Denise giardina5/30/2023 Richmond and Western Railroad owned our land.” history, when the exploited miners clashed with the ruthless and corrupt coal companies. I’d never even heard of the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921, the largest labor uprising in U.S. This book opened my eyes to a period of time and a series of events that I’ve not previously given much thought to – the struggle of the coal miners and the labor disputes of the early 1900s in West Virginia. I simply can’t imagine what it would have been like to work in the coal mines or to watch a loved one, a father, a husband or a son, disappear into that gaping hole in the earth, wondering if he would return that evening or be lost forever. I felt the mountain hunkered over us, pressing down, and it was hard to breathe.” Here and there an arm swung free from the darkness and disappeared again. Ahead of us, lamps bobbed like monstrous lightning bugs. The smell was like the inside of our coal stove, but damp and decaying. “Now there was no movement of air except the unnatural breath of the trap doors opening and closing in the tunnels.
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