William C. Blizzard

Image rights: PM Press

When Miners March isbn: 9781604864106 (EPUB) 9781604864113 (MOBI) formats: epub mobi published: 09/2010 pages: 408 price: 12.00 euros

William C. Blizzard was born in 1916, son of Bill and Rae Blizzard. He died in 2009 at the age of 92. William’s father was the Union’s legendary hero of the Battle of Blair Mountain and this quirk of fate would both bless and curse his entire existence. He attended West Virginia University but always regarded his time there as time spent at a school meant for the offspring of operators rather than miners. Moving to New York, he attended Columbia and studied journalism and photography. These were to be his trades throughout his life. He held numerous jobs but lost more than a few due to what he identified as FBI interference--and likely a few more due to his own progressive beliefs. In the early 1950s, he worked for Labor’s Daily, a labor paper published in Charleston, West Virginia. It was while at this job that he completed years of work on his magnum opus: Struggle and Lose, Struggle and Win! The work, a history of the early struggles by miners for decent working conditions, was published in Labor’s Daily in serial form. Unfortunately, the paper had a policy that staff writers did not get bylines. Three days after publication, this unsigned work was wrapping dead fish and unavailable to later researchers.

Until the publication of When Miners March in 2005, William C. Blizzard was best known as a writer/photographer for the Charleston Gazette. His Sunday features are remembered to this day as highlighting the best of West Virginia. As fate--or genetics--would have it, he was fired in the early 70s for refusing to cross a picket line. The next three decades would see tight finances and declining health until in 2004 he was found by Wess Harris and a partnership was born. The first edition of When Miners March became real in 2005 and William C. Blizzard enjoyed recognition more than a half century after it was deserved. He was featured on the History Channel and delighted in autographing his books--the last few months from his bed in a nursing home.