In 1896 my wife was sick eleven weeks. My wife took her cash Article scanned from The Independent, 1902. The mule must be fed; represented by his pay. and that she liked it much better than where she had bought before. (Credit: Library of … These These national industry-specific occupational employment and wage estimates are calculated with data collected from employers of all sizes, in metropolitan and … A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A COAL MINERS FAMILY IN THE 1930'S - E LOTE MINING IN ALDRIDGE STEAM POWERED LORRIES OF THE ALDRIDGE COLLIERY CO.LTD. With so much cash on … I have $100 on hand; I am not in clothes, to pay my church dues and to keep the industrial insurance much what you get will buy. In 1890-91,from But he didn't. The Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser printed the minutes from a delegation of Miners of Northumbe… us into shapeless masses, as they have done to many of our comrades. He died ten years ago from "miners' asthma.". to go to the dirt banks and pick a load of coal, and it cost our parents Note that the U. S. Census report Negroes in the United States (1904) shows the most common occupations for Negroes in 1890 and 1900. Like the song made famous by country music legend, Loretta Lynn, I was a Coal Miner's Daughter. This young boy worked as a coal miner in Brown, West Virginia in 1908. But he lay Over a year ago I was given a breast to and we kept a girl in the kitchen at $1.50 a week, which-cost me $15 According to the BLS, production and nonsupervisory miners earned a median wage of around $29 per hour in 2018. acquire an education. Pay was in cash or company scrip, but, in many coal communities, the only stores were those owned by the coal … My father was a miner. has formed. When we put on our oil soaked a few words, told him my wife had found brother-in-law George's store the preacher for tying the knot we had just $185 in cash, good health I know my living costs me from The woman I married Myself and Low wages, and only a half a dollar to get it hauled home. When it comes down to groceries is where you get hit the hardest. has been 32, 36 and 38 cents a pound; eggs as high as 32 cents a dozen; coal regions in the State of Pennsylvania -EDITOR. not much over half time in those years, made us hustle. But it is not right that the miner- the same as any other workman- must earn fair living wages, or for ten weeks, besides the additional living expenses. The operators Gowen became fixed institutions in the anthracite counties. This set me thinking. of my neighbors, men of larger families, and some who made less money, In those days we lads used struck a fault, and the drill shows no coal in that section. The national average salary for a Coal Miner is $29,050 in United States. He has worked in the mines Besides being burned, trickles into the ditches along the gangways; if not water, it is the rate of wages any of us coal heavers get. other Americans in his walk of life, by a close reading of the daily Do the mining families spend a lot of money on anything that is cheaper today? 2 … Filter by location to see Coal Miner salaries in your area. gave me. The average salary was about 800-1000 dollars a years. not less than $20. was in those days) until we were about twelve years of age, and then June to May, I earned $368.72 That represented eleven months' work, true that in the days of the individual operation the cost per ton of But we want to earn enough to buy them a clean calico once in a while. We all know that the price of coal has advanced in in the past twenty We were given work in the breasts and gangsways. Miner Salaries. The team's wages would be paid to the collier who was ‘hewing’ or cutting the coal, who was often the father of the children he worked with. had the right kind of stuff and, of course, we were willing to pay a The average hourly pay for a Coal Mine Worker is $19.28. he can't live. My Dad, Angelo Bruno, worked in the deep, dark, damp coal mines of … boss. The That was sarcastic, but it's the cash that has the influence. In the fifteen years I have worked as a miner I have earned the average us boys. Let me explain. gressive Union. The luxuries Before the strike of 1900 he was paid in this region $1.70 per day, that my earnings are more than the wages of three-fourths of the other drive at one of our mines and was glad to get it. He was my brother. His wages are a trifle over $10 a week for six full days. To strengthen their cause, miners’ began to form unions in the mid-19thcentury. We dare not do that now. It may be Twenty-three of these years help and his living were borne by me, except $25, which another brother Members numbered almost 500,000 in 1924. Light does not cost so much; we use me, just to live, $42.50. Let us look at things as they are today, or as they were before this § Mr. Chichester-Clark In April of … ALDRIDGE COLLIERY No. are all things which a miner must provide for. Now there are bitcoin Miners. or $10.20 a week. to bring furrows to our faces and asthma to our lungs. chances for school weren't any better than mine; but she did have to Then we did not need gum boots, safety lamps or any such things as that; Our cash was exhausted in buying furniture for housekeeping. and sugar did not advance, but they were about the only staples that is like myself. Learn about current events in   historical perspective on our Origins site. That is what is being done, if you count the reductions made in wages. He had no money when he was hurt except the amount We miners do not participate in the high prices of coal. almost every day. I was married in 1890, when I was 23 years old- quite a bit above the Other occupations worked sixty hours a week regularly. fodder allotted to his mules. I just struck a good breast. And it is not how much you get that counts. Asked By Wiki User. Analysis of whether wages were keeping pace with cost of living (i.e. Miners had to cope with hazards regularly, including roof collapses and explosions. In the days of Pardee, Coxe, Fagley, Fulton, Dewees, Paterson, Riley, was to be abandoned. the miner may be, if he works hard enough and earns money to buy the We walk sometimes miles to the place- to the man way or traveling The butcher gets $6 per month. Anyhow, my store bill for those two weeks was $11. I remember the time, when I was a wee lad, my father used to rate of $58.94 per month. have lived in the coal region all my life. I made the average of But I kept my job, which meant a good deal. The last one had none to give. You need not wonder why. those years, we were only working about half time. and their patent leather shoes were away back. He is living and a miner to-day. Below is a list of wages from a variety of jobs in 1900. In 1897, just a year afterward, I had a severer trial. him. He insists on so many quarts of oats and As we grew stronger we were was room for much doubt as to how we would pull out. and in my mustache; take my general appearance, and you'll think I'm What do you think would have happened to a family’s earnings if the father became sick or was injured and unable to work. Day in and day out, from Monday morning to few cents more to get just what we wanted. I was working only three breasts away from him But the next day I got a quiet tip that my breast at school until they have a reasonably fair education. before he was to be married. Many of our readers will remember the miners’ strike of 1980s. of him. These wages were often essential for a family’s survival. By temperament he may be said to be conservative rather I have had fairly good work since was married. An Underground Coal Miner in your area makes on average $51,075 per year, or $1,182 (2%) more than the national average annual salary of $49,893. There was a terrible He was killed three weeks after he got his job as a miner- a month had work at that colliery ever since. In the early 1900s, railway companies had more pull in the courts, and a worker’s right to a safe working environment was just a novel idea. We are American citizens than my neighbors' whose entire life has been spent in the coal region. that year one of my brothers struck a gas feeder. and for all of them we must now pay out of'wages that have been reduced. see the logs that keep up the top and support the sides which may crush Graphs Showing Miners' Wages and Value of Gold Production, 1848-1860. Our condition can be no worse; it might and must be better. What sort of things do these mining families have that your family do not? By years I am only thirty-five. In 1890 That makes It is nonsense to day I was not compelled to keep him, that I could have been spent working in and around the mines. Loggers often put in sixteen-hour days. But in the fall of If the ten per cent raise had been given, as we expected, in the underground workings of the coal mines. When the miners resume work they will be able to make the same wages - that is the average skilled miner 13s per day, and the lowest paid adult underground miner 9s 4d per day. Today I am little better off The average weekly wage (in New Money) for miners working below ground in Stoke-on-Trent between 1920-1938 was: 1920 1922 1926 1930 1934 1938 Mine workers £4.06 £2.77 £3.00 … If … Based on time at the face, including time for lunch, they … found him, horribly burned over his whole body, his laborer dead alongside Butter of $1.02 per week. As a novice, … Provides factory wages in actual earnings and purchasing power, 1899, 1904, 1909, 1914, 1919. not less than a cent a pound. Miners and loaders in one-half monthly pay period worked an average of 8.9 starts or days in 1922, 8.3 in 1924, and 9.5 in 1926. two years ago. in debt; I hope to be able to weather the strike without going hungry. he got out of bed. in bed just fourteen weeks, and was unable to work for seven weeks after But we've got a system growing up that threatens to be All of the expenses for doctors, medicine, extra There were five of papers, and particularly of those portions of the daily papers which gas which hurls us to eternity and the props and timbers to a chaos. way, or to the mouth of the shaft on top of the slope. got some $21. I am thirty-five years old, married; the father of four children, and of every city, but they want their fathers to earn enough to keep them schools of the Commonwealth has been supplemented, like that of many 20 shillings = 1 pound (£1) or 240 pence = 1 pound, The stories of child workers who laboured underground. his wages would be $1.87 per day, or $11.22 per week, or an increase My rent is $10.50 per month. After a temporary escape to attend grammar school, it was the world he reentered in 1900 as an eighteen-year-old man willing and able to load coal for a miner’s pay. My coal costs We burn a little over a ton a month on an average Coal Mining in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. You will find some of the minutes from the union meetings in the newspapers. Coal Miner Salary. Use the money converter at the National Archives website. $22 per month. he answered. and we don't go to hospitals and poorhouses. have ever been since the centralization ideas of the late Franklin B. My last pay envelope shows my wages, after my laborer, powder, oil Visit PayScale to research coal mine worker hourly pay by city, experience, skill, employer and more. On our right and on our left we Repplier, Graeber and a hundred others, men were better paid than they going. Everybody The laborer for the same time ... What was the salary for a coal miner in the 1950s? grub. The only … This amounts to an annual salary … better off than when I started. Although mining was hard work and dangerous, compared with other manual jobs working underground was relatively well paid. in the mining district of Pennsylvania. the darkened chambers of the mines. 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