“Exploring how power is built into the organization of coal camps.”
The organizational structure of coal camps is built around a hierarchical power system that thrives off depression. In typical late 1800 — early 1900 city planning followed the Garden City Movement. This movement was built around the idea that industry needed a supply of labor that could be supplied anywhere and that companies have an incentive to improve workers living standards. These garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by parks, with proportionate and separate areas of residences, industry, and agriculture. Coal camps ignored many of these principles and instead created a self-contained machine, built around big business, and thrived using the control and oppression of workers.
These camps were unincorporated settlements within counties, administered and governed for the purpose of coal mining under the rule of the company. The railroad tracks, coke ovens, coal tipple, and other structures necessary for production were the primary building focus in coal camps. Other structures, including dwelling for the miners, a store, mining offices, schools, and churches were always secondary to the needs of the industry. The plan of these towns revolved literally around the coal facility. Even as late as 1946, social investigators reported that some coal camps had no telephones, restaurants, telephones, drug stores, or laundromats, even though these were common in surrounding towns. Since the camps were thought of as an extension of mining operations. Companies forced workers to live in company housing as a condition of employment. These dwelling units exhibited a hierarchical class system that recognized an individual’s influence within the coal camp.
Within the camp, the family was not an isolated unit, but part of the social structure of the mining industry. The camp was broken down into micro communities that followed the hierarchy of employment. The best houses, with running water and plumbing, were reserved for company officials and their families. These houses were well maintained, regularly painted, and were surrounded by others of high importance like the mine superintendent, the company doctor, store manager, mining engineer and chief electrician. Immigrants and common miners were subjected to substandard living conditions. Houses were painted the same color, infrequently maintained, and had no running water or heat. The lack of adequate of amenities within the household created a further dependency on the coal company.
Necessities like food, clothing, and even water were controlled through company establishments. The company store was frequently the only source of food and supplies to miners in the coal camps. Good were purchase with company currency issued to the miners as pay or on credit against the miners’ future wages. Rough country roads and infrequent railroad services made it hard to get good from outside the camp. Furthermore, workers were paid in script, a unique currency payable for company good. Business outside coal towns would accept script, but for fractions of face value. This manipulation of goods and services was yet another way the coal companies used their power to make the company prosper.
The social structure, town organizations, and hash living conditions created a dependency on the coal company. This dependency brought power to coal executives and an oppression upon workers that drove big business. The neglect and suffering of works created an unbalanced structure of employment that was one of the factors in the many riots, strikes, and civil uprisings at coal facilities in the 19th century.
