Appalachian Coal Mining Memories - Life in the Coal Fields of Virginia's New River Valley [Paperback]

Mary B. La Lone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0936015667 | ISBN-13: 978-0936015668

Fifty-one interview with 61 different people who tell about their lives as coal miners, as wives of coal miners, and as daughters and sons of coal miners. Photographs and maps help bring to life a period of time in the New River Valley of Virginia that is not only long gone but almost forgotten, a time when Coal was King. Read about a group of people who had a hard life but who remember those days with warmth and pleasure.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Appalachian Coal Mining Memories describes life in the Coal Fields of Virginia's New River Valley. Fifty-one interviews with sixty-one different people who tell about their lives as coal miners, as wives of coal miners, and as daughters and sons of coal miners. Appalachian Coal Mining Memories is illustrated with photographs and maps to help bring alive a period of time that is not only long gone, but almost forgotten -- a time when Coal was King. Appalachian Coal Mining Memories is about a time when men spent their days hundreds of feet underground, hacking away at the rock containing a mineral that was not only fuel for their homes but the source of their income and security, while their wives and children tended chickens and hogs, weeded gardens, picked huckleberries, sewed quilts, baked biscuits and pies, and attended school. Appalachian Coal Mining Memories is about a group of people who had a hard life, but who remember those days with warmth and pleasure. Appalachian Coal Mining Memories is a true and rewarding study of a small slice of American life, now gone and all but forgotten save for the memories of those who still linger, and the regional histories for the remembrance of generations yet to come. -- Midwest Book Review

About the Author

Mary Burkheimer La Lone was born November 28, 1950, and grew up in southern California. She received her B.A. and M.A. degrees in Anthropology from California State University, Los Angeles and her Master's in Library Science and Ph.D. in Anthropology (1985) from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research specialties are in historical and economic anthropology, and her travels have taken her to the Peruvian Andes, Mexico, and Greece. For many years, Mary's research focused on the ethnohistory of the Inca civilization in the Andes. She began teacherin 1989 in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Radford University, and soon became fascinated with the surrounded Appalachian culture of southwest Virginia, assisting with a heritage tourism project and conducted research on the cultural history of the coal mining camps in that region. Her journal articles 'Recollections about Appalachia's Coal Camps: Positive or Negative?' and 'Economic Survival Strategies in Appalachia's Coal Camps' discuss life in the Wise County mining communities. In 1995, she and her Radford University strudents began this oral history study of New River Valley coal mining life, modeled after her earlier study. Mary is married to Kim Knight, a geology professor at Radford University, and they share a passion for landscape gardening. Their home and garden is located near Coal Bank Hollow, north of Blacksburg.

Product Details

• Paperback: 373 pages
• Publisher: Pocahontas Press (September 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0936015667
• ISBN-13: 978-0936015668
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,986,995 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)