Miners and families at the meat counter in subsidiary company store. Store has ample, clean refrigerated space. The meat department was clean. U.S. Coal and Coke Company, Gary Mines, Gary, McDowell County, West Virginia., 08/16/1946 (NARA)

Children of Clabe Hicks, miner, Ten people, two adults and eight children live in a four room house for which they pay $11 monthly, plus $1 monthly for water and $2 monthly for electricity, 08/27/1946 (NARA)

Photo of my dad and I eating chips after his long shift in the coal mines of Nicholas County, WV…Circa #1988

Please take a moment today to remember the 29 men who died in the Upper Big Branch mine two years ago today…may peace be with their families.

Photo from Coal Country Tours: 

A coal miner and his family. African Americans were recruited and imported from across the country to help address the shortage of miners in central Appalachia. Many came from deep south Alabama where they were experienced in coal mining but most came inexperienced off the farms of the upper south. The N&W and other railroads that crossed Virginia and the Carolina’s were major conduits. Though most were lured with promises of good jobs and high wages, many were shanghaied.

Documentary Filmmaker to Explore Parallels Between Welsh, Appalachian Mining Communities

WFPL NEWS:

The coalfields of Appalachia are running out of coal, and there’s not a large-scale effort to diversify the region’s economy. But there are lessons to be learned from a similar transition in an unlikely place: the small United Kingdom country of Wales. Now, a documentary filmmaker is exploring parallels between 1980s Wales and modern-day Appalachia.

Tom Hansell is a former Kentucky resident and a documentary filmmaker at App State’sAppalachian Studies Center. In After Coal: Welsh and Appalachian Mining Communities, he’ll look for lessons from Wales’ transition away from coal that could be applicable in Appalachia.

“So often you hear about coal issues, particularly in Kentucky, as very emotional ‘jobs versus environment,’” he said. “And I think there are real reasons for that, but what I’m hoping to do in this project is actually look beyond that immediate conflict.

“Because we know that coal is a finite resource. So what I want to do is look beyond that and imagine a future after coal and use the Welsh experience to start people talking about ‘what can we do when the mines run out?’” 

Up until the 1970s and 1980s, many regions of Wales were dependent on coal. When the mines began closing, unemployment rose to over 50 percent and poverty rates skyrocketed. Hansell says the Welsh government began the recovery by instituting programs to clean up the “coal tips,” or environmentally-destructive piles of coal waste.

He is raising money here

I found a five-part series on “The Social Crisis in Appalachia” this morning. It was written in August of 2010. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet but it seems to focus on Welch and Williamson West Virginia, as well as Harlan, Kentucky. I don’t think there is any question that there is some bias in this reporting—it is from the World Socialist Web Site—but it might be worth a read and seems to cover many issues such as prospects for young people, education, workforce, quality of life.

Read the five-part series here