The Battle of Blair Mountain, Largest US Labor Uprising: Aug. 25- Sept. 2, 1921

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(4 mins). Wiki, Ed. The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest labor uprising in US history and is the largest armed uprising since the American Civil War. The conflict occurred in Logan County, West Virginia, as part of the Coal Wars, a series of early- 20th c. labor disputes in Appalachia.
For 5 days from late Aug. to early Sept. 1921, some 10,000 armed coal miners confronted 3,000 lawmen and strikebreakers who were backed by coal mine operators during the miners' attempt to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coalfields when tensions rose between workers and mine management.
The battle ended after approximately one million rounds were fired, and the US Army, represented by the West Virginia Army National Guard led by McDowell County native William Eubanks, intervened by presidential order. (Short documentary about the events)...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
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- SCRIP. Miners, loggers and other workers were often paid in company scrip instead of US currency which was used to purchase goods at the local company- owned store. - Wiki. A scrip is any substitute for legal tender. It is often a form of credit. Scrips have been created and used for a variety of reasons, including exploitative payment of employees under truck systems; or for use in local commerce at times when regular currency was unavailable, for example in remote coal towns, military bases, ships on long voyages, or occupied countries in wartime...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrip
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'America’s Company Towns, Then and Now,' Smithsonian Mag., Sept. 4, 2015. - Edit. A look at these small towns across the US shows the good, the bad & the ugly of the industrial boom.
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During the Industrial Revolution, company towns—communities built by businesses—sprouted up across the country. These places ranged from the awful to the enviable. Towns built by coal companies, for example, were often more on the prison camp end of the spectrum in terms of poverty and abuse. Settlements like Hershey, Penn., built by the chocolate company, were meant to be closer to paradise—to woo workers with fancy amenities rather than mistreat them.
Although some businesses offered idyllic-looking settings, a bevy of companies once made more money from swindling their workers than from what they mined or produced.
During the boom in textile, coal, steel and other industries, workers often earned what’s called scrip instead of real money: a kind of credit they couldn’t spend anywhere but the company store, where prices were often higher than elsewhere.
Companies in these places often required that workers live in barebones company housing and send their kids to company-built schools, where the boss’s perspective was king..Company towns in KY and WV were the pits: barebone settlements, harsh conditions, poverty...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/americas-company-towns-then-and-now-180956382/

- The Battle of Blair Mountain 1921, The Great War Series with Jesse Alexander, (22 mins).