January 1911. "Serafino driving Chub, his mule. Shaft #7, Pennsylvania Coal Company mine at South Pittston." Bright spots are open flames of lamps on the boys' hats. Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.

A young leader and a driver, Shaft #6, Pennsylvania Coal Company mine at Pittston. Pasquale Salvo and Sandy Castina. January 1911. View full size. Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine.

January 1911. A lonely job. Waiting all alone in the dark for a trip to come through. Willie Bryden, a nipper, lives at 164 Center St. in South Pittston. It was so damp that Willie said he had to be doctoring all the time for his cough. A short distance from here, the gas was pouring into the mine so rapidly that it made a great torch when the foreman lit it. Willie had been working here for four months, 500 feet down the shaft, and a quarter mile from there. (Shaft #6, Pennsylvania Coal Co.) Walls have been whitewashed to make it lighter. January 16, I found Willie at home sick. His mother admitted that he is only 13; will be 14 next July. Said that 4 months ago the mine boss told the father to take Willie to work, and that they obtained the certificate from Squire Barrett. (The only thing the Squire could do was to make Willie out to be 16 yrs old.) Willie's father and brother are miners and the home is that of a frugal German family. View full size. Photograph (5x7 glass negative) and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine.

January 1911. Willie Bryden holding the door open while a trip goes through. View full size. Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine.

Shaft No. 6 workers at the Pennsylvania Coal Company's South Pittston mine. January 1911. View full size. Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine.

December 1910 or January 1911. At the close of the day, just up from the shaft at the Pennsylvania Coal Company's South Pittston mine. Smallest boy, next to right hand end, is a nipper. On his right is Arthur, a driver. Joe on Arthur's right is a nipper. Frank, boy at left, is a nipper, works a mile underground from the shaft, which is 5000 feet down. View full size. Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine.

January 1911. Mule power and motor power. A young driver in Shaft #6, Pennsylvania Coal Company mine at Pittston. View full size. 5x7 glass negative by Lewis Wickes Hine. National Child Labor Committee Collection.

May 1939. Coal miner's son in Kempton, West Virginia. View full size. 35mm nitrate negative by John Vachon, Farm Security Administration.

April 17, 1918. Army Signal Corps music-makers in a logging camp bunkhouse at Hoquiam, Washington. View full size. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. Starting in 1917 the Army sent 10,000 soldiers to Oregon and Washington logging camps to cut timber as part of an effort to harvest 10 million board-feet of spruce a month for aircraft construction.

1937. Salvaging coal from the slag heap at Nanty Glo, Pennsylvania. Coal pickers get 10 cents for each hundred-pound sack or two dollars a ton. One man can make from 10 to 20 sacks a day. View full size. Photograph by Ben Shahn.

Boys salvaging coal from the slag heaps at Nanty Glo, Pennsylvania. 1937. They get 10 cents for each hundred-pound sack. View full size. Photo by Ben Shahn.

October 1935. Coal miner in Jenkins, Kentucky. View full size. Photograph by Ben Shahn. Image scanned from 35mm nitrate negative.

Deadwood, South Dakota, from Mrs. Livingston's Hill. View full size or zoom in. Circa 1888 photograph by John C.H. Grabill. Another Deadwood shot here.

Miners from near Hazleton, PA. Exact year unknown (probably early 1900s). My great-grandfather is the bottom-left miner. View full size.

October 1908. "Drivers in a West Virginia Coal Mine. Plenty boys driving and on tipple." Photograph and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.