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August 1940. "Miner at Dougherty's mine, near Falls Creek, Pennsylvania." Medium format acetate negative by Jack Delano. View full size.
It is bad enough that he is exposed to coal dust in his work and that he could get lung cancer from the cigarettes but that tumor on his right eye needs to be looked at also. Poor guy probably couldn't afford to get medical attention.
[Or he smacked his head into something or someone. I had an egg just like that caused by head-to-pavement contact. - Dave]
From the way the holes in his belt are worn it looks like he gained a bit of weight (the hole to the right of the one currently in use is stretched), then he lost a good bit (he had to punch a hole to make the belt even smaller than the last hole allowed), and now he's moved up to the last machine-punched hole again.
Very close to Mauch Chunk, now known as Jim Thorpe. This poor guy is probably about 17 years old.
worked in the coal mines in the Lehigh Valley and contracted the black lung disease. My grandmother told me when I was about 8 that she would place newspaper on the floor on his side of the bed at night because he would wake up and start hacking out some very bad black stuff. In the morning she would wrap up the newspaper and put it out in the trash. She did this for about ten years until he died just before WWII began. When he quit the mines he found a job as a train conductor on on the Lehigh Valley railroad and I wound up with his Hamilton pocket watch that he used as part of his job.
Big Coal: "It's the cigarettes!"
Big Tobacco: "No, it's the coal dust!"
If you see me comin', better step aside
A lotta men didn't, a lotta men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't a-get you, then the left one will!
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