Resources Used
Coal Library
- Coal - Irving and Ruth Adler
- Pioneer Children of Appalachia - Joan Anderson
- Did you carry the flag today, Charley? - Rebecca
Caudill
- Happy Little Family - Rebecca Caudill
- The House of the Fifers - Rebecca Caudill
- Saturday Cousins - Rebecca Caudill
- Schoolhouse in the Woods - Rebecca Caudill
- Schoolroom in the Parlor - Rebecca Caudill
- Appalachian Scrapbook - An A,B,C of Growing Up in
the Mountains -Pauline Cheek
- West Virginia - Dennis B. Fradin
- In Coal Country - Judith Hendershot
- Up the Tracks to Grandma's - Judith Hendershot
- Amber on the Mountain - Tony Johnston
- Evening - Paulette Livers Lambert
- Mama is a Miner - George Ella Lyon
- The Rag Coat - Lauren Mills
- Bridging Worlds, Challenging Boundaries - Tom
Montgomery- Fate
- Where Time Stood Still - Bruce and Nancy Roberts
- All I See - Cynthia Rylant
- The Relatives Came - Cynthia Rylant
- Appalachia - The Voices of Sleeping Birds - Cynthia
Rylant
- When I was young in the Mountains - Cynthia Rylant
- Children of Appalachia - Peg Shull
- National Geographic - June 1983, pg. 793+ - "Wrestlin
for a livin with King Coal" - Michael E. Long
Company Owners
Black lung is defined as any lung disease related to coal
mine employment.
Times are getting tighter for your business. Operating
costs have gone up due to the use of other forms of energy and tighter
emission standards for cars.
You are operating under government regulations and passing
every kind of safety test that is possible. Your workers have the highest
salaries in your company's history.
To pay for additional black lung recipient benefits,
you would need to make layoffs.
You are worried that miners are making up excuses for
their own health problem.
You just found out that one of the neighbor company's
representatives put coffee grounds in a can to make the testers think it
was coal dust.
Miners
Black lung is defined as any lung disease related to coal
mine employment.
Miners took breathing and blood tests and scores to be
placed on a proof of disability chart. The miners must go to several doctors
and get chest x-rays and other lung tests. If they scored below 60% of
capacity on either tests, they were granted black lung disability benefits.
Results aren't believed as much since 1981 because of
other causes of black lung disease ( smoking, emphysema, asthma, working
in dusty conditions, and obesity). That makes it impossible to prove that
mining caused black lung disease.
When you started mining in the 40s or 50s, you had no
ideas about the effects coal dust could have on your body. It was just
another job to support your family.
Companies can get their doctors to identify your problem
as asthma, emphysema, or other diseases.
If bill is passed, it will be easier for widows and survivors
to claim benefits.
80% of you are below the poverty line so fighting back
against the companies is too much for you to do alone. Attorneys won't
take your case because the odds of you winning and the lawyer getting paid
are very little.
Letter
to Panther Pen Pals
November 6, 1996
Dear Kathy Justice,
Hello! My name is Beth Anderson and I am a student teacher
in fifth grade at Thomas Paine Elementary School in Urbana, IL. I have
been with this class for four weeks and I really enjoy it! I was fortunate
enough to live in Panther this summer when I worked with the Appalachia
Service Project. You have a wonderful school in such a pretty area! Panther
State Park was one of our favorite places to go because we could swim at
the pool. We also liked to eat at the diner across the street from the
school.
Our class consists of 25 students. One of our students
will be unable to participate in writing. I had hoped that your class could
each take one person as their pen pal. If you have more or less students,
maybe someone on one end will have to double up. I have included a class
list and you will notice there are only 8 girls in the class. The ratio
of boys to girls is like that throughout the school district. How many
boys and girls are there in your classroom? Is your school similar to other
schools in McDowell County? Since we didn't have a class list of your class,
we just wrote "Dear Fifth Grader," so hopefully splitting up
the letters won't be too much of a problem. There is one boy, JD Liggett,
who asked to have a girl for a pen pal. Stephen Berry would especially
prefer a boy pen pal.
We are reading books about coal and West Virginia. We
have drawn a map of West Virginia and drawn pictures of coal. We are also
learning about black lung disease. If you can give us any information or
tell us stories about West Virginia, we would greatly appreciate it. We
have included some pictures of the school and of our class. Do you have
any questions about Illinois? Is there anything you would like to learn
about our town? We live by lots of farmland. Corn and soybeans are the
main crops.
If you have any questions, you can call me at the school
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning at 217-384-3602 or at home evenings
217-367-7004. If you call the school, they may not remember which room
I am in. I am in Patsy Pratt's room, in room 137. The school address is
listed below. Thank you very much for taking the time to write to us. The
students are very excited! We look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Beth Anderson
Thomas Paine Elementary School
1801 James Cherry Drive
Urbana, IL 61802
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