Images of Appalachian Coalfields

Levy ( Colonialism in America: The Appalachian Case ) here presents 93 sensitive black-and-white documentary photographs of miners and mining communities taken in the 1970s and early '80s in West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. There are shots of miners setting up support struts or drilling holes for dynamite, working with pick and shovel, taking a lunch break. We see mining families and their friends, the bars they go to, the machines and tools of their trade, their homes and the towns where they live. We also see the slag heaps, sludge ponds and mountainsides denuded by strip-mining that lie in the mining industry's wake. Lewis's knowledgeable introduction to Appalachian mining examines the dangers of the work and the demographics of the industry, describes union struggles and community life in the coal camp and indicts ecologically destructive company policies throughout mining history. (June)