Pennsylvania Mining Families: The Search for Dignity in the Coalfields

In Pennsylvania Mining Families, Barry P. Michrina offers a luminous portrait of Pennsylvania coal miners and their response to economic oppression.
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• Pennsylvania Mining Families: The Search for Dignity in the Coalfields by Barry P. Minchrina
• Pennsylvania Mining Families: The Search for Dignity in the Coalfields

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Please try again later. Michrina is to be commended for producing an insightful, sympathetic, and evocative study of the mining folk primarily of the central Pennsylvania county of Cambria. He also strives to document the general period of depression in the coal-mining industry, , and especially the traumatic events of the great strike of and resulting period without union representation and protection, Michrina's academic jargon enhances this as a scholarly anthropological study, it hinders it as a heritage work which would be treasured by its coal-mining subjects and their friends and family, not to mention local historians.

In an ironic twist, the non-academic reader must mine through the earth and rock of academic constructs to extract the coal seams of human emotion and remembrance. Michrina expresses some awareness of this and is honest in admitting to some guilt in recording and publishing personal information given by his subjects, who were also his frends and neighbors during the years of his "field work.

For example, he found a general lack of militancy directed against the coal companies, their chief oppressors, though there are still deep negative emotions directed against both the strike breakers and the Coal and Iron Police. The latter, called 'Pussyfoots,' performed the coal companies' dirty work, with state and local authorities turning a blind eye. These acts, including rape and murder, were intended to humiliate and control the captive populations of the coal company towns, while cheating them at the company store and keeping them in abysmal poverty.

Michrina also found that while the miners maintained a strong work ethic, they tended to define themselves and seek happiness not in the work place but within the home and family. Aged survivors of these times also retain a general sense of economic insecurity and continue to practice frugality in most of their endeavors.

Lewis, , who are credited for restoring unionism, human rights, and some measure of dignity. This last element, the search for dignity, is the defining concept of the book and the chapter thereon is the finest and should be read above all else. The Protestant coal miners of British and German descent still await their chronicler.

I read Barry P.

Michrina's "Pennsylvania Mining Families" with great interest, since I am the son and grandson of a former coalminers and have some firsthand knowledge of the people and postindustrial-revolution landscapes of the geographical boundaries of the work, particularly Cambria, Indiana and Clearfield counties. I was very impressed with this work of anthropology that also functions secondarily as a not unimportant history of Central Pennsylvania, especially with regard to the Great Depression, the labor movement including the aftereffects of the Great Coal Strike of , and the harscrabble lives of the coal-minging families of the time.

This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Jun 13, William Shep rated it really liked it. An insightful and sympathetic study of the mining folk primarily of Cambria County in central Pennsylvania. He documents the general period of depression in the coal-mining industry, , and especially the traumatic events of the great strike of and resulting period without union representation, Unfortunately, his academic jargon, which is in keeping with being a scholarly anthropological study, hinders it as a heritage work to be treasured by its coal-mining subjects, not An insightful and sympathetic study of the mining folk primarily of Cambria County in central Pennsylvania.

Unfortunately, his academic jargon, which is in keeping with being a scholarly anthropological study, hinders it as a heritage work to be treasured by its coal-mining subjects, not to mention local historians. In an ironic twist, the general reader must mine through the earth and rock of academic constructs to extract the coal seams of human emotion and remembrance.

Michrina expresses some guilt in recording and publishing personal information given by his subjects, who were also his friends and neighbors during the years of his "field work. For example, he found a lack of militancy directed against the coal companies though there are still deep negative emotions directed against both the strike breakers and the Coal and Iron Police. The latter, called 'Pussyfoots,' performed the coal companies' dirty work, with the support of state and local authorities.

These acts, including rape and murder, were intended to humiliate and control the captive populations of the coal company towns, while cheating them at the company store and keeping them in poverty. He also found that while the miners maintained a strong work ethic, they tended to seek happiness at home and not at work. Lewis, , who are credited for restoring unionism, human rights, and dignity.

Despite some flaws, this book is, along with Mildred Beik's The Miners of Windber, a defining account of Cambria County's Roman Catholic coal miners of eastern and southern European ancestry. However, the Protestant coal miners of British and German descent still await their chronicler.

Feb 27, Maureen rated it liked it. I was hoping that the book would be mainly about "Pennsylvania Mining Families", as the title states.

Although there were quotes and stories from the "natives" as he calls them, there were also explanations and discussions of the author's sociological methods. While interesting, I felt these interludes broke up the narrative and could have been better grouped in some sort of appendix. Leslie rated it liked it Feb 13, Padraic rated it really liked it Feb 25, Denise marked it as to-read Apr 12,