'Breaker boys' were young boys, usually between the ages of 8 and 12 years old, employed in breaking stage of coal mining, breaking mined coal into relatively uniform sized pieces by hand and separating out impurities such as rock, slate, sulphur, clay and soil. While increasing public pressure in the late 19th century led to a series of reforms regulating the minimum age of boys hired as breakers, enforcement was lax at best. Yet breaker boys were far from passive figures in the often tumultuous and sometimes violent world of late 19th and early 20th century mining. They were known for precocious labor militancy and a rejection of adult authority.