[Miner working in coal mine]

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This print shows a single miner at his task underground, a subject the record names only as coal mining, with no mine, town, or worker identified. It comes from the National Photo Company Collection, a body of commercial work from the early twentieth century, when coal fueled railroads, factories, and homes across the country. Underground labor then was dangerous and dusty, and workers often relied on small lamps for light in the narrow galleries. Photographs like this one, made between 1909 and 1932, help show the physical conditions of that work at a time when mining employed a large share of American industrial laborers.

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