History Commons^™

All You Knew: Twentieth Century Southern Appalachian Coal Miners And Their Experience With Death And Danger, Steven M. Malachowski 2978994

History Theses

Nineteenth century coal miners' oral interviews from Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia convey their experiences as individuals and of a general community. Southern Appalachian coal miners experienced nearly constant dangers and threats to their lives underground which helped shape their relationships between other miners and industry controls. Added to coal miners’ occupational hazards, the long term emphysemic effects of coal mining and the physical prevalence of coal dust in the coal miner’s life created a life defined by danger. Miners reconciled this dehumanizing lifestyle through readily predictable methods, such as spirituality and camaraderie but also seemingly paradoxical methods, including carelessness …

Joseph Rogers Underwood - A Representative Nineteenth Century American, Ralph Ward Brashear

History Theses

Many men throughout history have been on the verge of greatness only to pass into oblivion because of convictions which would not let them compromise with expediency. Joseph Rogers Underwood was such a man, for he placed great importance upon duty, integrity and responsibility. The high values which he placed upon these virtues cost him the renomination for senator by the Kentucky Legislature in 1851. As the Louisville Daily Democrat, an opposition newspaper, so brilliantly stated about this election:

"The whig (sic) party in the Legislature have at last compromised the divisions among themselves, and elected a Senator nobody …