Conditions Of Coal Mines

5 Pages 1184 Words

People have been mining since the eighteenth century, and compared to that time period, the treatment of coal miners has only recently improved. Miners have lived with dangers the rest of us cannot even imagine: slag falls, explosions, fires, gases and cave-ins occur, and there is always the possibility of being crippled for life either from broken bones or the black-lung disease that coal miners still acquire from breathing in coal dust. These conditions were not just in America, but coal was being mined in Europe before they began here in the states. In the novel Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina, coal miners were treated horribly and forced to work in unsafe conditions everyday.
In Europe in 1841, the British Parliament conducted an investigation on the conditions of the coalmines. The conditions were especially horrid in Scotland. The investigative committee found conditions such as water constantly dripping from the ceilings, and workers having to stand ankle deep in water in shafts and other places. Some of the coal seams, the areas in which the miners had to work, were only 20 to 28 inches which meant the miners had to lie in the water and mud on their sides while working. (Ashworth 48-52) It is hard to imagine how the workers managed to bring their load out while crawling.
Women and children as young as age five worked in the mines of Europe in the early years. The commission discovered that the women were treated no differently than the men. They were expected to carry the same load as the men and produce the same amount of coal. In fact, the women seemed to have it worse because they were smaller and they were the ones sent into places that were too small for the men to enter and were forced to endure the most cramped work areas. Young girls and boys were given the same jobs to do in the mines. The girls, being smaller, were in the same situation the women were in and could go in the smallest places. (Ashwo...