This series contains the 300-page final report, published at the Government Printing Office, entitled “A Medical Survey of the Bituminous Coal Industry.” The pictorial section of the document, being of unusual public interest, was issued simultaneously as a separate publication under the title “The Coal Miner and His Family.”
In 1946, noted photographer Russell Lee was hired by the Solid Fuels Administration for War, a Federal agency, to take photographs for a survey of medical, health and housing conditions in coal communities around the country.
Located in remote areas and patrolled by mine company guards during times of labor unrest, coal communities were normally inaccessible to outsiders. But government seizure of the mines from private operators gave Lee an unprecedented view into coal fields from Pennsylvania to Wyoming.
Russell Lee took more than 2,000 photographs of the miners in their homes, workplaces, and communities.
