In Pennsylvania Mining Families, Barry P. Michrina offers a luminous portrait of Pennsylvania coal miners and their response to economic oppression. He follows them from the great coal strike of 1927 through daily threats of injury and death in the mines to the departure of children and grandchildren as the industry has declined. Drawing on numerous first-hand interviews, as well as extensive archival research, he analyzes the change in work practices, the miners' own views about their ever-evolving situation, and relationships between miners and mining companies—undercutting the stereotypical picture of the rebellious miner.

Barry Michrina's richly descriptive book- part scholarly analysis, part oral history - offers a luminous portrait of these people and their response to economic oppression.

Archival quality paperback presents an oral history of life in a coal-mining community in Western Pennsylvania from residents who lived there from around 1930s through 1950s. Informal collection describing the lifestyle of immigrant and American coal-miners and their families. Individual accounts of coal-mining and labor organizing. Recollections of childhood and school memories from children born in the neighborhood. Personal and historic photos.

Based on contemporary newspaper accounts and genealogical records, Digging Dusky Diamonds tells the story of the people who made the anthracite coal mining industry a major economic force in Pennsylvania in the 19th and early 20th centuries. How the miners and their families lived and worked, loved and died is recorded in old newspapers and reveals their daily concerns, their diversions, social attitudes and prejudices. The accounts reveal what was different about those people and what has remained constant in us, their descendants. Though the focus is mainly on Northumberland and Schuylkillcounties, similar conditions prevailed across the anthracite mining region. About the author: A native of Shamokin, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, J. R. Lindermuth worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for nearly 40 years. Since retiring, he has served as librarian of the Northumberland County Historical Society where he assists patrons with genealogy and research. He is the author of 12 novels and his short stories and articles have been published in a variety of magazines. He is a member of International Thriller Writers, EPIC and the Short Mystery Society. He is the father of two grown children and has four grandsons. To learn more about the author, visit his website at http: //www.jrlindermuth.net

Vivid accounts of the dangers that miners faced on a daily basis in the northern, southern, and middle coal fields of eastern Pennsylvania. Since 1870, mining disasters have claimed the lives of over 30,000 men and boys who toiled underground in the anthracite mines of Pennsylvania. Sometimes they survived; many times they did not. The constant threat of fire, explosion, collapsed rock and deadly gas brought miners face to face with death on a daily basis. Through original journal and newspaper accounts, J. Stuart Richards’s Death in the Mines revisits Pennsylvania’s most notorious mining accidents and rescue attempts from 1869 to 1943. From the fire at Avondale Colliery that resulted in the first law for regulation and inspection of mines, to the gas explosion at Lytle Mine in Primrose that killed fourteen men, Richards reveals multiple facets of Pennsylvania’s most perilous profession. Richards, whose family has worked in the mines since 1870, offers a startling yet sensitive tribute to an industry and occupation that is often overlooked and underappreciated.

In From the Miners’ Doublehouse, archaeologist Karen Metheny uses an interpretive, contextual approach to examine the physical and cultural landscape of the now-abandoned coal-mining town of Helvetia in western Pennsylvania. The author weaves together documentary sources, oral history, and archaeological evidence to reveal the ways in which mine workers constructed a sense of community in this company town from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth. As the first archaeological and historical study of a coal company town that focuses upon the strategies its residents used to manipulate landscape and material culture to achieve personal and social goals, From the Miners’ Doublehouse makes a significant contribution to historical and industrial archaeology. This book will be of interest to scholars in industrial and environmental history, geography, and industrial sociology. It will also appeal to general readers interested in coal’s history and the Appalachian coal-mining region.