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| Vance Palmer, at unknown coal mine in Harrison County, West Va, Sept 1908. Photo by Lewis Hine. |
Vance, a Trapper Boy, 15 years old. Has trapped for several years
in a West Va. Coal mine. $.75 a day for 10 hours work. All he does is to open and shut this door: most of the time he sits
here idle, waiting for the cars to come. On account of the intense darkness in the mine, the hieroglyphics on the door were
not visible until plate was developed. Location: West Virginia, September 1908, Lewis Hine.
"My father was a very nice person. He loved his family very
much. We are Catholic, but he was not. He saw to it that we lived near the Catholic church, and that we got to Mass every
Sunday. He sent us to a Catholic school, and he drove us to school before he went to work." -Eloise Jurick, daughter
of Vance Palmer
"The chief drawback to their work is the deadening monotony
of it and the mental stagnation that must inevitably follow in its trail. Sitting by himself for nine or ten hours a day,
in absolute darkness, save for his little oil lamps and the lamps of the passers-by; breathing air that is far from fresh
air, fouled by smoking oil-lamps and loaded with moisture; his chief work being to open the door when called to, and to close
it after the cars have passed through; - small wonder is it that he sometimes falls asleep and fails to respond to the summons
to open the door, thereby increasing the dangers of collision between cars in opposite directions, or that he wanders off,
leaving the door open, increasing the dangers of explosion. If his monotony is broken, as it too often is, by calls to come
and help the driver of a ‘trip,' it means increased physical danger." -Lewis Hine, National Child Labor
Committee Investigation Report 408 ************************** On December 6, 1907, less than a year before this photo was taken, the worst mining
disaster in American history occurred in Monongah, West Virginia, not far from where Vance Palmer was born and raised. An
underground explosion at the Consolidated Coal Company resulted in the deaths of 362 men and boys, leaving 250 widows and
over 1000 fatherless children. Young Vance had a lot of time on his hands in his lonely job, and he must have thought
about that mine disaster more than once. This is one of those
photographs by Lewis Hine that stop you dead in your tracks. I opened up the Library of Congress website one morning, started
browsing the child labor photos, and saw it. I couldn't do much the rest of the day except search hour after hour for information
about the boy, whose last name was not included in the caption. But when I blew up the photo, I noticed that he had scrawled
what appeared to be "Vance Palmer" on the door several times, and as well as the letters, "V.P." So I
searched Vance Palmer in Ancestry.com. I found him right away
in the 1920 census, listed as a 26-year-old glass cutter, not married. He was living near Clarksburg. In the 1930 census,
he was married to Helen and had three children: Vance J., Eloise and William. He was still a glass cutter. I also found his
WWI and WWII draft registrations, which identified his full name as Vance Swisher Palmer, born September 16, 1893. He turned
15 years old in the month he was photographed by Hine. Two
days later, I got in touch with a historian in Clarksburg, West Virginia, who sent me a copy of his official West Virginia
death record. He died August 20, 1945, at the age of 52. The historian knew his family and got me in touch with Vance's daughter,
Eloise Jurick. I called her and sent her the photograph. She had never seen it. Finally, I interviewed both her and her brother
William, who also had never seen the photo. Vance was born
to George Palmer and Celia McGready, who married in Harrison County, West Virginia, in 1870. They had at least 10 children,
Vance apparently the youngest. In 1904, George remarried, this time to Atha Carder. Celia did not die until 1923, so it appears
that she and George divorced. There are conflicting records as to whether George and Atha had any children. George died in
1915, and Atha married again. She died in 1935. In 1908, when Hine photographed him, Vance may have been living with his mother,
or perhaps with his father and stepmother. He does not appear in the 1910 census.
Interviews with daughter and son, and more photos
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