In the depths of the Great Depression, as rifle fire echoed through Harlan County’s hollows, a four‑page weekly tabloid fanned the flames of war. The Harlan Torch, financed by the coal operators it championed, turned ink into ammunition—painting striking miners as foreign “Reds” and Sheriff J. H. Blair as a defender of God, country, and coal.
Coal, Crisis, and Class Conflict
A 10 percent wage cut in February 1931 plunged already‑impoverished miners deeper into crisis. When thousands walked out, operators evicted families from company houses and black‑listed union sympathizers. The standoff exploded on May 5 1931 in the Battle of Evarts, leaving three deputies and one miner dead. Governor Flem Sampson dispatched troops, but the violence—and the organizing—only intensified.
The conservative UMW’s hold slipped during the spring walk‑outs; in June 1931 the Communist‑affiliated National Miners Union (NMU) moved in and chartered ten lodges before winter repression forced it underground. In their place came the Communist‑affiliated National Miners Union (NMU), whose arrival in June 1931 terrified Harlan’s mine owners even more than falling coal prices. Into this cauldron the operators poured a new weapon: control of the printed word.
Birth of a Propaganda Sheet
In July 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators’ Association bankrolled The Harlan Torch. Distributed every Friday—often free at company stores and train depots—the tabloid ensured that even the most remote camps heard the operators’ voice. Its pages branded striking miners as criminals, smeared outside investigators, and sanctified “law‑and‑order” deputies, many of whom were simply mine guards wearing hastily pinned badges.
One surviving broadsheet reprinted by the Dreiser Committee vowed to ‘defend Americanism against Bolshevism.’— Torch editorial, August 1931.
Inside the Pages: “Red Terror in the Hills”
Red‑Baiting on Repeat
Every edition preached that unionization equalled communism. The banner series “Red Terror in the Hills” warned rural readers of Soviet plots masquerading as wage demands. Headlines shrieked: “COMMUNIST INVASION OF OUR COALFIELDS!”
Naming and Shaming
Strike leaders, sympathetic preachers, and even women who ran miners’ soup kitchens found their names printed in bold. In a county where dynamite and deputations settled arguments, such exposure was life‑threatening.
One‑Eyed Journalism
Gun thugs employed by the companies became “volunteer deputies.” Raids on miners’ tents were “protective patrols.” When deputies opened fire, the Torch called it self‑defense; when miners shot back, it was an insurrection.
Incendiary Prose
Hyperbole turned class conflict into holy war. Union men were “atheists,” “foreign agents,” and “bomb‑throwers,” while Sheriff Blair and the operators styled themselves patriots preserving the mountains from chaos.
Weaponizing Information: How the Torch Shaped the War
The Torch legitimized violence by portraying every picket line as a communist uprising, thereby providing cover for armed crackdowns, mass arrests on charges of “criminal syndicalism,” and vigilante assaults. Its public branding of alleged “reds” intensified fear of eviction, blacklisting, and social ostracism, dampening local clergy support and fracturing neighborhood solidarity. When national figures—such as Theodore Dreiser’s 1932 writers’ committee—arrived, the paper hurried to dismiss them as dupes of Moscow, hoping to sour public opinion before outside reports reached Kentucky readers.
A 1935 Kentucky Investigating Commission found that “in Harlan County there exists a virtual reign of terror, financed in general by a group of coal‑mine operators in collusion with certain public officials.”
National Spotlight and the Limits of Spin
Despite the Torch’s bluster, famine wages and bullet‑scarred roofs told their own story. Roosevelt’s New Deal and Section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act (June 1933) suddenly protected collective bargaining. Miners flooded back to the UMW organizers signed roughly 5,000 cards by November 1933, half the county’s workforce.
That autumn, Sheriff Blair—pillar of the anti‑union alliance—lost re‑election to pro‑labor candidate T. R. Middleton. Deprived of its patron and facing a union tide it could no longer intimidate, The Harlan Torch appears to have ceased publication by late 1933.
Decline, Defeat, and a Propaganda Legacy
The paper did not prevent Harlan’s eventual unionization, but for two pivotal years it delayed labor gains, justified repression, and illustrated the feudal power that allowed company owners to silence dissent. When Congress investigated coalfield civil liberties in 1937, testimony about the Torch underscored how media can serve as a bludgeon in class warfare. Today, the publication survives only in brittle clippings—yet its lessons about propaganda, power, and poverty resonate far beyond Harlan’s creeks.
Sources and Further Reading
Harlan Miners Speak: Report on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields. Prepared by the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1932.
Governor’s Commission to Investigate Conditions in Harlan County. Final Report. Frankfort, KY: State of Kentucky, 1935.
U.S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor. Hearings Pursuant to S. Res. 266, Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor. 74th Cong., 2d sess., Part 14 (April 1937).
United States, National Industrial Recovery Act, Pub. L. 73‑67, § 7(a), 48 Stat. 195 (16 June 1933).
Hevener, John W. Which Side Are You On? The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931‑39. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978. dokumen.pub
Virginia Commonwealth University Social Welfare History Project. “Harlan Miners and the Red Scare” Online Archive.
Kelly, Kim. Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor. New York: Atria/One Signal Publishers, 2022.
University of Kentucky Appalachian Center. “Red Terror in the Hills” Digital Document Collection.
Author Note: [Blank]