Matthew P. Bachand
Teacher List
Aurand, Harold.
Coalcracker Culture.
Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 1993. A book that has a lot of content about the daily lives of mine workers and their families. This includes descriptions of mining towns and the mines themselves.
Fay, James.
MIT: Pappalardo Series in Mechanical Engineering
. “Energy and the Environment.” Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. I found this text useful for hard scientific data pertaining to pollution and global warming.
Freese, Barbara.
Coal: A Human History
. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2003. This is an excellent source for general knowledge about coal. Has some very good information about the 1902 Anthracite strike that I did not find in more “scholarly” books.
Martin, John Barlow. “The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped” In
Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America
Ed. by Shapiro, Bruce New York: Nation Books, 2003. pp. 201-244. This is considered a classic text in American investigative journalism.
Tietz, Jeffrey. “The Great Centralia Coal Fire.”
Harper’s Magazine.
February 2004. This is a very good piece on this mine fire and its causes. Eminently readable, students should be able to grasp it.
Wiebe, Robert. “The Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902: A Record of Confusion”
Mississippi Valley Historical Review.
September 1961p. 229-251. A scholarly article, but very informative. I found this especially helpful for contextualizing Roosevelt in the broader fight for labor rights.
Zinn, Howard.
A People’s History of the United States.
New York: The New Press, 1997. This is perhaps the best social history of the United States ever written. While not as detailed as the other texts listed, provides a good “survey of the century” between the Civil War (when coal was King) and the waning of coal’s influence post-Korean Conflict.
Student List
D.H. Lawrence
, Sons and Lovers.
Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1913. I found it too dense for my 10th graders after the first chapter, but useful for describing the life of a coal mining couple.
A.J. Cronin
, The Citadel.
Boston: Back Bay Books, 1937. This is another text that is easily excerpted from in order to show the life of an English coal miner. I think this is more accessible than
Coalcracker Culture
, which is listed in the teacher resources.
Susan Campbell Bartoletti,
A Coal Miner’s Bride.
New York: Scholastic, 2000. Another, even more accessible, young adult title related to the struggles of an outsider trying to understand the “thick culture” of coal mining.
Susan Campbell Bartoletti
, Growing Up In Coal Country.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. This quality nonfiction text provides the factual backdrop for
A Coal Miner’s Bride.
Mary Harris “Mother” Jones
: Autobiography of
Mother Ed. Mary Field Parton. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1925. Perhaps the most readable text here listed; captivating for adults, should be interesting to students.
Martin, John Barlow. “The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped” In
Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America
Ed. by Shapiro, Bruce New York: Nation Books, 2003. pp. 201-244. See above.
Tietz, Jeffrey. “The Great Centralia Coal Fire.”
Harper’s Magazine.
February 2004. See above.
John Sayles
, Matewan,
1987. An excellent film showing the intersection of racial and labor strife in the 1930’s in West Virginia.
Websites
American Coal Foundation: Timeline of Coal in the United States. http://www.teachcoal.org/lessonplans/middle.html July 6, 2004. Briefly synopsizes the evolution of United States’ coal usage.
The Hopi Tribe:
The Hopi Tribe: Tutsqua Ancestral Land
http://www.hopi.nsn.us/ancestral_land.asp July 6, 2004. This site provides interesting details about the Hopi use of coal.
G”del, Jeff. “Why We Burn Coal” CNN Online, 7/25/02 cgi.cnn.com/2002/US/07/25/mine.why.coal/ July 10, 2004. This contains a useful quote about the U.S.’s status as the “Saudi Arabia of Coal.”
U.S. Geological Survey Energy Resource Surveys Program “USGS Fact Sheet FS-157-96 July 1996 Assessing the Coal Resources of the United States” Discusses, thoroughly, the state of United States’ coal reserves. http://energy.usgs.gov/factsheets/nca/nca.html July 6, 2004
Coal Facts 2003
. West Virginia Coal Association PDF File. www.wvcoal.com/resources/2001coal.asp July 6, 2004. This contains interesting examples of the energy output of coal and the corresponding consumption of coal energy by household items.
Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, www.msichicago.org/exhibit/coal_mine/descent.html . Has a fantastic “virtual tour” of a coalmine.
“How a coal-fired power plant works” Canadian Clean Power Coalition www.canadiancleanpowercoalition.com/CUSTOMER/CCPC/CCPCWEBSITE.NSF. This site contains a great graphic depiction of the journey of coal through a coal-fired power plant.
AP News Report, “EPA Says 243 Counties Exceed Soot Standard.” June 30th, 2004. Shows the current state of coal related pollution in the United States.
Gabbard, Alex.
Coal Combustion: Nuclear Resource or Danger
?. Oak Ridge National Laboratories Report. www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html July 22, 2004. Has some alarming (for coal) and contextualizing (about nuclear power) information about the radioactive nature of coal deposits in the United States.
United States Mine Rescue Association. “Historical Data on Mine Disasters in the United States” http://www.usmra.com/saxsewell/historical.htm July 27, 2004. This provides data that contextualizes the Centralia, Illinois Mine Blast for the Reader. Also shows the severity of mine disasters in general.
“Centralia, Pennsylvania.” http://www.offroaders.com/album/centralia/centralia.htm May 19, 2004. This site provides pictures and general information of Centralia, the “Town on Fire.”
“The Miners.” Pittsburg Post-Gazette Staff Writers. http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/2002080402all9chaponep9.asp July 6, 2004. This article provides detailed information about the Quecreek mine disaster from the mine’s local paper. I found this to be an excellent source for internet-based investigative reading.
“Quecreek Miner Miracle” http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2002/miner.miracle/index.html July 11, 2004 Another excellent source for information about Quecreek, but from a national perspective.
“Matewan” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093509/ July 20, 2004. Cites the movie.
How Stuff Works: How much coal is required to run a 100-watt light bulb 24 hours a day for a year? science.howstuffworks.com/question481.htm July 20, 2004. Answers this question; has other links to coal related questions.