Coal Town: Faces in the Dark

My recent work features hard-working men and women from the 1940s and 1950s, including coal miners and steel workers who sought, through labor and sacrifice, a piece of the American Dream for themselves and their families. They represented the cultural patchwork of our country, with diverse backgrounds, ethnicity, education, and race. Yet they remained vitally connected to each other, not only as fellow union members, but because their safety, and sometimes their lives, depended on the mutual trust they shared. In the dark shafts of the coal mines in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, miners working in dangerous and perilous circumstances relied on each other daily to survive, when injury or death was a constant possibility. (Images courtesy Library of Congress, US National Archives.)