Hardships of Mine Life
"I cried many times. I'm still crying. I had a very hard life."
-Samuel Wentovich
-Samuel Wentovich
Working Conditions
Breaker Boys
"Many a time I cried with the pain [from picking slate], but yet when the whistle blew for quitting time in the evening, I was happy as a king to know I had finished another day and added another quarter to my pay to help support my family."
-Joseph McCormick [about the joys and sorrows of working in the mines]
-Joseph McCormick [about the joys and sorrows of working in the mines]
 "Breaker boys, Eagle Hill colliery, eastern PA" (click to enlarge)
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Anthony "Shorty" Slick, a breaker boy
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Mule Drivers
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"My first day in the mines was down in the Number One shaft at Bear Creek Colliery. The shaft was 321 feet deep. I don't think I'll ever forget the terrible sensation I had while descending that morning. I was so dizzy that when I was halfway down, I thought I was going up." -Joseph McCormick [talking about going into the mines] |
 "A mule and mule driver in a coal mine" (click to enlarge)
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Miners
"I know about the mines from the talk at our dinner table when I was growing up. The miners and butties had to dig so much coal to fill that car and there couldn't be any rock in it or they'd be penalized. They worked in the water below the roof where it was dangerous and they'd be on their hands and knees. When my father and brothers came home from work, they were very dirty. Their clothes were heavy with water and we would have to wash them. My father thought nothing of working in the mines because it was the only work he knew how to do. He never complained. He just did it. But I knew if I ever had a son, I didn't want him to work in the mines."
-Mary Fanucci [about her father returning from the mines]
-Mary Fanucci [about her father returning from the mines]
Living Conditions
"Each day, before it was light out, my mother sent my sister and me to the culm banks to pick coal for our coal stove. The neighbors would hear my wagon creaking along the dark streets. We'd fill the wagon with coal, then hurry home, get washed up, and go to school. The next day we'd go pick coal again.
-Lil Ferretti [about the struggles for survival in coal country]
-Lil Ferretti [about the struggles for survival in coal country]
 mansions owned by the coal operators (click to enlarge)
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 "Unidentified coal patch town, northeastern Pennsylvania, circa 1900", the miners and their families lived in makeshift housing perched on the outskirts of coal mines (click to enlarge)
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Mine Disasters
"My dad ate his lunch in the same spot every day. One day another miner was in his spot, and so he sat on the other side. Suddenly, the roof caved in on him. His back was broken, and he never walked again. When he came home from the hospital, he told me, 'You aren't ever to go into a mine. I have worked enough in the mines for all of us.' And I never have. I never will."
-John Sutkowsky [about the injury his father sustained in a mine accident]
-John Sutkowsky [about the injury his father sustained in a mine accident]
a black maria, used to carry workers injured or killed in mine accidents (click to enlarge)
Low Pay
"In the monthly payroll period ending August 31, 1897, for example, one manager of a Hazleton colliery paid all his miners $8,000 out of a $26,000 payroll. The rest was owed to the company for debts in the company store, for rents on the company houses, for fees deducted to pay the company doctor, and for fees deducted to pay the priest."
-Michael Novak, author of The Guns of Lattimer [in reference to the fees that were being deducted from the miner's pay]
-Michael Novak, author of The Guns of Lattimer [in reference to the fees that were being deducted from the miner's pay]