The Environmental Setting
Anthracite mine workers lived and worked within an environment that caused their problems and conditioned their response to the problems. Attempting to understand the hard coal miners’ history by focusing on employer-employee relations and neglecting the surroundings would be like trying to understand a play by noting only the actions of the major actors and forgetting dialogue, scenery, and supporting cast. To be meaningful, a history of the mine workers must explain their actions within the context of their environment; in such a history one must attempt to re-create the milieu of the industry at the time.
The anthracite miners’ environmental setting consisted of three major planes—the physical, the industrial, and the communal. The natural surroundings determined the location of jobs and imposed limits on institutional development. Management organized and rewarded work, but the industry’s internal logic circumscribed the employers’ freedom of action. The community provided the context within which the problems arising from work were solved. To reemploy the theatrical analogy, the physical environment provided the backdrop, the industrial environment the script, and the communal environment both stage and supporting cast.