That reminds me. Anyone here ever hear about the bureaucratized rape in West Virginia coal mining camps back in the day? If a man was injured and couldn’t work his wife could take “Esau scrip” which she would have to pay back with her body. Capitalism! The entire situation is a stark reminder that capitalists wil LITERALLY rape and murder you to protect their position.
“We’ve had multitudes of women and tell us as little girls they remember their mothers coming to the company store and one of the things that a lot of more the lovely ladies had to do was come upstairs. Some of the young girls had the stories shared by their mothers stating that they would be escorted in the shoe room. There would be a selected guard that would be waiting for them and they would receive a brand new pair of shoes with no accountability other than to perform whatever the service the guard wished to have in lieu of pay. We had one woman in particular share with us that her mother was a young girl about 25 years old and bought her first pair of shoes here and the women’s entire life those shoes remained in the shoe box on her closet shelf never to be worn and she refused to wear another pair of shoes her entire life. She made her shoes out of cardboard, newspapers and twine.”
- Joy Lynn, owner and tour guide, Whipple Company Store
Yeah, they don’t teach a lot of things in school. I only know about it because of BtB. The whole episode on The Battle of Blair Mountain is nuts and shows how far the owner class will go to keep people in line.
BtB just did a separate story on the Hawk’s Nest disaster in West Virginia in which they killed thousands of men by knowingly giving them silicosis and covered the whole thing up.
That reminds me. Anyone here ever hear about the bureaucratized rape in West Virginia coal mining camps back in the day? If a man was injured and couldn’t work his wife could take “Esau scrip” which she would have to pay back with her body. Capitalism! The entire situation is a stark reminder that capitalists wil LITERALLY rape and murder you to protect their position.
Somehow that topic didn’t come up in 7th grade WV History class. Going to have to dig into that as it would make a great post.
Edit: JFC, I had no idea this happened. And I live here and have toured the Whipple Company Store (again, in 7th grade).
https://wvpublic.org/what-was-the-esau-scrip/
- Joy Lynn, owner and tour guide, Whipple Company Store
Damn. I don’t even know what to say. That’s so fucked up…
Thank you for sharing a source. I should have done that.
No. Wtf.
Yeah, they don’t teach a lot of things in school. I only know about it because of BtB. The whole episode on The Battle of Blair Mountain is nuts and shows how far the owner class will go to keep people in line.
And current politicians are making it so many other important topics aren’t being taught.
I’m looking at you Florida and Texas…
BtB just did a separate story on the Hawk’s Nest disaster in West Virginia in which they killed thousands of men by knowingly giving them silicosis and covered the whole thing up.