Lest we forget - coal history/cold history

December 1910. "Shorpy Higginbotham, a 'greaser' on the tipple at Bessie Mine, of the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Co. in Alabama. Said he was 14 years old, but it is doubtful. Carries two heavy pails of grease, and is often in danger of being run over by the coal cars." Photograph and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine.


Kingston, Pennsylvania, circa 1900. "Breaker boys, Woodward Coal Mines." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company


1917. "Mrs. Van H. Manning. U.S. Bureau of Mines. Mine rescue methods. There were 750,000 men employed in coal mining in 1915, and of this number 2,264 were killed -- 190 less than in 1914 and 521 less than in 1913. 'This is the most gratifying report the Bureau of Mines has been able to make since it was established,' says Van H. Manning, director of the bureau. 'It indicates very forcibly to me that "safety first" has come to stay in the coal-mining industry.' " Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative.


"Safety sign in coal mine" circa 1915.


Drivers and Mules in a coal mine where much of the mining and carrying is done by machinery. Open flame on oil headlamps. Gary, West Virginia. September 1908.

He was a foreman, he was the one who walked into a new mine with a canary to see if it died. If it did, it meant that it was unsafe for humans to work in it. He was due to retire, but had a major heart attack before he could do it, he died of black lung. He actually worked for a steel mill, and they tried to screw my grandmother over by putting paperwork through saying he "retired" before he died. He didn't, he was still working at the time, but they tried. It has to do with widow's benefits. My grandfather always told my grandmother to make sure that she got an autopsy on him when he died, because they get extra benefits if they had black lung, especially if they were still working. My grandmother had to take them to court, and it was in court for years before she got her benefits that were due her. I don't remember it that well, but I'm sure that she kept winning and they kept appealing it. I'm also pretty sure that the union took care of arranging a lot of it. I don't remember a lot of it, I was young when it happened.

You can lick on the icon and get the location of the pic on the web. They are from Shorpy.com. They have a wide selection of photographs from the fist part of the 20th century, including Dorothea Lange and others from the depression/War years.



does this work?

The first 2 showed up for me for just a minute, but then they were gone. I would love to see them.

more money, y'know!

Disgusting.

The saddest song I ever heard was a folk song about mothers waking their sons up on their birthdays and saying, "Now that you're 10, you won't go to school anymore. It's the mines for you."