Breaker Boys, 1911 | Lewis Hine, Library of Congress

King Coal and Me

Coal Country’s Hidden Hand

Pennsylvania and the Roots of American Empire

I was born and raised in coal country, around Pittsburgh. My father was a miner, and where I lived as a youth many kids I knew also had fathers, uncles, brothers, even grandfathers, in the mines. For the most part, we took coal and everything associated with it for granted. We were used to…