Bill Blizzard, Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney: Leaders of the West Virginia Mine Wars

Frank Keeney in 1922, during the treason trials in Charles Town, West Virginia. Library of Congress.

Bill Blizzard

Bill Blizzard was born in 1892 into a staunchly pro-union mining family.

• His father supported the United Mine Workers (UMW) — the nation's main miners' union in the late 1800s and early 1900s — from its early years in the state, and was blacklisted from the mines for it.
• 1902: despite their own hardship, the family backed striking miners, and young Bill trapped game for families forced to live in tent camps.
• 1912–1913: during the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek Strike, his mother, Sarah Blizzard, led a group of women who tore up the train tracks after the deadly night of the Bull Moose Special — an armored train from which mine operators fired machine guns into a strikers' tent colony.
• The man: according to historian James Green, Blizzard followed his parents and became an active union member at ten. Some thought him too rash, but the teetotaling Blizzard won miners' and organizers' respect for his maturity and dedication to the cause.

Frank Keeney

Frank Keeney was president of UMW District 17 from 1916 to 1924.

• Childhood in the mines: born into a farming family in Cabin Creek in 1882, he was taken out of school by his widowed mother, in financial trouble, and sent to the mines at ten. For eleven hours a day he worked as a trapper boy, sitting in the dark to open and close tunnel doors for the miners.
• Politics: the mines made him an avid socialist and a staunch unionist.
• The mine wars: he took part in every major event of the West Virginia mine wars (1912–1921), starting with the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek Strike, when he formed a strong but ill-fated friendship with the famous organizer Mother Jones.
• Indicted: though nowhere near the fighting at Blair Mountain, his union role led to his indictment after the march. Like the other defendants, he faced several charges, and each ended in acquittal or dismissal.

Fred Mooney in 1922, during the treason trials in Charles Town, West Virginia. Library of Congress.

Fred Mooney

Fred Mooney was born in 1888 in Kanawha County and, like his father, became a miner young.

• Company town: after marrying at twenty, he moved into a company town and saw its exploitation firsthand — his family was evicted from company housing when he was caught looking into work at another mine.
• First fight: like Keeney and Blizzard, he first joined the labor unrest during the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek Strike.
• Taking over: afterward, a bitter feud split District 17 between its conservative leaders and pro-democracy socialists such as Mooney and Keeney. With the national UMW's backing, a 1916 election made Keeney president and Mooney secretary-treasurer.

More: Resources on the West Virginia Mine Wars.

Sources

Based on "Major Labor Figures of the West Virginia Mine Wars," West Virginia Mine Wars series, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. An undated group photograph from the West Virginia & Regional History Center is not reproduced.