Miners - Part 10

Sixteen Tons

The song Sixteen Tons was written by Merle Travis in 1946, based on the life of coal miners in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.  The most famous recording was made by Tennessee Ernie Ford in 1955.  This is the beginning of the Tennessee Ernie Ford recording.  I have accompanied it with photos of coal miners from various countries, not just the U.S.

Sixteen Tons (excerpt)

Some people say a man is made outta mud

A poor man's made outta muscle and blood

Muscle and blood and skin and bones

A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong

You load 16 tons, what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt

St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store

Note: The line "I owe my soul to the company store" refers to the truck system and debt bondage.  In the truck system, the mining company paid workers with scrip (vouchers), not cash, that could only be used at the company store.  This made it impossible for workers to accumulate any cash savings.  Workers lived in company dormitories or houses, the rent for which was deducted from their wages.

Workers could buy on credit from the company store, but the credit was in the form of debt bondage, in which the amount owed would be paid off in the form of unpaid labor.  In effect, a coal worker in debt to the store was a slave of the coal company.

In the United States, the truck system and debt bondage persisted until strikes by the United Mine Workers union finally forced an end to the practices.

Miners - Part 9

 Poland

These are Polish coal miners being exposed to Sollux lamps for light treatment in 1950.  At the time, it was thought to be beneficial for men who worked in the dark all day.

A 2009 photo of the changing room at the Boleslaw Smialy mine.  Note the clothes hanging from the ceiling, as in coal mines everywhere.  Photo by Jasmis.

A 2016 photo at the same mine.  The Boleslaw Smialy mine is still in operation.  Photo by Jasmis.

And, of course, Polish miners get dirty and have to wash at the end of their shift.  Photo by Stanislaw Gadomski.

Miners in Upper Silesia, Poland, wash each others' backs.  Photo by Tomas Tomaszewski.

That's good.  Now a little lower and more to the right ...

Miners - Part 8

 Holland

The Netherlands has a coal mining district in the province of Limburg, just west of the German Ruhr mines.  Like all coal miners, they get dirty and need to clean up at the end of their shift.

A closer view of a Limburg miner.  I "stole" this and the previous photo from my friend Jerry's blog Vintage Muscle Men.  Thanks, Jerry!

These are miners at the Oranje Nassau Mines in the province of Limburg.

(Photo by Dutch photographer Nico Jesse, 1952-1953, Nederlands fotomuseum.)

More miners at the Oranje Nassau Mines.

(Photo by Nico Jesse, 1952-1953, Nederlands fotomuseum.)

And a final shot of the changing room at the Oranje Nassau Mines.  Note the clothes hanging from the ceiling, which seems to be standard practice in mines everywhere.  The Oranje Nassau Mines closed in 1974.

(Photo by Nico Jesse, 1952-1953, Nederlands fotomuseum.)

Miners - Part 7

Germany

We've already seen some German miners in the Ruhr district right after World War II.  Today we look at other German miners.

This 1952 photo by Gerald Kiesling shows a worker in the Martin Hoop mine in East Germany working at a depth of 1200 meters (3900 feet).  At those depths, it can get hellishly hot, so miners worked without clothes.

This classic photo of a naked miner was taken in the Martin Hoop mine in 1975 by Werner Mahler.  The Martin Hoop mine finally closed in 1983.

This photo of German miners is from the mining museum in Bochum, Germany.  The date of the photo and location of the mine was not specified.

This 1975 photo by Werner Mahler shows miners showering, possibly also at the Martin Hoop mine. 

These are miners showering at the Meuro mine in East Germany in 1984.  The caption called them Kumpel, which means "miners" in German, but it also means "buddies." 

We end with 1958 photo by Max Scheier described as a Kumpel in Gelsenkirchen, West Germany.  Hi there, buddy!

Miners - Part 6

United States

I don't know if you'd call these guys miners, but they were digging a tunnel: the Midtown Tunnel under the East River in New York to connect Manhattan with Queens.  LIFE photographer Carl Mydans captured this view of them in the locker room in 1939.

At least the New York workers could go home to houses or apartments with running water.  In 1946, Milong Bond, above, tipple worker at the Mullens Mine in Harmco, West Virginia, is seen taking a bath in a washtub in this photo by Russell Lee.  The mine didn't provide showers for the workers, and the company-owned housing didn't even have running water.

However, other mines had showers, like the bath house at a mine in Monongah, West Virginia in this undated photo.

LIFE photographer Francis Miller took photos of miners showering in Du Quion, Illinois in 1950.  Here a miner is washing his buddy's back.  That's nice, but could you turn a little so we can see you better?

Perfect.

Another LIFE photographer, Grey Villet, did a photo series on a United Mine Workers election.  Campaigners buttonholed miners anywhere they could find them, including this changing room.  But can you buttonhole someone who has no button holes because he's naked?

We close with this 1993 photo of a miner in Alabama.  He has the classic dirty face of a coal miner at the end of his shift.  His dirty dick and balls, however, makes me wonder what else he was doing down there.

Miners - Part 5

 Britain

Coal miners in Britain don't work naked in the mines, but of course coal mining is dirty work, as can be seen by the face of the guy at left, so the miners have to wash up at the end of their shift.  This is at the Tower Colliery in south Wales in 1993.

Miners washing each others' backs at the Tower Colliery, 1993.  Tower Colliery shut down in 2008.

Miners showering in an unidentified Welsh colliery in 2007.

The Last Miners is a 2016 BBC documentary about workers who lost their jobs when the last British deep coal mine, in North Yorkshire, shut down in 2015.

This clip shows the miners showering after their shift.  Not being as prudish as us Americans, this British documentary doesn't blur or pixellate the nudity, rear or frontal, including one miner grabbing anther's junk from behind in the shower.

By the way, the bottle of Fairy that one miner says is the "best degreaser ever" is a British brand of dishwashing liquid.

Miners - Part 4

South Africa

The gold and diamond mines in South Africa produced fabulous wealth for their white owners.  The black mine workers were exploited even more than miners in other countries.

This series of photos was taken by Robert Harris c. 1883-1888.  Now in a collection at Yale University, they document what was called the "Kimberley Searching System" for searching diamond mine workers for hidden diamonds after they came out of the mine.

The worker is completely naked.  His arms are raised to make sure he's not hiding anything in his armpits.  Note that the searcher, also black, is also naked except for a shirt tied around his waist.

Examining the mouth.  The searcher is holding a candle to reveal any diamonds by their reflection.

Another searcher examining the mouth of another worker.

Examining the feet for anything hidden in a crack or cut.

The worker has to retract his foreskin to show there's nothing hidden in there.

No hole is left unexamined.  Robert Harris did not take these photos as a crusading journalist to expose wrongdoing.  On the contrary, DeBeers hired him to take the photos to be used to instruct the searchers how to search the mine workers.

This searching process was expensive (in lost productivity) and ineffective; very few diamonds were ever found.  But it was continued as a way to help keep the miners in their place.  After 1919 it was replaced by using X-rays, in which diamonds fluoresce and are highly visible, which continued through the 1950s.  Today the miners are still searched, using full body scanners.

The other humiliating procedure that miners had to endure was a monthly medical examination, also conducted completely naked.  Here, miners are being herded as a group through a series of doctors and offices.  The photo is from House of Bondage, 1967, by Ernest Cole, a black photographer who smuggled his photos out of South Africa.

Another photo of miners lined up for medical examination.  This 1967 photo is by Peter Magubane, another pioneering black South African photographer who had to conceal his camera, often inside a Bible, to get his photos.

This 1943 photo by LIFE magazine photographer Hart Preston shows miners being weighed during a medical exam.  The naked monthly weighings and medical exams were not evidence of concern for the well-being of the miners.  Rather, they were a way to detect workers suffering from tuberculosis, who were then promptly fired.

Miners - Part 3

 Czechoslovakia

The sulfur miners of Sicily were not the only miners to work naked.  These are coal miners in the František (Francis) mine in Czechoslovakia in 1928.  The mine was over 1800 feet deep, and the air temperature reached 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit), with the rocks up to 55 degrees C (131 degrees F).  The guy above is working on the wooden beams.

Most wore a leather apron to protect their private parts, but it's said the toughest guys dispensed with even the apron.  

This and the previous photos were taken in 1928 by Sergej Protopopov.

Workers clearing a break in the mine shaft in 1937.  Photographer unknown.  The mine finally closed in 1999.

Miners - Part 2

 The Ruhr

Coal mining is dirty work.  Most coal mines provided showers for the miners to clean up at the end of their shift.  These photos from the LIFE photo archive were never published in the magazine.

The first five photos are from a set called "Ruhr Essay" taken by LIFE photographer William Vandivert in 1946.  German industry had been destroyed by Allied bombing in World War II, but the underground coal mines were untouched, and mining was one of the first industries to recover.  Here we see German miners washing up in the communal shower.

More miners showering.

After showering, the miners dressed.  There were no lockers.  The miners changed in a huge, barn-like room, with their clothes on hooks attached to chains suspended from the ceiling.  The clothes were hauled up to the ceiling to get them out of the way.

More miners changing.

And still more.  In the distance you can see the clothes hanging from the ceiling.

The practice of having clothes on hooks hanging from the ceiling was not unique to German mines.  This photo was taken by LIFE photographer Ralph Crane at a mine in West Frankfort, Illinois in 1951.  You can see one guy changing in the background.

Miners - Part 1

Sulfur Miners of Sicily

For thousands of years, sulfur has been mined in Sicily, where Mt. Etna and other volcanoes have left rich deposits.  This photo was taken c. 1950 in the Floristella Gtorracalda mines.

Almost all the miners worked naked, because of the stifling heat deep in the mines, up to 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

 A sulfur miner.

The veins of sulfur were extracted by men with pickaxes, and heavy loads of sulfur were carried away by boys as young as 7 or 8 called carusi who were virtual slaves.  Booker T. Washington, himself born a slave, visited the mines in 1910 and wrote: "A sulphur mine in Sicily is about the nearest thing to hell that I expect to see in this life."

The use of young boys ended in the 1930s, but teenage carusi were still used until the 1950s.  Power drills were also introduced.  This photo is dated 1930.

But the work was still backbreaking and the mines still as hot as hell.  This 1953 photo is from Fulvio Roiter's book Visibilia.

This video is part of a 1963 Italian industrial film about sulfur production.  Apparently in 1963 this was still business as usual.

The last Sicilian sulfur mines finally shut down in the 1980s, driven out by American competition.  American sulfur is extracted from wells or produced as a waste product from oil and natural gas, not mined by naked miners.