Coal Operators Oral History Project

These interviews with major coal operators document their personal histories and the history of the coal industry in eastern Kentucky during the twentieth century. Kentucky communities discussed include Artemus, Burdine, Jenkins, Jellico, Van Lear, and Wheelwright; and Kentucky counties include Bell, Clay, Floyd, Harlan, Johnson, Knox, Leslie, Letcher, Martin, Perry, Pike, and Pulaski. Narrators discuss the following coal companies: Blue Diamond, Consolidated, Cypress, Finley, Hurricane Creek, Kentucky River, Massey, and Allais Coal Mine. Other topics include coal associations, organized labor, the United Mine Workers of America, the Kentucky Department of Mines and Minerals, Mine Education and Safety (MESA), Inland Steel, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Citizens for the Commonwealth, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and United States Steel. Information on various aspects of the mining industry includes deep mining, surface mining, mining techniques, land reclamation, politics and mining, mine safety and accidents, the role of the state and federal governments in mine safety, state and federal legislation, mine inspections, marketing coal, acid rain, company towns, media coverage of the coal industry, black and immigrant miners, employer-employee relations, the conspiracy trial of 1938, the Kentucky-Virginia Compact, Buchanan versus Watson, Brush Creek, and John L. Lewis.