Growing Up in Coal Country

Rating:
Summary: Growing Up in Coal Country
Review: A very interesting little book for anyone who grew up in or has an interest in the history of the Pennsylvania Anthracite Region. The stories in this book apply to so many thousands of families that lived there and tried so hard to make a living under the harshest of conditions. Life was anything but easy for the anthracite miner and his family - no medical insurance (but then medical care was almost non-existent), no paid holidays, just dirty and dangerous work. The book is brief, reads easy but generally does a good job of telling it like it was back then and in that place.

Rating:
Summary: growing up (or not) in coal country
Review: i've been researching the history of the anthracite region and specifically the experience of miners and their families, and this was one of the most useful books i've seen. by detailing the different jobs the boys in the mines did, bartoletti also manages to describe how a mine worked in ways that other books on mining don't really explain. it covers the whole process by telling stories about the different jobs the kids did.

the photos too are wonderful. you get a real sense of how much these kids are both children and yet so remarkably grown up, just from the looks in their eyes.

the stories about them range from terrifically sad (i cried a few times) to heartwarming and sweet. the book doesn't come off as bombast or pure sentiment, but keeps a very journalistic view of these kids & their reality.

i highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Glimpses from a bygone era
Review: This is a fascinating book about the life and times of the coal miners in Pennsylvania when "coal was king" and child labor laws were things of the future. The photographs, especially those involving children, are haunting; and Susan Bartoletti's text is lucid and poignant. Impressions of the "breaker boys", "nippers", "spraggers", and the "fire boss" lingered in my mind long after I finished reading this book.