Anthracite Roots: Generations of Coal Mining in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania

The lives of coal miners in the United States, like the black rock they cut from the earth, are wrought by the forces of time and pressure. Risking crippling injury and death, generations of miners have tunneled down from the surface and emerged at the end of each exhausting day with the fuel needed to drive the nation’s industry. Their sacrifices are great, their glories unheralded.

With this stirring account, author and former coal miner Joseph W. Leonard III provides a means for understanding and fully appreciating the crucial work these brave men have done throughout the years. The mining tradition in Leonard’s family spans five generations in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, home to some of our country’s richest deposits of anthracite coal. His family’s stories illustrate with touching candor the plight of many thousands of Coal Belt families who stood proud through years of watching their sons, fathers, and husbands descend down the shafts into darkness.

Leonard recalls with stunning detail the unforgiving conditions–cave-ins, explosions, and choking dust–that he and his forebears endured in the mines. Also captured are poignant tales of the kindness and compassion that permeated mining communities in the face of so much hardship. The intense struggles and quiet successes in Anthracite Roots are a testament to the unsung heroes of America’s coal mines and the work they have done to power a nation.