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My great-grandmother lost two (teenage) brothers in Pennsylvania mining accidents in the early 1900's. The coal companies were more than happy to grind through the expendable, cheap, often immigrant, population of the region.

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My great-grandfather also perished in a mine collapse near Wilkes-Barre, PA, sometime in the 1920s. I remember my grandfather, who was still a child when it happened, telling me about how the miners were treated. He was forced to take a job selling fruit to support his mother and brother because the mining company refused to pay any death benefits. It's easy to forget how bad the working conditions once were, and I suppose still are in some places today.

Yes, when I was doing my ancestry i found several of my relatives death certificates where cause of death was "Mining Accident", and many of my family were also missing fingers.

These are the people who built the county, and what did they get...

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