By 1934, one scholar reported 34 languages spoken on the streets of Pittsburg on a Saturday night. It wasn't a paradise, however. The miners worked a 10 to 12 hour day, crawling on their hands and knees into the deep shafts to place explosives, or hacking at the coal seam with picks, loading it into mule-drawn carts. The mules, Knoll said, were treated better than the men. There were always more men.
Records show hundreds of accidents.
Forty-seven men were killed in the largest mining disaster in the state, but countless others were injured and disabled in the mines every day. The only thing to do, then, was to send the oldest son into the mines as the breadwinner. Boys as young as 12 years old worked alongside their elders. By 1914, there were 63 mines employing more than 6,000 men. They produced a third of the nation's total coal.