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| Joseph Puma (front row, 3rd from left), about 15 yrs old, Pittston, Pa, Jan 1911. By Lewis Hine. |
At the close of the day. Just up from the shaft. All work below
ground in a Pennsylvania Coal Mine. Smallest boy, next to right hand end is a nipper. On his right is Arthur, a driver, Jo
on Arthur's right is a nipper. Frank, boy on left end of photo, is a nipper, works a mile underground from the shaft, which
is 5000 Ft. down. Location: [South Pittston?], Pennsylvania, January 1911, Lewis Hine.
"He was the most wonderful person you'd ever want to meet. He did
everything for us. He worked very hard. We never had any money, but we never did without anything." -Angeline
Deardorff, daughter of Joseph Puma
As the caption says, Joseph Puma (referred to only as Jo in the photo)
was a nipper. Nippers, also called trappers or trap boys, opened and closed the doors that sealed off mine shafts so that
fresh air could be pumped down to the workers. When the coal cars (usually mule-driven wagons) passed, the nippers had to
quickly open the door to let them through, which was dangerous, because there was always a risk of being hit by the fast-moving
car. It was a dark, lonely and boring job for long stretches of time while the nipper waited for another car to come, so it
was hard to stay awake, making the job even more perilous. In
The Bitter Cry of the Children, a book published in 1909, author John Spargo, a writer and social activist, described
child labor conditions in the coal mines in the early 1900s. In the final paragraph, he refers to the plight of the "trap-boys,"
boys like Joe Puma. "According to the census of 1900, there
were 25,000 boys under sixteen years of age employed in and around the mines and quarries of the United States. In the state
of Pennsylvania alone - the state which enslaves more children than any other - there are thousands of little 'breaker boys'
employed, many of them not more than nine or ten years old. The law forbids the employment of children under fourteen, and
the records of the mines generally show that the law is 'obeyed.' Yet in May, 1905, an investigation by the National Child
Labor Committee showed that in one small borough of 7000 population, among the boys employed in breakers, 35 were nine years
old, 40 were ten, 45 were eleven, and 45 were twelve - over 150 boys illegally employed in one section of boy labor in one
small town! During the anthracite coal strike of 1902, I attended the Labor Day demonstration at Pittston and witnessed the
parade of another at Wilkesbarre. In each case there were hundreds of boys marching, all of them wearing their 'working buttons,'
testifying to the fact that they were bona fide workers. Scores of them were less than ten years of age, others were
eleven or twelve." "Work in the coal breakers is exceedingly
hard and dangerous. Crouched over the chutes, the boys sit hour after hour, picking out the pieces of slate and other refuse
from the coal as it rushes past to the washers. From the cramped position they have to assume, most of them become more or
less deformed and bent-backed like old men. When a boy has been working for some time and begins to get round- shouldered,
his fellows say that, 'He's got his boy to carry round wherever he goes.' The coal is hard, accidents to the hands, such as
cut, broken, or crushed fingers, are common among the boys. Sometimes there is a worse accident: a terrified shriek is heard,
and a boy is mangled and torn in the machinery, or disappears in the chute to be picked out later smothered and dead. Clouds
of dust fill the breakers and are inhaled by the boys, laying the foundations for asthma and miners' consumption. I once stood
in a breaker for half an hour and tried to do the work a twelve-year-old boy was doing day after day, for ten hours at a stretch,
for sixty cents a day. The gloom of the breaker appalled me. Outside the sun shone brightly, the air was pellucid, and the
birds sang in chorus with the trees and the rivers. Within the breaker there was blackness, clouds of deadly dust enfolded
everything, the harsh, grinding roar of the machinery and the ceaseless rushing of coal through the chutes filled the ears.
I tried to pick out the pieces of slate from the hurrying stream of coal, often missing them; my hands were bruised and cut
in a few minutes; I was covered from head to foot with coal dust, and for many hours afterwards I was expectorating some of
the small particles of anthracite I had swallowed." "I
could not do that work and live, but there were boys of ten and twelve years of age doing it for fifty and sixty cents a day.
Some of them had never been inside of a school; few of them could read a child's primer. True, some of them attended the night
schools, but after working ten hours in the breaker the educational results from attending school were practically nil.
From the breakers the boys graduate to the mine depths, where they become door tenders, switch-boys, or mule-drivers.
Here, far below the surface, work is still more dangerous. At fourteen or fifteen the boys assume the same risks as the men,
and are surrounded by the same perils." "Nor is it
in Pennsylvania only that these conditions exist. In the bituminous mines of West Virginia, boys of nine or ten are frequently
employed. I met one little fellow ten years old in Mt. Carbon, W. Va., last year, who was employed as a 'trap boy.' Think
of what it means to be a trap boy at ten years of age. It means to sit alone in a dark mine passage hour after hour, with
no human soul near; to see no living creature except the mules as they pass with their loads, or a rat or two seeking to share
one's meal; to stand in water or mud that covers the ankles, chilled to the marrow by the cold draughts that rush in when
you open the trap-door for the mules to pass through; to work for fourteen hours - waiting - opening and shutting a door -
then waiting again - for sixty cents; to reach the surface when all is wrapped in the mantle of night, and to fall to the
earth exhausted and have to be carried away to the nearest 'shack' to be revived before it is possible to walk to the farther
shack called home."
Continue with story of Joseph Puma
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