Mainstream media, African-American periodicals, labor press, and first red scare strikes: how a big business and government helped to undermine labor

This thesis examines how and why the media, in the form of newspaper and journal editors, reacted to labor agitation during the First Red Scare. It examines mainstream, African-American, and labor media and focuses on the degree of similarity and difference in their response. After a study of papers and journals such as the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Crisis, The Messenger, and The American Federationist, this thesis argues that mainstream newspapers, owned by wealthy people who wanted to protect their property, represented big businesses. Working hand-in-hand with the national government, these periodicals opposed labor agitation and characterized such activity as radical and foreign. African-American and labor press struggled to find a consensus viewpoint in this frenetic period.