The Amazon Army

The women’s march of 1921 epitomizes the spirit of the Kansas Balkans, an area known for its rich cultural heritage and turbulent strike-ridden history. On December 12 of that year, 3,000 (by some reports up to 6,000) women—wives and other female relatives of striking miners—marched from the Miner’s Hall in Franklin, Kansas, to the coal fields of Crawford County in an attempt to stop scab miners (replacement workers) from reporting to work. The protest caused the governor to send a troop of Kansas cavalry to stop the marchers and made headlines across the nation. They were known as the “Amazon Army.”
There was absolutely no fear in these women’s hearts. Like the lion they would face and fight anything bare handed—no weapon of any kind—they would face the militia—their only throught was something must be done so that their little ones would have food, something to wear in the cold, even though they might meet death at the hands of the militia.
—from Mary Skubitz’s Journal,
December 15, 1921