Stories of Life and Work

Marat Moore
Hardcover, 337 Pages
January, 1996
Twayne Publishing

In this book, women coal miners describe their working lives in a hazardous industry that remained virtually all-male until 1973. Women miners fought the odds for a measure of economic freedom with a determination and blood-and-guts courage normally attributed to men. They built a women's support network and made their voices heard in the United Mine Workers of American (UMWA). Their story is part of the larger history of social upheaval created by the broad entry of women into the workforce of the United States in the last several decades. These narratives reflect the impact of shifting sex roles on the coal mine workplace and on domestic life. Like the tradition of diaries and journal-keeping, the oral history of women can be intensely personal, illuminating the truth beneath a bloodless chronology of events.