Describes what life was like, especially for children, in coal mines and mining towns in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Describes what life was like, especially for children, in coal mines and mining towns in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Describes what life was like, especially for children, in coal mines and mining towns in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

An illustrated chronicle of the growing protest movement against mountaintop removal mining (MTR) of coal in Appalachia, including essays, commentary, and oral histories.

A child growing up in a coal mining community finds both excitement and hard work, in a life deeply affected by the local industry.

Four distinct anthracite coal fields encompass an area of 1,700 square miles in the northeastern portion of Pennsylvania. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, underground coal mining was at its zenith and the work of miners was more grueling and dangerous than it is today. Faces blackened by coal and helmet lamps lit by fire are no longer parts of the everyday lives of miners in the region. Early Coal Mining in the Anthracite Region is a journey into a world that was once very familiar. These vintage photographs of collieries, breakers, miners, drivers, and breaker boys illuminate the dark of the anthracite mines. The pictures of miners, roof falls, mules, and equipment deep underground tell the story of the hard lives lived around the hard coal. Above ground, breaker boys toiled in unbearable conditions inside the noisy, vibrating, soot-filled monsters known as coal breakers.

A child growing up in a coal mining community finds both excitement and hard work, in a life deeply affected by the local industry.