A diary account of thirteen-year-old Anetka's life in Poland in 1896, immigration to America, marriage to a coal miner, widowhood, and happiness in finally finding her true love.

Following the accidental death of her husband, Annie McKee is determined her boys will not grow up to work in the coal mines. It's been a struggle for the young widow to make ends meet, but she wants her sons to have a better life--far removed from Heather's Hollow, Kentucky. To give them that chance Annie needs a good job. And she needs the help of Patrick Kirkpatrick. Her husband's best friend offers to help Annie study for her general education degree, and things get complicated when she and Patrick realize they have feelings for each other. But how can Annie fall for a man who is determined to stay in the one place she must leave behind?

The success of the Durham Coalfield and its important role in the Industrial Revolution is attributed to men of influence who owned the land and the pits, and men who worked in the coal-mining industry during the Victorian period. There has been very little written about the importance of the home life that supported the miners - their wives who, through heroic efforts, did their best to provide attractive, healthy, happy home for their husbands, often in appalling social conditions. To provide a welcoming atmosphere at home demanded tremendous resources and commitment from the miners' wives. Despite their many hardships these women selflessly put everyone in the family before themselves. They operated on less rest, less food at times of necessity and under the huge physical burden of work and the emotional burden of worry concerning the safety of their family. Women of the Durham Coalfield in the 19th Century: Hannah's Story addresses the lack of information about the role of women in the Durham Coalfield, engagingly explored through one woman's experience.

Women in the Mines informs, provokes and inspires from first page to last with gripping stories from coalfield women from 1914 to 1994. Early women miners describe handloading coal to help their families survive. The 1970s generation talks openly about sexual harassment, community attitudes, pregnancy, health and safety, racism, aging, and unemployment. The stories demonstrate the strength and resilience of women who accepted the challenge of nontraditional work and the changes in their lives brought by that decision.

Set in the Yorkshire Dales during the 19th century, The Miner's Wife by Diane Allen is a sweeping historical saga novel. Nineteen-year-old Meg Oversby often dreams of a more exciting life than the dull existence she faces at her family’s farm deep in the Yorkshire Dales. Growing up, she’s always sensed her father’s disappointment at not having a son to help with the farm work. So when Meg dances all night at the local market hall with Sam Alderson, a lead miner from Swaledale, a new light enters her life. Sam and his brother Jack show Meg a side to life she didn’t know existed. But when her parents find out, she’s forbidden from ever seeing them again. Although where there is love, there is often a way. When Meg’s uncle offers her the chance of helping to run the small village shop, she leaps at the opportunity, seeing it as a way to escape the oppressive family farm and see more of her beloved Sam. But as love blossoms, a darker truth emerges and Meg realizes that Sam may not be the man she thought he was . . .

“The most comprehensive and comprehendible history of the West Virginia Coal War I’ve ever read.” —John Sayles, writer and director of Matewan On September 1, 1912, the largest, most protracted, and deadliest working-class uprising in American history was waged in West Virginia. On one side were powerful corporations whose millions bought armed guards and political influence. On the other side were fifty thousand mine workers, the nation’s largest labor union, and the legendary “miners’ angel,” Mother Jones. The fight for unionization and civil rights sparked a political crisis that verged on civil war, stretching from the creeks and hollows of the Appalachians to the US Senate. Attempts to unionize were met with stiff resistance. Fundamental rights were bent—then broken. The violence evolved from bloody skirmishes to open armed conflict, as an army of more than fifty thousand miners finally marched to an explosive showdown. Extensively researched and vividly told, this definitive book about an often-overlooked chapter of American history, “gives this backwoods struggle between capital and labor the due it deserves. [Green] tells a dark, often despairing story from a century ago that rings true today” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).

In a devastating and urgent work of investigative journalism, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hamby uncovers the tragic resurgence of black lung disease in Appalachia, its Big Coal cover-up, and the resilient mining communities who refuse to back down. Decades ago, a grassroots uprising forced Congress to enact long-overdue legislation designed to virtually eradicate black lung disease and provide fair compensation to coal miners stricken with the illness. Today, however, both promises remain unfulfilled. Levels of disease have surged, the old scourge has taken an aggressive new form, and ailing miners and widows have been left behind by a dizzying legal system, denied even modest payments and medical care. In this devastating and urgent work of investigative journalism, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hamby traces the unforgettable story of how these trends converge in the lives of two men: Gary Fox, a black lung-stricken West Virginia coal miner determined to raise his family from poverty, and John Cline, an idealistic carpenter and rural medical clinic worker who becomes a lawyer in his fifties. Opposing them are the lawyers at the coal industry’s go-to law firm; well-credentialed doctors who often weigh in for the defense, including a group of radiologists at Johns Hopkins; and Gary’s former employer, Massey Energy, the region’s largest coal company, run by a cantankerous CEO often portrayed in the media as a dark lord of the coalfields. On the line in Gary and John’s longshot legal battle are fundamental principles of fairness and justice, with consequences for miners and their loved ones throughout the nation. Taking readers inside courtrooms, hospitals, homes tucked in Appalachian hollows, and dusty mine tunnels, Hamby exposes how coal companies have not only continually flouted a law meant to protect miners from deadly amounts of dust but also enlisted well-credentialed doctors and lawyers to help systematically deny much-needed benefits to miners. The result is a legal and medical thriller that brilliantly illuminates how a band of laborers — aided by a small group of lawyers, doctors and lay advocates, often working out of their homes or in rural clinics and tiny offices – challenged one of the world's most powerful forces, Big Coal, and won. A deeply troubling yet ultimately triumphant work, Soul Full of Coal Dust is a necessary and timely book about injustice and resistance.