A Coal Miner's Work

These pages provide opportunities to look at different descriptions of the work and life of coal miners during the Gilded Age and the Progressive era.

The pages will start first with descriptions of coal mining written by an Ohioan, Andrew Roy, in the 1870s. Roy, a coal miner himself, was especially interested in issues of mine safety, and you be sure not to miss his account of a disaster in Pennsylvania in 1869.

The life and work of coal miners also attracted considerable attention from Americans who were not part of the industry. These pages include an account of visiting a coal mine by Stephen Crane published in a popular magazine in 1894. The strikes that disrupted coal production (and which threatened American's ability to warm their homes and cook their meals) also caused other writers and reformers to explore the life and work of coal miners.

In this exercise you will be learning from primary documents about one important occupation in American industrial society. When you are done, you will be asked to share your impressions of work in industrial America.

Think about these questions as you proceed through the pages:

      1. What did you find most compelling about Andrew Roy's account of coal mining? Did his account inform you in a new way, or did it reinforce what you already knew? Explain.
      2. How was Stephen Crane's account of coal mining similar and different from what you learned from Andrew Roy?
      3. Summarize the main message you obtained from reading the other accounts of coal mining at the turn of the century.

You should proceed through these pages in the order given below:

      1. A look at Coal Mining in 1877
      2. Andrew Roy explains how miners dig coal
      3. The 1869 Avondale disaster
      4. Stephen Crane writes about mining coal (1894)
      5. Rev. John McDowell tells the life of a coal miner
      6. Among the Coal Miners (1902)
      7. At work in the coal fields (1904)

Copyright ã 1997 The Ohio State University. Neither this page nor the pages linked to it may be copied or reproduced or distributed in any fashion without the written permission of Professor K. Austin Kerr.