Book summary 2

 

This country, as we know it today with its economic prosperity and military might, didn’t just happen. It took years of hard work by the many that came before us. We, as a nation, are blessed with vast natural resources. But our greatest natural resource is our people. The people who took a wilderness and with their sweat and blood would have it evolve into what we have today. With our constitution as its cornerstone and our people as its building blocks, a great nation did emerge.

Many of our children aren’t aware of the hardships their grandfathers and great-grandfathers endured to sculpt this nation into its grandeur.

Every day has a yesterday and every today has a tomorrow. As each tomorrow arrives, each yesterday gets further into the past. The stories our great-grandfathers handed down, by word of mouth get fewer with each passing generation and some day they will be no more.

To appreciate where we are today it is essential that we know where we came from.

The Black Rock that Built America explains how important an area, consisting of only about five-hundred square miles in northeastern Pennsylvania, was in propelling this vast wilderness into a global giant. For over one-hundred years, the hard coal region was the starting point that led America down the road to being the world leader.

The anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania and its people should get their rightful place in history. The lives of these immigrant miners should be celebrated. This book will help in that cause.

It all began in the early nineteenth century for those looking to escape the poverty and unemployment of Europe. The anthracite region of northeastern Pennsylvania appeared to be the land of opportunity. They would come by the thousands, drawn by the promise of steady work in the mines. At one point, twenty different languages were spoken in the hard coal region. Most of the immigrants were hired by the mines and did the grueling and dangerous work of extracting coal from the earth in order to find their place in America.

The wages were low but the price was high. Over thirty thousand men and boys died while mining the anthracite coal in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania.

Jobs in the mines were plentiful. At first, these jobs seemed like a blessing to the destitute immigrants. The coal companies provided company owned housing with rent deducted from paychecks and company owned stores, where a bill could be accumulated. But after the house rent and excessive prices at the company store were deducted from their paychecks, there was very little left. They were trapped in a system that promised them only generations of survival at the poverty level. Their young children would have to work in the breakers for the families to survive and woe to the family whose father was killed or crippled in the mines. Without an income to pay for the housing, the family was turned out into the muddy streets to beg or rely on friend’s charity.

The one unifying experience in the lives of the miners was their work. Mining was the most dangerous job of the day. To the hazards underground were added exploitations of other kinds. Miners were paid for the coal they dug. Unscrupulous company employees “short weighed” miners production. The miners paid for their blasting powder, tools, and other supplies they used. The operators forced the miners to buy their supplies from the company store as a condition of employment.

The miner became the slave of the coal barons. The miner had to fight back in form of unionization. This resulted in more men dying. Some were hung and some were shot.

Not only did the miner have to stand up to the mine owner but also they had to face the dangers of working down below. Included in the list of thousands of miners who lost their lives in the anthracite coal industry were many boys, some as young as ten years of age.

The cycle of a miner’s life began early, sometimes as young as six years old. In the deep snows of winter, fathers carried smaller boys to the breaker on their backs in the predawn darkness, or mothers would take the younger boys and return to wait for them at the end of their shift.

So many of these young lads went from the cradle to the grave with not much in between and the odds that some of these boys would reach their senior years were not very good. But even if they did, there were no pensions, no health care, no social security, and no nest egg. Their later years would be as dismal as the years before.

As Americans, we have become accustomed to a lifestyle that is unparalleled anywhere else in the world. Sometimes we take it for granted. One must remember, that today, we are the beneficiaries of the sacrifice of those miners who were willing to put their lives on the line in order that their children and their children’s-children and now our children, could have a better existence.

Although many of these coal crackers didn’t have much schooling, some of the lessons learned from their living experiences in and around the mines couldn’t be taught in any books. They learned the value of life. Each day they would enter the mines not knowing if they would return home to their loved ones. If by fate, the whistle didn’t blow and the men and boys returned home safely it would be cause for jubilation. They learned to celebrate life. Be it at work or play they lived life to the max. Because just maybe tomorrow the whistle would blow and a wife would become a widow and a child would be without a father.

The kingdom of coal is gone. The black rock that broke America’s dependency on foreign coal, fueled an industrial revolution, kept millions warm, created great wealth, and birth to a vibrant immigrant culture has severed its time in history. Anthracite’s final legacy is a warning to all Americans that human lives and natural resources are finite and precious, they can no longer be sacrificed indiscriminately on the alter of private greed.

The anthracite coal miners of northeastern Pennsylvania contributed much to this great nation. Let us not forget them.