Miner

“I don’t think I’m any different than a school teacher or a doctor we all have a job to do and were trained to do it” (Coal a Love Story). The Sago mining disaster is just one of the numerous mining disasters that were easily preventable. The miners that perished rely on coal for their income and many had no choice but to go into the industry. The world has a love-hate relationship with coal. It is often very “on again off again”. During World War II coal production was at an all-time high.…

The song "16 Tons" by Johnny Cash tells the story of a poor coal miner who could be considered part of the percentage of Americans who are permanently in poverty– a concept we discussed in class. I make this assumption because Johnny sings that after lifting 16 tons of coal in one day, the miner is simply a day older and “deeper in debt”, and that the miner owes his “soul to the company store”. This suggests that the miners’ debt is growing each day– perhaps a product of debt that is accruing…

January 2, 2006 an explosion occurred at about 6:30 am in a coal mine in Sago, West Virginia. (Madsen, 2009). The Sago Coal Mine explosion resulted in 12 fatalities, but 14 other workers were able to successfully evacuate (West Virginia Office of Miners ' Health, Safety, and Training, 2006). Accident investigations were promptly launched by the owner of the Sago Mine known as International Coal Group, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), and the state of West Virginia (Madsen, 2009)…

unusual and inferior. Horace Miner wrote Body Rituals among the Nacirema with the purpose of showing Americans what our society looks like from an "outsider's" point of view. In Body Rituals among the Nacirema, Horace Miner described the Nacirema people and their obsession with practicing rituals. The focus of these rituals is the human body because the Nacirema people believe that “the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease” (Miner 1956:503). This belief…

During the early 1900's miners in southern West Virginia were fighting, literally, for simple rights that every worker deserves. A 40-hour work week, decent pay that wasn't in scrip, and a sense of safety. On May 19 of 1920, members of the Baldwin-Felts detective agency arrived in the town of Matewan to evict union miners from houses owned by the Stone Mountain Coal Company. After catching wind of the detectives’ activities, Matewan Mayor Cabell Testerman and a pro-union sheriff named Sid…

the California gold rush, Individuals had to face plenty of challenges to get to the california gold rush like the living condition, the risks they had to take, and the disease the miners and pioneers had to overcome to survive. The miners living conditions on the way to the gold rush were horrible, some say. Miners describe the living conditions on the boasts as smelly, dirty, and very crowded. The living conditions on the boats were not good at all, but neither were the living…

Chinese Prospectors at the Gold fields The Gold Rush (1851 – 1914) sparked a huge influx of miners onto the goldfields from Australia and from overseas. The gold rush brought a variety of different races, one of which was the Chinese. 7000 Chinese miners arrived at the NSW gold fields in 1852. (Sydney Living Museum). Most Chinese who joined the Australian gold rush left their families and home behind. (The Original Gold Rush Colony: Anti-Chinese Racism). This was difficult for the Chinese as…

the Nacirema” written by anthropologist, Horace Miner. Introduction People of the Nacirema people have some very attention-grabbing cultural practices when it comes to their attitudes of the body. How they view the physique in general and their fascination with the mouth, specifically, is quite bizarre. The purpose of this paper is to critique the peer-reviewed research entitled “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” written by anthropologist, Horace Miner. Originally published in the journal…

Because the rescue of the 2008 rescue of the Chilean miners in Copiapo was multifaceted, it received attention from around the world; over 2,000 media personnel and 76 satellite antennae attended the final rescue. The event, one of the most-covered in history, served as a drama for world-viewers with danger and an “uplifting” conclusion. The media coverage of the Chilean miners also resulted in two contrasting reactions by two similar countries: Chileans viewed the event with more solidarity…

of what certain society’s value. Germinal is one such example, it is a story depicting the daily lives of French miners, and the mine owners in a capitalist society. It shows the lives that the rich led versus the lives of the poor and suffering. Not only did it contrast the different quality of living that each group had, but it also showed where on the political spectrum that the miners, and the mine owners stood on based on their wealth and social standing in their lives. The mine owners in…