Mother Of A Miners Child

As a follow-on to my blog yesterday on "The Breaker Boys" I came accross this song that Gordon Lightfoot wrote, here are the words and a link to YOU TUBE to hear it sung.

Mother Of A Miners Child
by Gordon Lightfoot

She is my flower
And she blooms for the one who loves her best
The miners stop to watch as she walks
They know her love is not for sale
She will never fail me cause I know
I watch her grow
And the mother of a miners child
Waits for me beside the kitchen door
She is my light
In this place where the darkness never ends
Shell guide me where the tunnels twist and bend
She's the only one who listens when I tell her
I got less than I can spend
She knows the pace
Oh mother of a miners child
Was away the coal dust from my face

When the night shifts done
Shell be waiting by the table when I come
Searchin for another dream to chase
Oh mother of a miners child
I know that you still think about the day
When well be movin on
Remember dear old daddy and
The promise that I made to carry on

Sometimes I smile
In the cage where the cables softly hum
Id curse that old straw boss to the bone
But the mother of a miners child
Is waiting for her paycheck to come home
Come Saturday
And he is just a miners boy
I hope that he will find a better way

She is my flower
And she blooms for the one who loves her best
The miners stop to watch as she walks
They know her love is not for sale
She will never fail me cause I know
I watch her grow
And the mother of a miners child
Waits for me beside the kitchen door

The Breaker Boys

The Breaker Boys

Last evening I watched a show called "The Irish: Two Nations-One Heart", this unique documentary includes interviews and cinematography shot on-location in the Donegal and Mayo counties of Ireland, as well as several counties in northeastern Pennsylvania. It presents the full story of Pennsylvania's Irish and the emotionally compelling testimony of an extraordinary journey that continues to this day. The second part focused on the coal mines that are well known in NE Pennsylvania, and about "The Breaker Boys." I was so very touched by the story that I spent a good part of this morning reading about them and thought I would share a little of their story.

Smaller lumps of coal in the mines had to have the impurities removed and this was done by hand, usually by boys between the ages of eight and 12 years old known as breaker boys. The use of breaker boys began in the U.S. around 1866. The breaker boys would sit on wooden seats, perched over chutes and conveyor belts, picking slate and other impurities out of the coal.

Breaker boys worked 10 hours a day for six days a week. The work was hazardous. Breaker boys were forced to work without gloves so that they could handle the slick coal better. The slate, however, was sharp, and boys would leave work with their fingers cut and bleeding. Many breaker boys lost fingers to the rapidly moving conveyor belts, while others, moving about the plant, had their feet, hands, arms, and legs amputated when they moved among the machinery and accidentally slipped under the belts or into the gears. Many died when they fell into the gears of the machinery, their bodies only retrieved at the end of the working day. Others were caught in the rush of coal, and crushed to death or smothered. The "dry" coal kicked up so much dust that the breaker boys sometimes wore lamps on their heads to see, and asthma and black lung disease were common.


Public outrage against the use of breaker boys was so widespread that in 1885 Pennsylvania enacted a law forbidding the employment of anyone under the age of 12 from working in a coal breaker, but the law was poorly enforced, and many employers and families forged birth certificates or other documents so children could work. Estimates of the number of breaker boys at work in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania vary widely, and official statistics are generally considered by historians to undercount the numbers significantly. Estimates include 20,000 breaker boys working in the state in 1880, 18,000 working in 1900, 13,133 working in 1902, and 24,000 working in 1907. Technological innovations in the 1890s and 1900s such as mechanical and water separators designed to remove impurities from coal significantly reduced the need for breaker boys, but adoption of the new technology was slow. By the 1910s, the use of breaker boys was finally dropping because of improvements in technology, stricter child labor laws, and compulsory schooling laws. The practice of employing children in coal breakers largely ended by 1920 because of the efforts of the National Child Labor Committee, sociologist and photographer Lewis Hine, and the National Consumers League, who educated the public about the practice and succeeded in passing child labor laws.


Here is an interesting clip also from YOUTUBE...


and this ...