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Newspaper The People's Voice (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969

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About The People's Voice (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969

The People’s Voice was a weekly newspaper founded in 1939 by veteran journalist H.S. “Cap” Bruce, with financial backing from Montana labor leaders and farm co-ops. Finding the press coverage of the 1937 state legislature’s defeat of liberal measures lacking, Bruce decided to start his own paper. In May 1938, the People’s Voice Publishing Company entered an agreement with the Belgrade Journal to rent the Journal‘s printing plant for six months at a rate of twenty dollars per month. By October, however, the Voice signed a contract with Bruce’s Educational Co-operative Publishing Company, which had its own printing plant and offices located across the street from the state capitol building in Helena.

The first issue of the Voice was published on December 6, 1939. After editing this issue, Bruce became managing editor and passed editorship to Bennett Hansen. Associate editor Harry L. Billings became managing editor in 1948. Hansen would become managing editor in 1968 and leave the publication in 1969 for a better position elsewhere.

The People’s Voice covered a wide range of issues to interest Montana’s farmers, union leaders, and workers of all kinds. Harry L. Billings described the paper in a 1946 letter to a Camas, Montana, labor leader as “Montana’s only state-wide progressive farmer-labor paper.” He was sure workers would “find much of news value [sic] which has not been printed in other publications of the state. Being a paper owned by farmers and by workers the Voice constantly strives to bring out all of the facts concerning state and nationwide issues that the people may have a better understanding of the issues of the day.”

Some of the topics covered by the paper included worker’s compensation laws, state co-ops, and the problematic treatment of labor by business giants such as the Anaconda Copper Mining Company and Montana Power Company.

The Voice was published until August 22, 1969, when the Educational Co-operative Publishing Company board of directors decided to suspend publication. Ben Hansen resigned as managing editor, and the board hoped to resume publication as soon as a replacement was found. Hansen was not that hopeful. In his final editorial he asserted that “the VOICE easily could disappear from the scene.” Unfortunately, he was correct. The Voice never resumed publication, and both the Educational Co-operative Publishing Company and the People’s Voice Publishing Company became inactive by 1979.

Provided By: Montana Historical Society; Helena, MT

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The People's Voice (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969

Dates of Publication

  • 1939-1969

Created / Published

  • Helena, Mont. : People's Voice Pub. Co., 1939-1969.

Headings

  • -  Helena (Mont.)
  • -  Montana--History
  • -  Montana
  • -  Montana--Helena
  • -  United States--Montana--Lewis and Clark--Helena

Genre

  • History

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Vol. 1, no. 1 (Dec. 6, 1939)-v. 30, no. 6 (Aug. 22, 1969).
  • -  "No Commercial Advertising except from Co-operative Business Institutions accepted."

Medium

  • 30 volumes : illustrations ; 32-61 cm

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn86075189

OCLC Number

  • 13646776

ISSN Number

  • 2766-2020

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

The People's Voice Helena, Mont. -1969. (Helena, MT), Jan. 1 1939. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn86075189/.

APA citation style:

(1939, January 1) The People's Voice Helena, Mont. -1969. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn86075189/.

MLA citation style:

The People's Voice Helena, Mont. -1969. (Helena, MT) 1 Jan. 1939. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn86075189/.