how much did coal miners get paid in the 1980s

The strike was officially called to a halt on March the 3rd 1985. Source: The cost of living among wage-earners, Cincinnati OH, pp. Shows data for 12 cities located in NY, OH, PA and MA, including NYC, Boston, Philadelphia and more. The strongest, most efficient men earned the most money at the end of the day. The regions first coal miners primarily were African Americans, both enslaved and free. With industrialization, workers lost control of when to start, eat, and end their day. Tables 6-13 show farm land prices by county in IA, MN, ND, ID, OH, KY, NC and TX. Shows the wages of Japanese mining workers by gender and age. What Life Is Like Working in Underground Coal Mines in the US Wages are shown in Spanish pesetas. Includes a table showing. Source: AAUP report. Shows the daily cost of food, heat, and light for a working family of 4 following independence. See answers (2) Best Answer. The deep imagery of coal mining in the 1970s shows a lifestyle - Medium 664. Working in coal mines is dangerous miners have to deal with toxic . Miners would lie on their backs and use a pick to undercut the coal. Wages are shown in Greek drachmas. Coal mining wages - Illinois, 1920. Manufacturing wages -- SEE box further below. Managers concentrated on business decisions, such as arranging transportation and selling their product. Some picked slate and other debris out of the coal on fast-moving conveyor belts. Expressed in dollars and also as a percentage of the property value. Wages are shown in shillings. White familiesspent an average $103.71/yearon medical care around 1928-1931. Coal powered industrial America. Pennsylvania's investment in anthracite iron paid dividends for the industrial economy of the state and proved that coal could be adapted to a number of industrial pursuits. As a rule he is paid so much per car, and a definite number of cars constitute a day's workthe number varying in different minesaveraging from five to seven, equaling from twelve to fifteen tons of coal. This website does a good job of organizing a complex topic. Inside workers are further classified as (1) miners and laborers who cut and load coal onto conveyors or into mine cars, and (2) all other employees whose occupations relate to transportation, timbering, pumping, ventilation, and other general underground work. Compares average retail prices for grocery items in independent stores and in chain stores. Source: American Druggist, January 1923 issue. Most trapper boys learned how to overcome their fears by watching and listening to the colliers who went underground with them. 7-8 in: Extensive, 219-page report published in the Bureau of Labor StatisticsBulletin no. Source: Missouri State Dept of Agriculture. They designed complex ventilation systems with fans and interior doors to keep dangerous gases from causing explosions. Source: U.S. BLS Bulletin #682, chapter 9: "Monthly earnings of professional engineers," pp. These figures are shown by occupation, sex, and region. Source: BLS. The failure of a mine boss to dampen the coal dust was the reason the Red Ash mine blew up in 1905, killing thirteen men and boys on Fire Creek. Industries and occupations included are toilers, manufacturing, construction, mining, and more. Prices are shown in Latvian rubles. Source: BLS. Source: Discusses average prices American families were paying for medical care and hospital trips. A man sometimes had to get down on his hands and knees, with his left shoulder, well padded, against the car, bracing himself with his toes against the ties and the dirt of the floor, wrote a former miner, while his partner controlled the brakes to keep the car from rolling back on the pusher if he slipped or grew tired. Back injuries, broken legs, and severed feet and fingers were common. Source: Source: Canada Department of Labor report. The coal industry required more labor than southern West Virginia could supply. Some New York City teacher and principal salaries are shown on the following page in Table 42. Salary data for teachers, principals and school administrators in New York City, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago and Kansas City. Trump blames his predecessors environmentalism for the loss of jobs in Appalachia, but the reality is a long-running product of market forces, not liberal tree-hugging. In 1927, "$30 per month was taken as the average minimum expenditure for rent in Boston for the [working class] family of four living on the American standard.". Source: BLS. Police department personnel salaries and wages. Wages are shown in Czech krone. "The fees and cost of books, instruments, board, room, laundry and incidentals will hardly be less than $400 per session of thirty-two weeks." Source: Describes the labor policy of Australia in the 1920's and throughout the rest of the early 20th century. Industrial home work was most common in clothing manufacturing and tobacco industries (rolling cigars, etc.) Source: Shows lawyers' incomes instates and regions, by size of community served, by the age of the lawyer, number of years in practice, etc. Tip: use the search tool to look for words like cents or rate. Source: Quote: "I presume that a fee of $200 would be a pretty fair estimate of the surgeon's charge for operation and the after-treatment between the operation and the death of the patient." Every three or four hundred feet, passageways were cut, creating narrower, corridor-like rooms that led to a coal face where each miner and his buddy worked in their own room. The colliers left large pillars of coal standing as they cut the face forward and sideways through breakthroughs that led to parallel rooms. NOTE: Forhouseholdincome data for 1929, we recommend a1934 Brookings Institution report titled America's Capacity to Consume. These were the underground attitudes Frank Keeney absorbed as he entered manhood as a coal miner. Wages are shown in contemporary U.S. dollars. The miners world was dark and dangerous. Source: BLS Monthly labor review, Apr 1926, Shows the average retail prices of various foodstuffs throughout Switzerland. Every workday a panel of miners, ranging from fourteen to twenty-eight men, passed through a main entry and then turneddown a side entry. There was little prospect then that coal would be in demand as it is today or that the daily wage of miners would be multiplied 8 to 10 times by 1974. Occupations wages shown in 1930 US dollars. Boys discovered that serious men turned into jokers when they toiled underground. Shows salaries for officers, managers, clerks, operators, etc. Wages of pattern makers, molders, drill press operators, lathe hands, machinists and more. During the 1910s and 1920s, minimum wage laws were adopted by a handful of states and generally applied only to women and children. Still he ventures to be brave. Published by the National Industrial Conference Board. The region's first coal miners primarily were African Americans, both enslaved and free. PDF Wage Chronology: Anthracite Mining Industry, 1930-66 : Bulletin of the Article compares the cost of renting versus buying a home in 1928. Describes the labor policy of Mexico in the 1920's and throughout the rest of the early 20th century. Source: This source is entirely about compensation of state and local government employees in New York. Phone (573) 882-0748. Prices are shown in Japanese yen. For easier browsing, the information is. Miners waiting to start their shift at the Virginia-Pochahontas Coal Company mine near Richland, Virginia, in 1974. Lengthy article reports how much educators earned in Illinois' high schools in 1920-1921. Paragraph below the table describes the weekly earnings of blast furnace workers, smelters, rolling mill operators, and foundry workers in both Pounds Sterling and U.S. This calculator allows you to compare the buying power of wages earned at different points in history. Shows average wages (with and without board) by province. Coal companies also recruited in Europe. After they loaded coal from the fallen pillars, the colliers and their helpers pushed their cars out into the main entry as fast as possible before sections of the roof collapsed. Broken out by men's and women's jobs. "In this region, I presume that a fee of $200 would be a pretty fair estimate of the surgeon's charge for operation and the after-treatment there would be between the operation and the death of the patient." ), carriages, cribs, high chairs, etc. Shows mining wages in Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming. HEALTH CARE Source: Monthly price list for Ralph's Grocery Company, which sold only in the Los Angeles area. - Earnings, 1929, Farm workers' wages and income,1909-1938, Male farm labor average wages by state, 1929, Airplane pilot (commercial) - Salary, 1929, Barbers and hairdressers - Earnings, 1929, Baseball, major league - Player and umpiresalaries, 1929, Union wages in construction trades, 1913-1930, Union carpenter wages in selected cities for 1924-1925, Average hourly carpenter wage in U.S. for 1926, Carpenter wages for 1920-1928 for twelve major U.S. cities, Cement industry job wages and hours, 1929, Coal mining jobs - Hours and earnings, 1919-1933, Domestic (household) service - Male workers' wages, Executive salaries in private businesses, 1924, Teachers and principals' salaries by city, 1921-1922, School personnelsalaries by sex in selectedcities, 1926, Teacher's salaries by school level, 1924-1928, Illinois teachers salaries in high schools, 1920-1921, New York state teachers' salaries, 1920-1932, North Carolina teacher salaries by race, 1922, Texas school personnel salaries (white only), 1872-1953, Firemen and fire department salaries by city, 1927, Foundryand machine shop jobs - Wages and hours, 1923-1931, Administrative and supervisors pay in federal government, 1926, Iron and steel industry wages and hours, 1907-193, Lumber industry job wages and hours, 1921-1932, Military pay for officers on active duty - 1926, Mining metals - Wages and hours, 1924 and 1931, Mining - anthracite and bituminous coal, 1922 and 1924, Metalliferous mining job wages and hours, 1924, Nursing - Average salaries for public health and institutional nurses, 1927, Petroleum industry - Wages by occupation and state,1920, Seamen and firemen on ocean ships - Wages, 1914-1918, Slaughtering and meat-packing industry, 1921-1929, Street laborers (unskilled) - Wages and hours, 1928, Telegraph and cable industry - wages and salaries, 1922, Telephone industry - average compensation per employee, 1922, Typical fees charged for veterinary visits are described, 1926 annual salaries for individual veterinarians, Wages for thousands of occupations, indexed alphabetically - 1929, Manufacturing job hours and earnings, 1919-1960, Factory employee average annual wages - 1921, 1923, Industrial home work - Earnings, early 1920s, Automobile tire manufacturing wages, 1923, Motor vehicle industry job wages and hours, 1922-1928, Airplanes and aircraft engines manufacture - Hours and earnings, 1929, Boot, shoe, hosiery and underwear manufacturing wages, 1907-1920, Clothing (men's) manufacturing wages & hours, 1911-1932, Hosiery and underwear manufacturing - Wages & hours, 1907-1932, Woolen and worsted goods manufacturing: 1910 to 1930, Woolen and worsted goods manufacturing, 1907-1922, Furniture manufacturing industry - Wages and hours, 1910-1931, Pottery industry job wages and hours, 1925, Paper box-board industry job wages and hours, 1926, Professional and business women - Salaries and income, 1927, Library assistants - Earnings by city, 1923, Women employed as cleaners, maids, and elevator operators in Washington DC, 1920, Women's wages in the candy industry in St. Louis and Chicago, 1920-1921, Women's wages in candy industry - St. Louis, 1920-1921, Women employed as household servants in Philadelphia - late 1920s, Women's wages, hours, and earnings - South Carolina, 1921, Women in Tennessee industries - Hours, wages and working conditions, 1925, Colorado - Wages by occupation and industry, 1928, Union workers' annual earnings - New Haven CT, 1927, Teenagers' wages by occupation and sex in Detroit, 1922, Wage in the Missouri shoe industry, 1913-1922, Public school employee salaries - New York City, 1928, Ohio - Average annual wages and salaries by occupation, 1916-1932, Development of minimum wage laws in the U.S., 1912-1927, Minimum wage laws of the U.S., construction and operation, 1921, Wages by occupation in Buenos Aires, 1926, Buenos Aries - Average Wages, 1922, 1926, 1928-1929, Minimum wages in Sydney and Melbourne, 1914 and 1921, Wages and cost of living in Austria, 1920, Farm help wages in Canadian provinces by sex, 1920s, Wages by occupation in Canadian cities, 1920, Wages by occupation in Canadian cities, 1921, Wages by occupation in Canadian provinces, 1924-26, Wages and hours of labour - Canada, 1920-1926, Wages in boot and shoe industries in France, 1924, "Real wages" in Germany by industry, 1923, Automobile manufacturing wages in Germany, 1929, Wages and hours in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1924, average weekly earnings by industry and sex, Wages by industry in Great Britain, 1914-1921, Wages in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1924-1928, Wages in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1924-1932, Agricultural trades - Minimum wage in Great Britain, 1920, Building trades - Wages by city in the UK, 1920, Iron and steel industry wages in Great Britain, 1926, Coal miner earnings in Great Britain, 1921-23, Judges of county courts (UK) - Salary, ca. Source: You may download a pdf version of the 1928, Hotel rates are shown in the advertisements in. A standard tune in miners lore began with lyric, Youve been docked and docked again, boys / Youve been loading two for one, and asked what the miner had to show for working so hard. Source: BLS, Shows the average price of foodstuffs and other common goods in the federal district of Mexico. Prices are shown in Swiss francs. Coal miners homemade prosthetic leg, about 1950. Discussion covers the history of minimum wage legislation in Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Canada, South Africa, Mexico, France, Norway, Argentina, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Uruguay, Hungary, Poland, Italy, and Rumania (Romania) up to 1928. Source: Shows the earnings per hour and week for sawmill workers over a 20 year period. Shows the average weekly wages of various occupations in 8 different industries in Budapest. Wages are in contemporary US dollars. Wages are listed in Mexican currency with exchange rate for calculating amounts in U.S. dollars. In 1925, motor vehicles were scrapped at an average age of 6.5 years. Coal operators enticed workersmany African Americanto move to West Virginia from Virginia and the Deep South. Shows wages by occupation grouped by industries, with breakouts for males and females. Coal miner Bill Keating composed the ballad Down, Down, Down to break my loneliness and to show my mule I was in a friendly mood., President John L. Lewis, United Mine Workers, convention badge, 1936. Source: BLS Monthly Labor Review (June 1931), Shows the average hours and daily wages of various workers in quarries, sawmills, and many other industries throughout Virginia. Shows expenditures by category with prices per article and amounts needed annually for a family of five. Source: BLS, Shows the average daily wage in both yen and US dollars. Priced by the single unit. Shows the hourly, daily, and biannual earnings of different occupations in the Missouri coal industry between 1890-1922. They provided their own equipment and often hired assistants; managers extended credit for supplies like dynamite. In the US, coal mining is a shrinking industry. Farm laborers in Missouri earned an average $41.90/month in 1921. Click for more info about the kind of home a family earning less than $2,500 annually could buy in 1928. Totals are shown in Canadian dollars. Taking a mine car out of turnconstituted another grave offense. Taken from the 1921 U.S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook, starting on page 804. Report published in 1923 gives wages for Arkansas women by occupation and race. Table 25 shows additional breakouts for skilled and white collar workers by region (. In West Virginia's colliers, miners were paid 49 cents per ton of clean coal, compared with 76 cents in the unionized mines of Ohio. His salary was paid entirely by coal companies. Coal mining jobs - Hours and earnings, 1919-1933; Coal mining wages by state, 1923 Source: Miners' wages and the cost of coal: an inquiry into the wages system., pp. One-page table shows average charges for residential electricity each year from 1924-1934, for cities over 50,000 in population. To view an issue of interest, select it from the list and click View. Work clothes, work shirts, dress shirts, dress pants, trousers, vests, suits, dress gloves, overcoats, winter coats, fur caps and collars, neck ties, belts and suspenders, caps and hats, nightwear, socks, shoes, boots, pocket knives, pocket watches, toupes, razors, smoking pipes. Three decades earlier a boy about the same agea newly emancipated slavehad worked in the same minefield. MERCHANDISE Source: BLS, Shows prices of dozens of food and grocery items, soap, coal, wood by the cord, matches by the box and, Shows the amount spent by a typical Canadian family on food, laundry, fuel/lighting, and rent over time. Source: BLS Monthly Labor Review, March 1932, The "Service Industries" chapter in this source breaks out wages paid to workers in hospitals, hotels, bowling alleys, theaters, parks, churches, country clubs, athletic clubs and yacht clubs, advertising agencies, banks, laundries, schools/colleges, and restaurants (making no distinction between waiters, cooks or bus boys). In the 1920s decade, 8% to 12%of peopleaged18-21enrolled incollege. As a novice, Keeney learned the colliers trade from older craftsmenthe skills of cutting the face, setting the charges, and loading the coal without wrenching his back or crippling himself. Data is broken out byoccupation, sex and district. What was the salary for a coal miner in the 1950s? - Answers Shows police department salaries for cities over 100,000 population. Hourly employees were bound to the ten-hour day, but the coal loaders, or tonnage men, often worked fewer hours and sometimes exercised the right to leave the mine without permission. Self-respecting craftsmen were even known to stop working when a foreman came by to inspect their room. Shows the average retail prices of staple foodstuffs in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Table shows average 1929 and 1931 weekly wages of full-time store employees, managers, and supervisors by kind and size of chain and location. Shows the average weekly hours and hourly wages for workers in the boot and shoe industry. Wages are shown in Dutch guilder. Engineers used anemometers to measure airflow within mines. Use "search in this text" feature to navigate (or contact us for assistance). Shows the standard wages for different shift at ports in Antwerp, Belgium. Source: BLS, Shows the earnings over different times for both government employees and manual workers in Hamburg. The industry has been in slow decline ever since, compounded along the way by the rise of steam engines, mechanized extraction methods, and competition from oil and natural gas, and now renewable energy. Then the men and boys would gather their tools and trudge down the mountainside to their little cabins to wash off the coal dust that smudged their faces, necks, arms, and hands, and to sit down for an evening meal. Owners claimed property rights and managerial entitlements over the workplace. No. Prices are shown in Hungarian crowns. Careless miners always fail. Mine foremen attempted various forms of industrial discipline to maximize productivity, but in the early 1900s, coal miners experienced little of the supervision foremen and factory managers imposed on workers; in fact, veteran colliers often became surly when a mine foreman came by their place on his little scooter to check on them. Living room: Shows price list of one California retailer. A strong, skilled coal loader might fill five or more cars in a day. Salary data for judges inNY, PA, NJ and CT. Shows compensation for individualjudgeson the U.S. Supreme Court, circuit courts and district courts. Frank Keeney wanted to be a first-class tonnage man because he needed to support his widowed mother and two sisters, along with his new wife, a fair teenager named Bessie Meadows, an Eskdale girl who wanted to become a schoolteacher. Expressed in pounds, shillings, and pence. These deposits could produce firedamp, which contained methane and sometimes carbon dioxide that seeped out of the coal seams. Source: Federal Power Commission. Source: BLS, Shows the daily wages for various occupations in Tokyo. Source: AAUP report, p. 162. Source: 1934 Statistical Abstract of the United States. Boys frequently were assigned the most-dangerous jobs. Shows the average weekly wages of NY factory workers every month over a 14 year period. 525. Boys younger than 12 often worked beside their fathers underground because, in many communities, it was the only paying job available. Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. Under these terms, a hard worker could earn $2.00 for ten to twelve hours of labor, if the work was steady. More passenger air fares from other sources: Household items: Shows wage data by manufacturing categories for 1914, 1919, 1921, and 1923. This source lists actual salaries paid to administrators in various lines of business. Source: BLS, Shows the average daily wages of day laborers, farm hands, clerks, bookkeepers, government employees, and army members in Lithuania. Besides know-how, the miners depended upon instinct and luck. During the Great Depression output was nearly halved from 680 million tons to 360 million. Occupations included are limited before 1916. Source: Shows pay for state carpenters, stage electricians, props men, show directors, agents, ushers and more. Children's: After the Civil War, industrialization meant a nearly limitless demand for anthracite and bituminous coal, and hundreds of thousands of new jobs .