Abstract
An agenda-setting analysis of how four daily San Antonio, Texas, newspapers covered a 1938 pecan shellers’ strike does not support prevailing historical interpretations. That finding should complicate the historical narrative, prompt historians to rethink how they understand one of the largest labor actions in Texas history, and cause communication scholars to review agenda-setting theory. All previous histories maintain that Emma Tenayuca, a self-avowed Communist, led the walkout. Because of Tenayuca’s Communist affiliation, the San Antonio white population supposedly opposed efforts by 6000 mostly Mexican pecan shellers to earn higher wages. This case study checked that interpretation against 1938 news coverage. Content analysis of strike stories does not show much coverage of Tenayuca or Communists. Agenda-setting theory suggests, therefore, that San Antonio residents in 1938 might have thought other issues—such as working conditions, police brutality, or big government threats to capitalism—were more important than communism.
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