Search

The collection of the papers of a Morgantown coal miner and electrician focuses upon the development of coal mining technology. It includes operations and maintenance manuals, diagrams, and catalogs for a variety of mining equipment and parts. It also includes notes and material for Chipp's study of mining technology and electricity.

Scrapbooks, mainly of newspaper clippings, maintained by a mining engineer, geologist, and businessman from Charleston. The scrapbooks contain clippings, announcements, and a few letters relating to Krebs' business, Charleston civic affairs, and professional engineering organizations. Topics covered include: the oil boom at Blue Creek in 1912; oil field development in Kanawha and Clay counties; oil and coal shipments on the C.&O.; coal, oil, gas, and coke production figures; report on the coal strike of 1922; surveys of West Virginia's coal, oil, and gas resources; machinery used in coal production; disputed land claims of the Colonial Timber and Coal Corporation, 1923; the New River Coal field; drainage areas and water power in West Virginia; Hinton Dam; Pennsylvania bituminous districts; rate hearings of the United Fuel Gas Company; early coal and gas operations in West Virginia; Norfolk and Western Railway affairs; silicosis cases resulting from the Hawks Nest tunnel construction, 1933; and bituminous coal prices in West Virginia and the U.S., 1906-1925.

A collection of typescripts, brochures, pamphlets, books, tape recordings, and assorted ephemeral publications concerning radical political and economic groups and community organizing related to labor history in Appalachia and the United States as compiled by Keith Dix. Organizations and publications represented in the collection include New Directions in Labor (1970-1971), New American Movement (1970-1971), New University Conference (1971), Labor Research Association (1971), Students for a Democratic Society (1963), and Radical Education Project (1968-1969), among others. Also includes material from 1923 to 1976 concerning coal mining labor relations and the role of unions such as the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). Topics of these items include rank-and-file members of the union, strikes, agreements, and mechanization. Tape recordings contain oral history interviews conducted by Keith Dix. Interviews chiefly concern coal mining in West Virginia. A more complete list of publications and tape recordings is available in the library. Most of the collection is arranged according in subject files, according to the topic or name of organization.

Transcript of an interview with a retired coal miner of Lincoln County, WV. Mosley lived and worked in the coal fields of Logan County, WV and Pike County, KY most of his life. He started to work in 1929 when mining was still done by pick and shovel and retired in the early sixties when mining had become mechanized. He describes the changes in mining technology he experienced and the effect of unionization in the coal mining region of southern West Virginia.