As most of you know, the (Re)covering Appalachia Symposium was held over this past weekend. It began on Thursday, October 31st and continued until 10:00 P.M. on Saturday, November 2nd with a variety of sessions regarding the “Digital Age” of Appalachia. There were two sessions where each presenter had something to offer about Appalachia.

The first session was Session 7.1: Playing the Labor History Card: Mine Wars in the K-12 Curriculum. This session was presented by Beth Toren, a professor from West Virginia University. Everyone in attendance to this session was asked, “In K-12, were the mine wars ever taught?” Most of the attendee’s answers varied from “not at all” to “very little.”

They proceeded on to discuss one of West Virginia’s “biggest” massacres that occurred in 1920. This was “The Battle of Matewan” (also known as the Matewan Massacre), where several detectives and miners had a shootout.

The pictures below explain the events leading up to and following the Matewan Massacre. The last picture is the “Golden Horseshoe Quiz”, a small card with eight questions and the smaller cards explaining the events, giving key clues to answer the given questions.

The instructor stated she is in the midst of making a card game out of these, and in the works of making an app as most people own a cellphone and enjoy playing games on their mobile devices.

Gallery • 5 Photos

Ashley Neice