmer Raids and other issues more than likely influenced the “society of fear” in Alabama in 1921. The newspapers, as well as the general public probably had suspicions about labor unions and revolts and feared the same would happen in America as in Russia in 1917. These issues, along with other racial and labor animosities added to the lack of coverage of the coal strikes in Alabama in January and February 1921.

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