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Anthracite Boot Camp
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This is a true story about men struggling in a black underground world as they and their families emerge from a very difficult period of industrial labor unrest and civil economic depression. It is also a story of a father's effort to train his young son to work with the degree of diligence and intensity that the father felt was a necessary foundation for a successful and rewarding life. The story is not about coal mining in coal veins where those seams are deep, thick, and overlain by many feet of solid rock. It is not about miners at major collieries who rode on cable cars down a shaft or slope, and stood erect in high underground, well-lit mine chambers. In other words, it's not about underground labor as often portrayed in such classic films about coal mining as "How Green Was My Valley", "The Molly Maguires", or on public television. Certainly, those miners persevered in a monumentally hazardous environment that is well documented, and their contributions to creation of an organized Miners' Labor Union were heroic, indeed.
Instead, this story is about anthracite mining along mountainsides where coal seams slant upward to the surface, or in mining terms, where veins "outcrop". Here coal veins and roof rock above the veins are thin, and roof rock more often than not, is extensively fractured and ready to collapse. Coal veins may only be three to five feet thick, dip, turn, twist, abruptly terminate, resume a short distance away, and often cannot be identified accurately by the official names of veins in the library of mine maps. In such a confined layout, ventilation is also poor. All of the safety issues that confronted miners in large collieries were multiplied at these mines near vein outcrops. State and Federal mine inspectors also visited these small operations, but not with the frequency and enthusiasm focused on larger collieries where the majority of anthracite miners were at risk. For all of these reasons, miners commonly nicknamed these small mine openings that once dotted the mountainsides of the anthracite coal fields as "dog-holes". Classic stories about coal mines tell of helpful warnings a swarm of rats provided by squealing as they frantically ran out of a mine just prior to a cave-in that they sensed was imminent. During my youthful experience around dog-holes from 1951 to 1959, I never heard that any rats were seen. It's likely that there weren't enough lunch bags around to sustain them. It's also possible the rats took one frightened look at the ominous dungeons and decided to migrate and break into miners' lunches elsewhere.
This story is also about my "boot camp" training from the age of 8 to 17 in mining operations, under the guidance of my Father, Pete Scatena. It took place in Northeastern Pennsylvania—specifically, the region between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre known as The Wyoming Valley. Most of the history of the Valley is rooted in its' coal mining industry, which was the Valley's principal attraction for mass immigration by impoverished families from Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A portion of the Valley appears in Figure 1. My experience occurred within a 3-mile radius of the City of Pittston. Pittston appears in the upper left corner of the map, and is midway between the much larger cities of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.
The story begins in Chapters 1 and 2 with a description of strife and hardship that existed in coal fields between 1878 and 1915 when immigration was at its peak. Chapter 3 describes family struggles for survival subsequent to immigration, before and during the Great Depression; i.e. 1916 to 1939. It is only with an understanding of these earlier hardships that one can accurately judge the sometimes odd and questionable motives of the generation of anthracite miners that followed in Chapter 4 through 12. Emotional events occur throughout, with references to classic songs that help the reader interpret the level of passion surrounding many of the events.
Instead, this story is about anthracite mining along mountainsides where coal seams slant upward to the surface, or in mining terms, where veins "outcrop". Here coal veins and roof rock above the veins are thin, and roof rock more often than not, is extensively fractured and ready to collapse. Coal veins may only be three to five feet thick, dip, turn, twist, abruptly terminate, resume a short distance away, and often cannot be identified accurately by the official names of veins in the library of mine maps. In such a confined layout, ventilation is also poor. All of the safety issues that confronted miners in large collieries were multiplied at these mines near vein outcrops. State and Federal mine inspectors also visited these small operations, but not with the frequency and enthusiasm focused on larger collieries where the majority of anthracite miners were at risk. For all of these reasons, miners commonly nicknamed these small mine openings that once dotted the mountainsides of the anthracite coal fields as "dog-holes". Classic stories about coal mines tell of helpful warnings a swarm of rats provided by squealing as they frantically ran out of a mine just prior to a cave-in that they sensed was imminent. During my youthful experience around dog-holes from 1951 to 1959, I never heard that any rats were seen. It's likely that there weren't enough lunch bags around to sustain them. It's also possible the rats took one frightened look at the ominous dungeons and decided to migrate and break into miners' lunches elsewhere.
This story is also about my "boot camp" training from the age of 8 to 17 in mining operations, under the guidance of my Father, Pete Scatena. It took place in Northeastern Pennsylvania—specifically, the region between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre known as The Wyoming Valley. Most of the history of the Valley is rooted in its' coal mining industry, which was the Valley's principal attraction for mass immigration by impoverished families from Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A portion of the Valley appears in Figure 1. My experience occurred within a 3-mile radius of the City of Pittston. Pittston appears in the upper left corner of the map, and is midway between the much larger cities of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.
The story begins in Chapters 1 and 2 with a description of strife and hardship that existed in coal fields between 1878 and 1915 when immigration was at its peak. Chapter 3 describes family struggles for survival subsequent to immigration, before and during the Great Depression; i.e. 1916 to 1939. It is only with an understanding of these earlier hardships that one can accurately judge the sometimes odd and questionable motives of the generation of anthracite miners that followed in Chapter 4 through 12. Emotional events occur throughout, with references to classic songs that help the reader interpret the level of passion surrounding many of the events.
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Anthracite Boot Camp - Louis Scatena
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