Nick and Viola: A Kentucky Family Tragedy in the Tobacco Wars (1904-1911)

Nick and Viola is a family tragedy that illuminates a neglected period of Kentucky history and traces its impact on three generations of the Muntz family. In 1899, Nick and Viola Muntz, landowners and tobacco farmers in the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky, had a bright future. By 1904 the American Tobacco Company (ATC), owned by James B. Duke, monopolized the market for tobacco and dropped prices below the cost of production. Populist groups formed to “pool” or hold tobacco off the market to force higher prices. Because pooling was voluntary, tensions arose between neighbors who pooled and those who didn’t. Vigilante groups, known as “Night Riders,” attacked barns and crops, and sometimes even their neighbors who refused to pool. Nick and Viola and their relatives did not join the pool and suffered the consequences. A tobacco barn burned, a gunshot killed an innocent man, and a family fell apart. Nick and Viola transcends one family’s story and becomes a symbol of the world of tobacco and the enduring spirit of a family.