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Reviews
| The Kingdom of Coal: Work, Enterprise, and Ethnic Communities in the Mine Fields. By Donald L. Miller and Richard E. Sharpless. Easton, Penn.: Canal History and Technology Press, 1998. xxii+360 pp., illus., notes, index. $27.95 pb (ISBN 0-930973-23-2).
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Barrie Trinder has written that industrial landscapes "comprehend much more than machines and buildings" (The Making of the Industrial Landscape, Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton, 1987, p. 3), yet one of the most common critiques leveled at industrial archaeologists and industrial historians is that the machines and technology we are striving to document and preserve seem to have functioned in complete isolation from the people who used them. This is particularly true for industrial archaeology, and the task of integrating or reintegrating people and machines has frequently proved to be a challenge to those who write about the industrial past. In large part, this has to do with the urgency of recording and preserving technologies that are fast disappearing, but it is also linked to the types of data used by scholars and their ability and willingness to work with multiple and sometimes unfamiliar sources—oral histories and the archaeological evidence of daily life, for example—as well as the historical and architectural evidence of industry.
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In The Kingdom of Coal, authors Donald Miller and Richard Sharpless clearly recognize the essential relationship between humans and technology. This volume is therefore both a technological history and a social history. The authors place emphasis equally upon the work and enterprise of anthracite and the impacts of this industry upon individuals, families, and communities. They rightfully place the story of anthracite next to and inextricably weave it into the story of a people and a landscape. The task of integrating these stories is exceedingly well done, and we are fortunate that the Canal History and Technology Press has reissued this excellent volume, which was originally published in 1985.
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As a history of technology, this volume is detailed and well researched. Miller and Sharpless begin their narrative with the pioneers of the anthracite industry and the first difficult days of moving coal downriver by ark. From here, the story of anthracite progresses through the construction of the first canals and the first inclined plane to the rise of the railroads and anthracite's metamorphosis into a major industry that "ignited the Industrial Revolution." Because the story of anthracite is more than the mining of coal, the scope of this volume is initially quite broad. The first three chapters document the interrelationships among efforts to open the coal fields, the developing market for anthracite, advances in iron manufacture and other power-driven industries, and emerging transportation networks. The volume describes the lives of the early boatmen and canal men as well as the lives of the entrepreneurs who transformed this industry.
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The Kingdom of Coal also contains one of the best descriptions of the work of mining. The authors re-create for us the smells, the sounds, the very dampness of the air that the men faced. They describe the descent into the mine shaft, the tools and technology used on the surface and beneath the earth, the company hierarchy, the division of labor, and the work of mining hard coal, a method that remained essentially unchanged into the 20th century. The Kingdom of Coal is also a social history, and the authors excel in their documentation of the lives of miners and their families. The chapter entitled "Working in the Black Hell" recounts the hazards of mining deep within the earth, the daily risk of injury and death, and the long-term health effects of coal dust; the authors document the devastation to families and communities, and the sufferings of countless individuals caused by the industry that defined—some would say "owned"—them.
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The authors also reconstruct daily life in the "mine patch." These communities first emerged next to the collieries in the 1830s–1840s. Unlike the larger urban settlements and boom towns where members of the new coal and railroad aristocracies lived, patch towns were characterized by extremely primitive living conditions. Miners' dwellings were overcrowded and poorly built. Coal dust, pollutants from the mining process, and inadequate sanitation created an unhealthful living environment.
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To document this way of life, the authors use a variety of historical sources. Archaeology could have assisted the authors in reconstructing the daily lives of these mining families. It is disappointing that the data from excavations of a miners' dwelling in Eckley (see Stephen G. Warfel, A Patch of Land Owned by the Company, Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1993) were not incorporated into this volume before its reissue, but as there have been so few archaeological excavations in anthracite communities, it is no surprise that the authors give primacy to the historical record. The importance of oral sources to the story of anthracite is clearly demonstrated, however, as the authors skillfully weave the oral narratives of miners into the story of the work of mining. The authors have used existing oral history and folklore collections as well as published sources such as George Korson's Minstrels of the Mine Patch (1964), but they have also conducted oral interviews themselves. Their willingness to use and work with sources that more typically have been underused, poorly integrated, or ignored by historians makes The Kingdom of Coal an extraordinary record of the anthracite industry. In exploring the lives of these mining families through their own words, we learn about the superstitions that miners brought with them underground, and we hear their voices in ballads from the coal patch and popular ditties about the union, but we also learn about religion, ethnicity, foodways, and leisure time.
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The old world traditions and cultural practices of immigrant families were particularly important as they struggled with poverty, frequent unemployment and underemployment, ethnic discrimination, and the hazards of mining itself. In several chapters, the authors delve into the effects of such adversities upon families, communities, and cultural practice. Rather than the diminishment or loss of traditional culture, however, we see the perpetuation of Old World traditions among the Irish and Slavic communities and a clear link between their survival and community stability.
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It is at times incomprehensible to us that these people endured so much. Miller and Sharpless note that the men who worked these mines "did it because they had to, because they knew nothing else, and because, finally, it became a way of life, something more than a job" (p. 84). The patch towns were daily sites of conflict and struggle. Described as "total communities" by the authors (p. 142), everything in the mine patch—from worker housing and the community store, to the land itself—was under company ownership. Residents lived under the autocratic rule of coal companies that regularly used intimidation, physical coercion, and repressive measures to enforce company regulations and to suppress worker unrest.
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Under such conditions, it is not surprising that the history of anthracite is also a history of labor strife and the story of unionization. Miners continually struggled to improve their lot. Mutual aid societies were but one response to oppressive living and working conditions. Confrontations with mine bosses and mine owners frequently erupted into rioting and strikes by workers. Miller and Sharpless provide an excellent history of this struggle. One chapter describes the events leading to an 1897 confrontation known as the Lattimer Massacre, in which 19 unarmed marchers were killed. Perhaps the best-known example of militancy centers on the Mollie Maguires, who are also the subject of a chapter. The story of anthracite is also the story of the emergence of organized labor. The authors describe the abortive efforts of early labor organizations as well as those of the successful United Mine Workers from the 1870s through the height of labor conflict in the 1920s–1930s. They also capture workers' changing perspectives on the union over time.
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The mining of anthracite has indelibly marked the physical and cultural landscape of eastern Pennsylvania. Though anthracite is no longer a major industry or even a significant employer, the legacy of this industry is still with us today. The authors note, for example, that the daily struggle for survival among earlier generations has evolved into a tradition of social activism among surviving communities. We are shown the long-term damage to the environment from the pursuit of coal. Miller and Sharpless describe for us, in uncompromising language, the devastation from deforestation, chemical pollution, and, more recently, from strip mining. The authors also analyze the consequences of reliance upon a single industry and costs to a region when that industry collapses or relocates. The impact and legacy of anthracite, as the authors clearly demonstrate, must be measured in human and environmental terms.
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This volume is lavishly illustrated, with 144 photographs and other figures documenting the work of mining and the life of mining families. The photographs alone are a significant resource. The volume would benefit from the inclusion of a bibliography to accompany the footnotes—it is not so much the inconvenience of searching footnotes for references that bothers but, rather, the feeling that we are missing out on other sources used in this excellent study but not directly cited in the text.
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| This is an engaging and highly readable narrative as well as an important resource. As Anthony Wallace, author of St. Clair: A Nineteenth-Century Coal Town's Experience with a Disaster-Prone Industry (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981), notes on the cover, it is a book that "deserves to be widely read." |
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