The Kingdom of Coal: Work, Enterprise \u0026 Ethnic Communities in the Mine Fields by Donald L. Miller

The Kingdom of Coal: Work, Enterprise \u0026 Ethnic Communities in the Mine Fields Reviews

• 
  Dan

  I really enjoyed this book. It does tell of the rise and fall of the anthracite industry in Northeastern Pennsylvania in a thorough but easily read style, with the emphasis on the different groups of people who really make up the story.
  
  I am tangentially connected to the story in various ways. I went to Lafayette, where Donald Miller is a professor (but long before his time) and it was amusing to hear what horrible people the Pardees and Markles and the others who endowed Lafayette were. While I was at Lafayette, I shoveled anthracite into the furnaces of a local hotel in Easton four times a day for two years to earn my spending money. I was also in class and in a fraternity with numbers of students from the coal regions and learned first hand of their families' struggles to re-acclimate themselves to a post coal world.
  
  I also was particularly interested by the descriptions of the cultural characteristics of the different immigrant ethnic groups and of how their backgrounds affected their views on life, family, and business. The anthracite region of Eastern Pennsylvania is a unique situation but the same ethnic values described in this book can be seen in studying other areas, such as Pittsburgh, where the same groups settled and altered the culture of an area.
• 
  John Lomnicki,

  When I selected this volume from my bookshelf, it had been there a while waiting for me. I was interested in coal mining and its history, but even though my day was a coal miner for 42 years, I never totally understood what was going on. My dad would explain to me that this was his profession of choice and that he enjoyed the work and the fellowship.
  
  This book filled in many of the blanks and it was an engaging read. The detail of how and why decisions in the coal industry occurred as well as how the miners reacted now makes sense. Mr. Miller, I know that you did not make this book specifically for me, but the characters you describe were my relatives as well as my dads friends. Good job.
• 
  Arminius

  I read this book a few years ago. As a remember it, it is a terrific book about the Anthracite Coal Region of Pennsylvania. It details the events from when Coal was King and why and when Oil usurped the position. Both labor unions and coal owners were to blame.
  
  Coal owners treated workers miserably. Black balling workers who quit, making them work long, hard unsafe hours, having children pick rocks from the coal are just a few of the distressed conditions these workers had to endure from.
  
  The workers would strike during the harsh winter months leaving customers without heat. All this happened while Oil was cheap and plentiful. So many customers switched to reliable oil to heat their homes.
  
  I also like how he describes the close knit communities in which coal workers came from. I am from one of those communities and he nailed my experience long after the height of Coal.
  
• 
  Stacy

  Although this is poorly organized and written, there is a lot of good information here. The pictures are amazing and so are the stats!