What you're hearing right now is an old newsreel from 1935.

In six small counties in Pennsylvania lie billions of tons of unmined coal.

Mitch Troutman, author of the book The Bootleg Coal Rebellion,

the Pennsylvania miners who seized an industry, plays this footage to start the talks that he gives about his book.

The footage of this newsreel is just incredible. I mean, it's all a reenactment.

These are bootleg miners, and as far as I know, those are cops in it, who had a confrontation just a few months prior to the newsreel showing up

and wanting to do this little spot that ends up being six minutes shown across the country in theaters.

Long before federal and state governments began handing out billions of dollars for relief, these people found a way to help themselves.

Bootleg mining is a phenomenon that started before the Great Depression, but became commonplace in

coal country after the stock market crash of 1929, sent the economy into chaos, and mines started

closing down. Without any jobs, money, or ways to heat their homes, the miners started independently

working the mines. But one industry that actually did well during the Depression was movie theaters.

And this newsreel about bootleg miners would have been shown to board and unemployed movie audiences across the country.

Because people were eager to spend a little bit of money to forget about things.

And, you know, having audio with your video was somewhat new.

So the bootleggers got to go watch themselves on film.

You see them coming out of the hills, coming out of their own bootleg holes.

It looks really wild.

When depression deepened, the miners went a step further.

You see them rallying at a meeting of bootleg miners.

You even see a negotiation between them and the company

hosted by the editor of the local newspaper.

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