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Monongah: The Tragic Story of the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster, the Worst Industrial Accident in US History
by Davitt McAteer

To commemorate the hundreds of victims of the December 6, 1907 Monongah mine disaster in Monongah, West Virginia, the West Virginia University Press is honored to release on the centennial anniversary of this disaster, Monongah: The Tragic Story of the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster, the Worst Industrial Accident in US History, by West Virginia native Davitt McAteer. McAteer has long been a champion of mine safety and served as Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health in the US Department of Labor during the Clinton administration. His exhaustive research tracking down Monongah victims' survivors and descendants proves that contrary to the official report of 362 dead, close to 500 men and boys, many of them immigrants, lost their lives that day, leaving hundreds of women widowed and over 1,000 children orphaned.
Monongah: The Tragic Story of the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster, the Worst Industrial Accident in US History

Red Helmet
by Homer Hickam

Red Helmet by Homer Hickam
 From the creator of October Sky comes a new coal-mining story about a wife who, to save the man she loves, must put on the red helmet of the novice coal miner and descend underground where danger, and possibly murder, lurks. Forever unlucky in love, Song Hawkins has the reputation of being a cold-hearted yet beautiful businesswoman. But everything changes when this New Yorker finds the man of her dreams in Cable Jordan, the manager of a West Virginia coal mine. After they marry, it quickly becomes apparent Cable has no intention of leaving his beloved hometown of Highcoal. Reluctantly, Song is soon swept up in the strange, funny, and always interesting highjinks of the little mining town's quirky citizens. But things turn deadly serious when, to save her husband and his town, she must put on the red helmet of the novice coal miner and make both a life-changing and life-threatening sacrifice. Song is a not only a red helmet in the mine, but also in love.

Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917
by Michael Punke

When a shaft fire broke out on June 8, 1917, it unleashed a variety of pent-up hatreds that had festered in Butte for months, if not years. Initially, the fire trapped more than 400 men beneath the surface. One hundred sixty-four people died, and Punke's recounting of the struggle of the others to survive is tense, exciting, and even inspiring. A lawyer, novelist, and Montana resident, he tells an equally interesting story of the ethnic conflicts, anti-war protests, and labor warfare that quickly exploded and ravaged the area for the next three years. This is a timely work, with the recent spate of fatal mine disasters reminding us that deep-shaft mining remains a dangerous profession.
Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917

The Deep Dark: Disaster and Redemption in America's Richest Silver Mine
by Gregg Olsen

The Deep Dark: Disaster and Redemption in America's Richest Silver Mine
 The 1972 fire at Idaho's Sunshine silver mine was one of America's worst mine disasters, with 91 miners killed—some in mid-stride—by a "stealthy tornado" of smoke and carbon monoxide. True crime journalist Olsen (Abandoned Prayers) has the narrative chops for this story. His suspenseful account conveys the already hellish everyday atmosphere of the mine, the panic and chaos of the sudden catastrophe, the heroic efforts to evacuate, the ghastly deaths of victims, the (sometimes overdrawn) horror of their decomposing bodies and the ordeal of two miners trapped in an air pocket. But he goes further, embedding his chronicle within a social panorama of the macho subculture of the miners—whose disdain for safety precautions may have raised the body count even as their hard-bitten sense of fraternity held them together in the emergency—and of the larger working-class community that frayed and bonded in the face of the tragedy.

47 Down : The 1922 Argonaut Gold Mine Disaster
by O. Henry Mace

This volume details the fire in the main shaft of a Jackson, Calif., Argonaut gold mine, which trapped 47 miners 4,650 feet below ground in the summer of 1922. It took rescuers three weeks to get to where the miners were trapped by the fire as family members and friends, co-workers, the press and countless Americans awaited word of the foregone conclusion. Mace researched the mine fire for seven years; his dedication pays off in a well-rounded examination of the fire and the mining industry. Even without coming to a conclusion about which rescue plan would have given the miners the best chance of survival, he thoroughly explores the scientific and structural implications of each course of action complete with diagrams, technical data and testimony from those involved. Though Mace never really steps outside the facts long enough to capture the experience of the trapped miners, his intimate portraits of the miners' families, mine employees and, especially, journalist Ruth Finney, explore the countless ways the mining disaster changed those who were close to it.
47 Down : The 1922 Argonaut Gold Mine Disaster

Trapped: The 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster
by Karen Tintori

Trapped: The 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster
 On November 13, 1909, a fire trapped 480 coal miners -- men and boys -- 400 feet below ground in a mine at Cherry, Illinois. Only 221 escaped. Not until the following March were the bodies retrieved and buried. Hundreds of women were widowed and nearly 500 children were orphaned in what was the worst coal mine fire in U.S. history. The author's grandfather survived by a quirk of fate: a hangover keeping him home from work that day. Tintori describes the life-and-death struggle of the miners below ground and the terror of the women and children gathered at the mine's entrance, praying for their loved ones. She draws on firsthand accounts of survivors, government inquiries and reports, legal correspondence, photographs (there are 14 black-and-white ones in the book), newspaper accounts, pamphlets, court reporters' transcripts of testimony taken at the coroner's inquest, commemorative programs, and memorabilia. Tintori's graphic account of this tragedy is a sad but gripping story.

All Nine Alive: The Dramatic Mine Rescue That Inspired and Cheered a Nation
by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Staff

A drama that captivated the world for five days ending July 28 unfolded in bucolic Somerset County, not 13 miles from the horrific end of Sept. 11's Flight 93, where heroism had no witness and death was the only outcome. This time, heroes were evident above and below the earth's surface, and the outcome lifted a veil of darkness from the trapped miners and, at least for a while, from a world trapped by grim news. Now the miners are home, Geraldo and his TV crew have moved out, the rescuers are back at their day jobs, investigations have begun, and it might seem that there is nothing more to say. But, as the following story reveals, what really happened in those desperate hours was more breathtaking than we knew.
All Nine Alive: The Dramatic Mine Rescue That Inspired and Cheered a Nation

Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith
by The Quecreek Miners, Jeff Goodell

Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith
 The story of the nine Pennsylvania coal miners who were trapped underground for more than three days could have easily been sidetracked by aphorisms about America's post-September 11 can-do spirit and the like. But since this tale is mainly told via the miners' own words, it's a blessedly unsentimental and true-to-life account of a horrifying situation and a triumphant escape. Goodell proves a knowing scribe for this story of adventure and endurance, alternating between filling in the setting when necessary and just letting the miners talk, oral history style. It's a pulse-racing tale, in which a drill punches into an old, abandoned, water-filled mine, quickly flooding the space where the miners are working, trapping them in a dark, cold pocket of rapidly diminishing air. Goodell wisely keeps the focus on these hard-bitten men and the bravery that kept them going through those long, indistinguishable days and nights underground.

Gresford: The Anatomy of a Disaster
by Stanley Williamson

The worst disaster of the North Wales coalfield – one of the worst in the history of the British mining industry – occurred in 1934, killing 256 men and devastating a small community. Stanley Williamson’s account draws on his own interviews with the bereaved and those involved in the rescue, as well as the reports of the subsequent inquiry and the records of the North Wales Miners’ Association. Williamson covers the inquiry, and the important issues it raised, in detail and charts the way in which Sir Stafford Cripps, representing the North Wales miners, launched an attack on the whole social and industrial system of which the industry was a part.
Gresford: The Anatomy of a Disaster

Blind Shaft (DVD)
by Li Yang

Blind Shaft
 Li Yang, writer/director of Blind Shaft, is a Chinese documentary filmmaker who, in this film, turned to features and with superior results. In a revealing and powerful essay he himself wrote for the release of this film on DVD, found in the DVD case insert, he talks about how grueling it was to make it. The story of two murdering grifters with mining experience--enough to get them jobs in any one of hundreds of mines that sprang up after the demise of the Communist economy in mainland China--Blind Shaft pulls no punches in portraying the day-to-day existence of dirt-poor, working class men and women who scrabble for a living, waiting in the streets of the city, the village, the town, for work to come along. These two, Tang and Song, have developed a vicious plan to make money--find a poor, unsuspecting man, have him pose as the nephew or cousin of one of them, take the man with them to the next mine that needs workers, descend the shaft into the mine, kill the third man and make it look like a mine cave-in, then, in essence, blackmail the mine owner into paying funeral and related expenses to the two of them for the "accident".

Last Man Out: The Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster
by Melissa Fay Greene

On October 23, 1958, gases from deep within the earth shot skyward, causing entire floors of rock to rise instantly in a coal mine in Springhill, Nova Scotia, trapping 174 men underground. Seventy-five miners never made it out alive. Miraculously, two small groups of miners survived the initial "bump" but were sealed in small caverns deep within the coal. Surrounded by foul air and total darkness, and with precious little food and water, the men vacillated between optimism and hopelessness as they tried to maintain sanity amidst horrific conditions. Above them, fellow miners and rescue workers dug desperately to get them out, clinging to the unwritten Miner's Code that no man shall be left behind. After a week of digging and with hope all but exhausted, they found one group of a dozen miners; a day later seven more men were discovered. Melissa Fay Greene describes this harrowing ordeal in sharp detail, effectively capturing the drama of the event for both the miners trapped below and their distraught families waiting above.
Last Man Out: The Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster