Coal Document Essay

When asked to think of coal mining, what comes to mind? A mountain with a hole cut into the side of it with a set of railroad tracks disappearing into it? Maybe an old mine car or two full of some rocks or coal, with a pickaxe and shovel leaning against it. A few guys with hard hats covered in a black powder coming walking out of the mine pushing a car or two full of coal. The technology has advanced but the process is basically still the same as well as the outcome. Coal is retrieved from underground and taken to factories to be burnt to create electricity or to fuel the steel mills.

There were little to no safety rules. Often the coal mine roofs caved in. Many injuries were caused because of the lack of safety rules and safety precautions. Many of the children worked as “trappers”. Trappers were essentially kids who sat in a hole and held a string and once they would hear the coal wagon coming along they would pull up on the string so the coal wagon could pass through. This job was the loneliest of all the coal mine jobs but it was the easiest to perform. The older children would work as coal bearers and all they did was carry coal in baskets on their shoulders to point A to point

The use of coal which is most common today started in the 700’s CE and it is the use of coal as an energy source. Though not officially used as a heat source until the 1100’s CE, many methods of burning it for protective smoke were used. While the use of coal for heat was cheaper than wood, the side effects of it shortly began to show. As the mass used of coal came to be, the price of it rose sharply as up to ½ of lower class family wages were used only for the minimal amount of coal needed to survive harsh cold months. London also grew dependent on coal and many signs were showing just why this statement was true. The coal smoke smudged the city and thick black clouds could be seen from miles away surrounding London. These plus other negative effects of coal explains how the misuse of coal led to more negative occurrences than positive and beneficial use it gave.

Since coal pollutes the air and gives off a lot of carbon dioxide, many European nations switched to natural gas or nuclear power to produce electricity.

Document 6 states children working underground, breaker boys inhaled great amounts of coal dust damaging their lungs and causing illness. This shows that many children were worked hard. Additional document 1 shows that in 1910 there were 163000000 child workers,117 infants under one died. That means .5% of the work force was children.

A miner from the 1800s had to work hard for little bits of money. One specific miner went to a school with his three brothers, although it was not a good school since schools back then were not the best, until he was twelve, when he went to pick slate. There were five kids that worked there, one of which was crushed by 50 tons of rock one week before he was to get married. There were many risks in mining, like falling rock, miner’s asthma, powder, smoke, poisonous gases, and bad air. Miners were living unfair lives and that was fixed well (Doc 1). In 1902, Theodore Roosevelt helped the lives of mine workers by decreasing the time for miners to work from 12 hours to 9. Roosevelt also gave workers a wage increase,

Initially, charcoal and wood were used a fuel source, but as those resources became scarce, coal became a necessity. As shown in Document 1, England was fortunate enough to have a readily available coal supply that other countries in Europe were not able to have. As England became industrialized, more coal was needed to fuel steam engines and furnaces. The development of factories and the improvement of the steam engine also increased the demand for coal. As a result, coal mines that were once mined at the surface, now got deeper and deeper, and there was too much water to safely get more coal. When the Newcomen engine was put into use at the coal mines, coal was put into the steam engine to pump more coal out. Similarly almost every other piece of technology in that time period used coal as the main fuel source so the need for coal skyrocketed. Document 4 explains how England had the natural conditions necessary to succeed such as coal, which is a major reason the Industrial Revolution started in England and not in any other

Coal discovery dates to the 1300s with the Hopi Natives. This would prove significant some five hundred years later when coal became the predominant source of power in the mid to late 1800s. This would prove even more significant when the Government started surveying the landscape for the best route for the Transcontinental Railroad in 1853. Upon completion of the research, one thing the scouts made clear was the presence of coal in Wyoming and some of the western states. To run supplies from the eastern states to the west they needed the presence of coal to be close and readily available for the coal fueled trains. This played a major role in the industrial revolution the United States was about the experience.

Miners were paid more than factory workers, but that was because conditions in the mines were even crueler. Mines were dark, dirty and polluted with coal dust. Explosions, flooding and collapsing tunnels were just some of the dangerous incidents the workers had to be aware of. Women usually did not even wear any clothes while working in the mines. Most women only had one set of clothes and could not afford for them to get caught in a machine, destroyed or dirty. Further, mines were extremely hot, so wearing clothes made it even hotter, especially with the amount of sweat and body heat in the mine. Both women and children went up and down ladders multiple times a day with heavy loads of coal. For children, work in the mines was very tough; as they had to haul coal back and forth in carts in the

It has been found in the 1900 census that more than 1,750,000 children from 10-16 were working for pay in the United States (Derickson 485). There were another 250,000 workers who were under the age of 10 (Derickson 486). Many historian suspect that the number of child workers was even higher then what is known. This is because there was a tendency to record false information or to not record any information at all (Derickson 486). Many child workers were members of immigrant families who worked in shops making toys, and clothes. In the mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky where coal mining is an important part of the economy. Men would bring their sons with them to the coal processing mills when they were as young as 6 (Derickson 486)

Coal was used for just about everything. It was used for the iron and steel industry, for steam powered transportation, and, of course, for home heating in coal furnaces and in stoves. It was seemingly the major fuel for industry. Coal was increasingly abundant in the mountains from West Virginia to Alabama. The production of coal rose from five million tons to fifty million tons in the twenty five years between 1875 and1900.

In 2008 coal had a peak production. In 2016 coal was responsible for 15% of the United States energy consumption. That was a decrease from previous years. The amount of coal being produced now is the same amount as it was in 1977. Coal has been decreasing for the past few years because

Coal power is the cheapest fuel to power the ever growing population with Australian mining industry still putting in billions of dollars into a vast amount of coal projects never the less coal power is a fossil fuel, a fuel which takes hundreds of year to form so the future of coal is undetermined. Coal is a reliable power source but one of the many concern with coal is the mining process used to remove it from the ground. Ecological effects are developing worries for the industry, with the carbon emissions possibly contributing to global warming.

I strongly believe that people should be educated about the December, 1907 3,000 coal mining deaths. In 2001 there were 42 coal mining deaths. All these deaths meant wives loosing husbands and sons. These deaths cause the lost of the bread winners in many house-holds; which, would later add to poverty and single parents.

Coal, a mineral I have discussed previously, is necessary to our everyday lives. Coal is an incredible source of energy; it heats our houses and buildings, and also fuels stoves. You may often wonder where this extremely useful mineral comes from. Coal does not just appear; it needs to be mined through a process which results in our being able to utilize it. Coal mining is fairly inexpensive, is carried out on a large scale and can be mined in either underground or surface mines.