The 1930 Government Controls Follow the Failure of Normalcy – 1930-1939
During the late afternoon of October 29, 1929, the zip of the jazz era began to slip away into the overarching gloom of the Great Depression. The worst day in a series of stock sell offs that autumn, Black Tuesday’s plunge was just one point in a cascading systemic global economic failure. Following the stock market crash, the Hoover administration and the Republican-led Congress pursued various remedies to shore up American industries that ultimately made things worse. The protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill of 1930, passed over the opposition of many leading Republicans, raised the prices of most imported good into the U.S. and led to reciprocal tariffs worldwide that effectively shut the door on American exports. That in turn led to even greater stock sell offs and further declines in industrial demand. As the dust settled on the rubble of the global economy, hardest hit were raw material producers and miners. Coal production fell off a cliff from a 1929 high of 608 million tons to 536 million tons in 1930, 441 million tons in 1931, and down to a low in 1932 of only 359 million tons. The lowest tonnage total since 1904, U.S. production would not return to even 1929 figures again until 1942.
Between 1929 and World War II, no industry was hit as hard as the coal sector. Mechanization, already in full swing by 1929 became virtually the only way to cut costs and stay in business as hundreds of mines shut—many for good. Liquidation loomed for many venerable companies, in particular in the older anthracite fields, as eastern manufacturing hemorrhaged jobs on falling demand. There were many days in 1932 and during the Depression when 80%-95% of the miners in dozens of coal towns across the U.S. were out of work—and even then, you were not guaranteed a full week’s worth as jobs were often rationed. One of the few growth sectors in the industry were in the bootleg dog-holes that popped up throughout the coalfields as desperate miners and often their families scrounged around for coal to heat their homes, cook their meals or sell for subsistence. America had never known such despair.
In 1932, the new Roosevelt administration took over the reins of government with a massive mandate for real change. The near immediate passage of the National Recovery Act (NRA) and its sister, the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) were the first of hundreds of new regulatory laws that began to control, stabilize and grow the moribund economy. 1933 brought a tiny glimpse of hope as production slowly began to rise, a trend that continued through the decade to a “high” of only 497 million tons in 1937. But the following year coal output plunged by more than 100 million tons as a third devastating round of contractions hit the economy again in 1938. By the end of 1939, America was getting back on its collective feet, but was still incredibly impaired; coal production was still down to only 446 million tons—barely 60% of 1929 totals.
The early part of the decade until 1933 was a desperate gambol toward survivability. Markets died. Producers had no place and no one to sell coal to, let alone the money to pay employees. Wages were cut, then cut again. Coal communities were desperate. The United Mine Workers was driven by internal division as more radical elements broke off from the John L. Lewis led majority. But as it fractured in the face of endless cost cutting and mechanization, organized labor lost more and more ground. Forced to take any wages they could, coal miners were desperate to get by; and the coal companies themselves were racing each other to the bottom to staunch their own bleeding.
Mechanization, Normalcy & Consol
A return to normalcy was a long way off when Editor Sydney A. Hale, in a July 1930 editorial asked “When will business be normal again?” After nearly a year and with no end in sight, Hale was frustrated with the “pollyannas of last fall who declared that the industrial depression at its worst was only a fleeting visitation.” But he also chastised those who—in their despair—had begun to abandon the exuberance of the 1920s. “Disillusionment over the collapse of ‘the new era’ which was to overturn all precedent and all economic law seems to have blinded many business men to the opportunities which the present situation offers to sound and progressive management.” Lamenting that obviously “Weeping has been easier than working,” he wonders what will come in the wake of the stock crash. “Will the return to normalcy revive the fatuous doctrines so recently and so painfully discredited?”
Like a good cheerleader rallying the team when they are down, Hale reminded Coal Age’s readers that though the nation had been quite prosperous, those dizzying heights had not really been that high for the coal industry. Thus toughened, despite the economic prognostication, “No industry is in a better position to meet these new conditions than coal. On business as a whole, the precipitous pitch from eight soft years of super-prosperity has produced industrial shell-shock. Coal has denied cushioned ease for a decade. Many of the physical readjustments which industry at large now must make, coal already has made under the compulsion of necessity. To coal, for example, the law of diminishing growth is an actuality—not an economist’s theory. Leadership in coal, therefore, has an unusual opportunity to build soundly on the return to normalcy.”
In the October 1930 article “Tenth Annual Model Mining Number,” Coal Age singled out the inspiring leadership of the venerable Consolidated Coal Company that had in 1929 initiated massive internal readjustments to stay ahead of the financial onslaught. Showing a survivalist’s instinct, Consol had cut production, consolidated mines into more sustainable regional units, and re-invested in achieving high productivity without sacrificing core goals such as safety, innovation and a longer term return on investment. “Such a re-organization, reaching into all departments and affecting every group of workers, has not been easy. The wide sweep of its production activities spread over four states has made necessary a more complex organization, with possibly finer adjustments and divisions of responsibility, than would be required if the mines of the company were all in one district… Machinery, of course, is playing an increasing part in the program of the company. Standardization of operating practices has been made a tool of efficient management. But in all the ruthless struggles for efficiency, the human equation has been submerged in executive thinking. Consolidated Coal has long been a leader in safety—and the practical benefits of that leadership have been reflected in operating costs.”
Early in the issue, as a way to both trace the growth of the U.S. coal industry and present a rationale for whole-scale readjustment, the editors reviewed the history of Consol and how it grew to become “one of the two largest companies in point of production and the first in reserve acreage.” Incorporated in Maryland in 1864, the “Consolidated Coal Co. confined its activities” to the Georges Creek coal district until 1903 when it merged with several operators working in the Pittsburgh seam in northern West Virginia and Somerset County, Pa. “By these mergers Consolidation, which started the first year of its corporate existence with an output of 37,678 tons, was able to enter the 10,000,000-ton producer class.”
Consol grew again when it entered the newly opened eastern Kentucky coalfields, purchasing 30,000 prime acres in Johnson and Martin counties as well as a new railroad. In 1910, Consol added another 100,000 acres of Elkhorn coal in Knott, Letcher and Pike counties, as well as another railroad that allowed for the opening of 15 mines in the territory. For 12 years the company concentrated on these three districts until 1922 when it merged with the Carter Coal Co., owner of 10 mines and 38,000 acres of coalfields in McDowell County, W.Va.; Tazewell and Buchanan counties, Va.; and Knox County, Ky. “As a result of these purchases, extending over a period of 20 years, Consolidation Coal Co. in 1924 owned approximately 348,000 acres of coal land, with a potential annual output of 14,000,000 tons and a reserve of more than 2 billion tons of un-mined coal.”
However, Consol’s expansion had not been conducted to create efficiencies, but to ensure output. “The period of greatest expansion took place during those years when railroad-car supply was a critical factor, and it was considered better policy to own a number of small mines—each in position to demand a share of existing transportation facilities—than to concentrate upon fewer and larger-capacity units.” This was precisely the opposite of the strategy then being embarked upon by management. Starting with 108 mines, by 1930 Consol, with less than a third as many mines in operation, was “averaging a greater annual production than during the war years”—at the time, the highpoint of national output and industry health. This was, the editors wrote, because of Consol’s adherence to the most up-to-date mining practices, use of modern production communication, and equipment and advanced strictly enforced safety policies.
Though headquartered—conveniently for Coal Age’s editorial team—in New York City, Consol’s 9,300 mine workers and several hundred other mine employees were working in five different divisions: Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Millers Creek (Ky.), Elkhorn (Ky.) and Pocahontas-New River. At the time, the Virginia operations were idle.
At the leading edge of technological advance by 1930, throughout coal faces across the company, breast machines had “given way to shortwalls”…and these were “destined to be hard run by arcwalls…wherever the coal is sufficiently thick, the mine is on the room-and-pillar or on the block system, and the miners do not cut their own places…In all, there are 77 arcwalls in active operation. The shortwalls or longwall machines are unassailable wherever the extracted portion of the seam is thin, a longwall face is available, or where the miners cut their own faces mechanically. Of these latter types of machines the Consolidated Coal Co. has 96, eight being longwall units.”
Wherever possible, Consol had invested in mechanization and was using four of the major types of loading and transporting machines, both in high and low coal. These included Joy, Myers-Whaley, Goodman and the Jones Co.’s “Coloders.” “Conveyors and scrapers fill an operating need in low coal where mine-car transportation is difficult or costly. Loading machines and pit-car loaders are employed in mines in thicker seams.” The company had also installed newly permissible telephones throughout each mine “principally for car dispatching and transacting the business of normal operations, [but] management also desired to insure, if possible, a reliable means of rapid communication in case of emergencies.”
As early as 1908, Consol had put into effect “radical” safety practices, often far ahead of other producers. “Draeger oxygen apparatus for mine rescue work was purchased in Germany, recue crews were organized and trained, making the company among the pioneers, if not the first, to install such apparatus on a large scale.” Chemical fire-fighting skills, gas inspection and rock dusting had become standard practice in the 1920s.
By 1930, Consol had given the Safety Department “jurisdiction from the general plans to the last detail in all ventilation problems; preliminary and final projection control maps, matters of haulage (including signal systems, dispatching, etc.), electrical wiring, new construction and new equipment, all bear the approval of the engineer of safety, and he is consulted on the purchase of merchandise such as goggles, caps, shoes, gloves, overall, etc., before they are put in stock. In fact, there is no branch of the operating department where the engineer of safety is not consulted or where he does not have jurisdiction over equipment and practices.” Earlier, when the department had been reorganized, it was tasked with the creation of a set of company-wide rules, later termed “Safety Standards.” These were later printed, bound and distributed to all operating officials and bosses who, in turn, trained their crews to follow each standard. Violations, early on at least, could lead to forced appearances before unique “safety courts” where men would be adjudicated for infractions.
But normalcy did not appear in 1930, and it would not return for some time, if ever. The only real hope for the industry was mechanization and finding more ways to cut costs. In the January 1931 editorial, Hale wrote, “the machine is coming to be recognized as the means by which the coal industry is enabled to compete successfully with rival fuels. [But yet]…further mechanization is necessary, however, if the business now led by coal is to be retained and the jobs of the coal miners are to be made secure.” Granting that mechanization would lead to some job-loss, without further inroads, the entirety of the industry was in jeopardy. Ominously, Hale signs off that “had the machine not arrived, the story of coal in 1929-1932 would have been far different from what it will be when the record of those years is finally written.”
Mechanize or Die: Liquidation Comes from a Failure to Adapt
A review in the February 1931 issue written by F.G. Tryon, R.W. Metcalf and H.O. Rogers, Coal Division, U.S. Bureau of Mines, summed up coal’s precarious position. Titled “Drastic Liquidation of Excess Mine Capacity Brightens Prospects for Future,” the authors cataloged that “since 1920, a total of 1,665 operators have been forced out of the bituminous coal industry.” From a post-war high of 6,277 corporations, by 1929 that number had fallen to 4,612. “The elimination of these unlucky producers bears mute testimony to the ruthlessness of the competitive struggle in recent years, but in ones sense it represents progress. It is a sign of the drastic liquidation of excess productive facilities which the industry has already accomplished.” Espousing a Darwinian theme, the whole, they postulated, was stronger because of the demise of the weaker, generally smaller and mid-size producers that had shut down. According to their findings, large mines and mining companies, those producing more than 200,000 tons a year, were less likely to close than smaller producers. And companies that extracted more than 500,000 tons annually were growing in number, mostly through combination. In 1929, there were 218 such mining companies, a 15% increase since 1920. At the time of the crash, these companies accounted for almost 60% of total production.
But, as Hale reminded, “for business in general, taking stock at the end of 1930 consisted largely in dolefully entering up the losses in red ink.” By comparison with the rest of the economy, coal was doing about par. Bituminous production was down about 14% or 73,359,000 tons and anthracite dropped to just under 70 million tons, or about 5.5%. According to McGraw-Hill’s sister publication The Business Week, the whole economy had contracted by another 15.9% year-over-year.
Decreases in coal consumption by both railroads and public utilities hit industry hard. But “encroachment of substitute fuels” was “a subject of increasing importance. Fuel oil continued to gain in 1930, though at a slightly reduced rate; natural gas enjoyed a boom year with no evidence of recession in the near future.” Coal was being squeezed between cheap oil and natural gas market expansion on the one hand and declining needs by traditional customers—the same customers for whose needs many mines had been opened and for which they were producing. To best face common problems, coal companies began creating new combinations and associations to best legally coordinate their responses.
To get a better sense of how to advise the coal community, Hale and the editorial staff sent out queries to dozens of mine executives nationwide. In the May 1931 issue, they revealed that the predominant response was the necessity of further mechanization. “First installed for the purpose of cost reduction as an end unto itself, the machines have since demonstrated their utility as weapons at high-wage mines to combat the destructive competition of mines which have been driving down wages and prices in their war for business.” However, “patience is a virtue which must be practiced in mechanization. The new methods are revolutionary to the job habits to which the miner has been long accustomed. On a contract basis, the miner was his own boss. For some time he is lost under the new conditions and, unless properly handled, may expect the company to take every bit of the responsibility for his job and his safety.”
Mechanization, however, was also having a stabilizing influence throughout the industry. “Mechanization at this early stage of development has cut down labor requirements as much as 50 percent…Machines are putting mines paying high wage scales”—generally meaning mines with unionized workforces—“on equal footing with operations where wages are lower and working hours longer. It is felt that wages cannot be driven beyond the lowest limit now prevailing; that for this reason the plants now mechanized will enjoy a considerable measure of profit in the future over and above their present return. Tonnage gains to mechanized mines are being transferred from hand-loading mines.”
For the September 1931 issue, Coal Age presented to the industry a plan for stabilization. Not intended as a detailed blueprint, the plan was meant to stimulate further conversations and actions as the mining community continued to suffer incredible contractions. Looking back at the history of mining from 1870 through 1910, the editors stated the industry’s biggest problem during that time was assuring production ahead of demand. However, due to these various challenges “productive capacity was developed to a point outstripping peak demand, while the stimuli which gave the speculative surge to ‘good times’ in the bituminous coal trade either have disappeared or no longer excite. In the meantime, increased efficiency in the utilization of coal by the larger consumers and inroads of competitive fuels have been working to check the normal expansion of demand.”
Because of this, the industry now has “too many mines, too many operating companies, a declining market for coal as a raw fuel, weak marketing policies and methods, lack of research to develop new uses for its product, inadequate sales realizations, and an unstable labor situation. While the law of the jungle is driving out some of the inefficient, it is also draining the resources of the many producers who richly deserve to survive. Under the law of the jungle, the lion is little more secure than the jackal.” Stating that “a gambling basis of profit for an industry so important to the industrial welfare of the nation as bituminous coal is neither conducive to stabilization nor safe for the nation or for the industry itself,” Coal Age presented its seven part plan: “More production control; sound merchandising; stabilized industrial relations; more mechanization; coordinated research to develop new uses for coal; more consolidations; and more safety.”
Surviving Through the Bottom: Roosevelt Brings Stability
To what extent these ideas were adopted or practiced is difficult to ascertain, but things did keep getting worse for the industry. 1931, 1932 and the first half of 1933 were “lost years” where companies were doing all they could to hold on having foregone hope of any profit: they just tried to keep money coming in the front door. Handloading continued to be a drain on the industry and, as more mines shut or slowed production, it was always the mechanized mines that held on. 1931 production figures from Illinois published in the February 1932 issue illustrated this point. Though overall production fell more than 9.1 million tons in 1931 to 42.9 million tons, mechanical output only dropped 223,817 tons. Handloading was down 9 million tons overall. “In other words, practically all of the tonnage drop in the state was lost by un-mechanized operations.”
In the June 1933 issue, Sydney Hale and staff begrudgingly accepted Roosevelt’s New Deal and the beginning of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) knowing it meant national price, production and competition controls, and compulsory unionization. The industry was falling to new bottoms every day and even mechanization was unable to create a floor. It was up to the government. “Rugged individualism has had a glorious tradition which, emotionally, it is not easy to abandon. Yet even the most enthusiastic exponents of this tradition must admit that cherished social and economic standards have broken down under the impact of the industrial depression. Unfortunately there seems little reason to believe that these can be built back up as rapidly as national necessities demand without the government support and sanctions implied in this bill.”
The National Recovery Act (NRA) and NIRA stopped the bleeding by establishing unprecedented government control over all sectors of the economy, from coal mining to publishing Coal Age. For that reason, even the magazine’s masthead began to fly the NRA’s Blue Eagle symbol in the October 1933 issue. “The great experiment in tri-partnership of industry, labor and the federal government in bituminous coal mining is now under way. By the terms of the code of fair competition, effective October 2, trade practices against which leaders in the industry have inveighed for years are specifically outlawed,” wrote Hale in that month’s editorial.
One of the biggest changes brought by these acts was the adoption of a national minimum wage. “In the majority of cases, these minima represent…substantial increases over the rates prevailing prior to the enactment of the law…Definitely pegging wages puts an end to that particularly vicious form of competition under which the wage earner was the chief victim of a frantic scramble for tonnage at any price.” A second provision of the NRA was the establishment of “fair market prices” below which no operator could fall under legal penalty. Though Hale knew there would be critics both of the new policies and Coal Age’s endorsement of them, he credited “the groups of coal men who labored through the hot Washington summer, frequently surrendering cherished opinions and prerogatives in the cause of cooperation, that this great experiment might be possible.”
Along with minimum wages came union representation and the open shop nationwide. Labor’s incredible victory came straight out of the jaws of defeat. From a 1924 high, organized labor had lost tremendous support—or at the very least, it had lost the ability to represent workers throughout much of the eastern coalfields, particularly in battleground states like Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Roosevelt’s election not only changed that but brought to reality 60 years of liberal, progressive and socialist fantasies. Writing in the October 1933 issue Hale noted, “Three months ago, recognition of the United Mine Workers in the bituminous fields east of the Indiana-Ohio state line was confined to southern Ohio, a few scattered operations in Pennsylvania and several companies in northern West Virginia: today, thanks to the new freedom granted organized labor by the NIRA and to direct presidential intervention, operators throughout the great Appalachian region have signed wage agreements with the Lewis organization. The sheer drama of this swift revival and expansion of union power needs no theater; the task of consolidating these gains and of making the new contracts effective instruments for the betterment of the whole industry, however, is much less spectacular but infinitely more important.” Coal Age published the entirety of the new NIRA codes for the coal industry that issue as well, a very different blueprint for recovery than what they had proposed just a few issues before—but in many ways, it was able to achieve precisely the same ends. At least, the bottom had been reached, albeit through government fiat.
And so marked an end both to the lowest points of the Depression, and of unregulated free-markets. For the next 16 years under Roosevelt and later Truman, and through the beginning of the Reagan-era, the economy would be much more regulated, unions would have much more power, and American capitalism would be practiced very differently. Though the Depression was far from over and industrial recovery still far off, 1933 was to borrow from Churchill, the end of the beginning.
Stability Brings Recovery & Innovation
Throughout 1933, operators, the UMWA and the government worked out new wage scales and the government set new price scales as well. This was in exchange for labor peace, something both sides wanted. Though the agreements all had sunset clauses, operators, for the most part, agreed to unprecedented controls. In the case of disagreements between labor and operators, by law there must be arbitration. “The procedure calls for conferences between the management and the mine committee, after which the dispute is referred to a board of four, two selected by the operators and two by the miner. In case the board fails to agree, the matter is referred to an umpire selected by the board or, in case the board fails to agree, by the NRA Administrator. No consideration of disputes is permitted as long as the mine is shut down in violation of the contract,” wrote the editors in the March 1934 issue.
However, labor peace nationwide was hard to create as both the union and operators jockeyed for position in the various different coalfields. Wages and prices were understood not to be equal for each field and for each task. How unequal and who made that decision were basis points for further strikes and lock outs. In April, Coal Age announced the adoption of a 35-hour work week for much of Appalachia. First adopted in the north, southern operators, particularly in Alabama, held out. Strikes brought in the National Guard, who, unlike previously, sided with labor and against the operator’s guns. Throughout the various sets of negotiations nationwide, the UMWA either was given or achieved preference over other organizations such as the Progressive Miners Union in the Midwest.
Though some companies fought the administration out in the courts, others adapted. Though wages trebled, Eugene McAuliffe, president of the Union Pacific Coal Co., was able to report in the July 1934 issue that, through careful and progressive mechanization, his mines were once again viable. Reviewing the 66-year history of the company and its operations near Rock Springs, Wyo., McAuliffe was able to put costs and wages into perspective. In 1890, the basic wage paid “white labor working inside the mine was $2.50 for a 10-hour day.” On September 1, 1907, UP adopted the 8-hour day and under the new controls of the Code of Fair Competition for the Bituminous Coal Industry, a 7-hour day was established effective April 1, 1934. But despite a 210% rise in hourly labor costs, “the principal changes that have made it possible to produce coal today include the substitution of electricity for steam hoists and pumps. Electricity also made possible the present-day cutting machine, the haulage locomotive and the loading machine.”
After reviewing the new equipment currently in operation, McAuliffe said it was mechanization, “the result of scientific technique contributed very largely by the manufacturers of mining machinery and equipment, reinforced by the U.S. Bureau of Mines, plus substantial capital investment, [that] has made it possible for the industry to pay wages in 1934 equivalent to 310 percent of the wage of 1890.”
Finally, in the August 1934 issue, Coal Age was able to once again report on expansion within the industry. Several stories in that issue treated the growth of the Grundy, Va., southern high-volatile fields. “Five to 10 years ago few would have been bold enough to predict that this generation would witness the opening of a new coalfield in southern Appalachian territory. And yet today the state of Virginia can boast of such a mining district. The first shipment of coal from the…Grundy field was made in May 1932 and now seven mines are in production.” Coal Age would report on these mines throughout the rest of the decade as production expanded throughout the region.
1934 and 1935 marked slight increases in anthracite production as well. Though the anthracite industry was still weak and waning, for its mid-decade 15 Annual “Numbers” issue Hale decided to feature the “Old Company” as it was still known: The Lehigh Navigation Company. Chartered in the early part of the 19th century, the old company was well known for innovation. “As part of the development of a system for recovering coal from heavily pitching seams, for example, Lehigh Navigation drove the first mining tunnel in the United States. Some of the earliest wet-cleaning processes were the brain children of its men. Again, at Hauto, Lehigh Navigation pioneered in mine-mouth generation of electrical energy. Today, Lehigh stands as a leader in anthracite stripping practices. When big shovels were regarded as suitable only for bituminous open-pit work, the Navigation company demonstrated its faith in larger-capacity buckets.
Late 1930s Recovery, Expansion, Innovation & Labor Compromise
In 1934, coal production began to rise out of the doldrums to just over 417 million tons. And while 1935 was not a break out year, at least production was steady, and even a bit more. Final numbers showed a small rise to 424 million tons. Steady incremental growth was the hope of the government officials who took control over the economy. However, “were tonnage the sole yardstick of progress, the record would not be particularly inspiring. But, in these unusual times, production figures may not tell the whole story,” wrote Hale in his February 1936 editorial “The Balance Sheet for 1935.” Price, production and competition targets were created and largely met. New Deal bureaucrats established economic zones to create wage and price uniformity. Operators continued to fight labor gains, but both sides were eventually satisfied—for the most part—that the bleeding had stopped and peace was at hand. Stability allowed operators to expand production in some zones and to innovate once again.
Mechanization and cost cutting was still key and operators were largely free to increase productivity. Moreover, increased “underground mechanization—the development which enabled Midwestern mines to survive during the era of excessive disparity in wage rates between what then were union and non-union fields—has been making real headway in the Appalachian area in the past year. Further expansion appears inevitable…” continued Hale.
Importantly, mechanization helped lower coal costs in comparison to other fuels. However, increased coal preparation and cleaning also helped hold the line. Though “slide-rule purchasers may complain that beneficiation is overdone, the producer who is interested in selling above slaughter levels knows the appeal modern cleaning, sizing and dustless treatment makes to the consumer. As a result, last year saw activity in the preparation phase…unmatched since 1931.”
In the September 1936 issue, Hale defended the industry against the jeremiads of “the little brothers of gloom” who “with more fervor than grief” were lamenting the “crumbling of the vast empire of King Coal.” New studies found coal was still the dominant fuel for house heating nationwide. In 64 cities nationwide ranging from Cleveland, Ohio, to Columbia, S.C., and both Portland, Ore., and Portland, Maine, 78.6% of the U.S. was still using coal in their homes as opposed to 13.6% using gas and 7.8% using oil.
The October 1936 issue also marked the 25th anniversary of Coal Age’s publication. Available now on-line, the expanded edition chronicles and celebrates both the short history of the magazine as well as the much longer history of the industry it served and continues to serve. But there was no doubt that King Coal in the Depression was getting kicked about. To do its share, in the October 1938 issue, Coal Age published a very detailed and colorful, for the time, “Public Relations Manual for Industry.” Presented both by Coal Age and McGraw-Hill, this special insert provides a unique snapshot of where the mining industry was during the middle of the Great Depression. In 1935 dollars, mining was the fourth most valuable industry in the U.S. Employing more than 565,000 men in coal alone, the industry was worth more than $3.1 billion. Though production per man had gone up, mechanization by 1936 only accounted for 16.3% of total production. Of total 1936 coal consumption of 488 million, utilities took just under 44 million tons, coking coal represented 66 million tons, the main railroads used 82.7 million tons and domestic coal accounted for more than 122 million. Other industries used over 153 million tons that year.
1935, however, saw another change as more scientific study was given to the causes of why so many miners were developing bronchitis—later correctly diagnosed as silicosis. Throughout the late 1930s, more studies would reveal the horrific spread of the disease. Additionally, old age pensions began to be developed and deployed throughout the industry as management and the public began to question how long a person should have to work. What seemed like a foregone hope for millions became a reality as, by the end of the decade, workers throughout all industries, including coal miners, began to retire from their careers instead of expire while still employed.
Labor won a significant victory once again with Roosevelt’s re-election in 1936 and wages were increased nationwide. At the 34th Constitutional Convention of the United Mine Workers held in Washington in early 1936, John L. Lewis boasted that almost 95% of the nation’s mines were now union. Since 1934, Lewis told the 1,716 delegates that “being more completely organized than ever before, collective bargaining more universally accepted, membership of the union greater than ever, the financial resources at their peak, the potential strength of the organization is transcending the imagination of the organized labor movement of the country and the public at large.”
In May 1936, Coal Age reported the new Department of Labor was launching a study of silicosis and silicosis legislation. Additionally, from 1935 through 1939, the magazine published several stories about old age pensions and the problems of “old age dependency”, i.e., the fact that so many older people were both out of work and without money or property. By 1930, the average life expectancy had grown to 60 years, but people over 65 represented 5.5% of the total population or 6.6 million people. “Studies of the economic status of this group invariably show a substantial proportion is entirely dependent upon others for continued existence.” In an era before Social Security, the Depression hit this group very hard. Many coal miners, particularly in the anthracite fields, chose to continue working past 60 if possible. And, in eastern Pennsylvania at least three large anthracite companies proudly employed miners with 50, 60 even 70 years of service.
Of the 190 men who had worked at the Lehigh Navigation Coal Co. (out of 6,400) more than 50 years, the oldest was William Gibson who, at 83 years old was still continuing work as a shop foreman. The gentleman had accumulated more than 75 years in the industry, beginning his career at the age of 8. “Two or three years ago, the company thought he should be pensioned, but the outside foreman did not want to lose his services, as he felt he was doing more and better work than many of the younger men.”
In 1936, coal production grew slightly that year to 493 million tons. But in 1937 steady growth was halted by the onset of another recession. Republican pressure in Congress led to incorrect assumptions about the overall strength in the economy leading to another contraction. 1938 production fell by 20%—more than 100 million tons—to just 394 million tons. And the decade ended with only slightly recovered production with numbers coming in just below 450 million tons. However, while the middle and end of the 1930s were not a return to the halcyon heights of the 1920s, or anything approaching the return to normalcy sought at the beginning of the decade, they were at least fairly stable—especially in comparison to the wanton bloodletting that preceded it.
The NRA and the NIRA were all challenged in the courts as were many of the New Deal policies and some were overturned. But the majority of the price, wage and production controls were kept intact. Though only World War II would really bring the economy back to 1920 levels, by the end of 1939 Americans, by and large, were much better off than at the beginning of the Great Depression—and a new spirit and society had replaced the free-market rugged individualism of the 1920s. As the decade ended, unionization, largely in the form of the United Mine Workers, was entrenched—as was the power of the federal government over both individual operators and the industry as a whole. But the government was also, through the creation of the largely coal burning Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), beginning to become an even larger customer of the coal industry as well. Nearly all sides were grateful for the economic stability the New Deal was successful in fostering.
World War II officially began in Europe in September 1939 with Germany’s invasion of Poland and France, and England’s subsequent declaration of war against the Nazis. Though the U.S. would remain officially neutral until December 7, 1941, in the November issue Coal Age’s editors shrewdly published a piece on export potentials and the possibility of a major export boom to come. Though the U.S. tops all other nations in coal reserves, it was not an exporter. Exports to Europe rose to an all-time high in 1920 and 1926 of roughly 13.1 million and 14.1 million tons, by 1939, the U.S. only exported a woeful 10,000 tons excluding Canada. And in 1934 not a single cargo was cleared for European ports.
Surface Mining in the Late 1930s—Bigger, More Efficient
As the overall economy stabilized, producers were once again able to enjoy the economies of scale realized through surface mining. Both anthracite and bituminous producers marked up additional gains in 1935 “by the installation of either larger excavating units or dippers and the extension of trailer haulage and in anthracite by a still greater reliance on this form of mining for the recovery of either virgin or partly mined coal near the surface. An increase in the size of equipment used characterized progress in the anthracite region also,” reported the editors in the February 1936 issue. In the bituminous fields, there were installations of 20 and 32-cu yd dippers at new operations in Indiana and Illinois. New advances in semi-trailer haulage allowed mines to dispense with the higher costs of temporary rail tracks and loading. With oil prices low, haul trucks were becoming integral components in surface mining. 15- to 25-ton bottom dump trailer units powered by new Mack trucks were put in service throughout mines in the Midwest that year. At some operations, like the Enos Coal Mining Co. in southwestern Indiana, eight trailer units displaced six steam locomotives. “Transportation, however, takes place in two-stages, the trailers hauling to a dumping station at the mouth of the pit, where the coal is discharged into standard-gage railroad cars for movement to the preparation plant. Average round-trip haul of the trailers is approximately 1¼ miles, and the units in service account for approximately 4,300 tons in seven hours.”
Also, breakthroughs in both welded alloy steel and aluminum allowed savings in weight and increase in tensile strengths. “Gross weight of a 16-cu yd dipper fully loaded is approximately 80,000 lb, or slightly less than the average 12-cu yd dipper of conventional construction.”
Operators of the new Bobolink mine of the Binkley Mining Co. in Seeleyville, Ind., deployed “a Bucyrus-Erie 950B electric shovel with a 105-ft boom, 64-ft dipper stick and 30-cu yd welded alloy-steel dipper. Dumping range is 106 ft; dumping height, 70-ft. Instead of the conventional box-girder boom, the Bobolink shovel is fitted with an open-frame boom somewhat resembling the dragline type. A cylindrical dipper stick and rope crowd are other features. The dipper is counterweighted. Thirty General Electric motors with an aggregate rating of 2,500 hp operate the unit. Coal is transported from the pit to the tipple in 25-ton Austin-Western trail cars attached to six-wheeled White tractors with four-rear-wheel drive.”
In the May 1936 issue, Engineering Editor R. Dawson Hall filed a long piece on the history of explosives use in mining. Though its use probably went back to 1627, “by far the greatest advances in the art of blasting in mineral recovery have taken place in the last 100 years. Development of high explosives, pellet powders, renewed interest in cushioned blasting, volley shooting and firing plugs are all part of the history of this latter period. With increased efficiency in use has also come greater safety.” 1936 marked a century of safety fuse use. “Permissible Explosives” used particularly in the hard coal region, were omnipresent as coal mining became the largest user of industrial explosives in the U.S. In the rambling article, Hall detailed the history of explosives beginning in the mid-13th century and ending with the re-introduction of plugs in 1935, this time filled with ammonia nitrates instead of black powder or gunpowder.
Much of the March 1938 issue was devoted to the history and current operations of the United Electric Coal Co, the progress of which “very closely parallels the progress in the development of large excavating equipment and its application to coal mining. Although not incorporated until 1918, United Electric had its inception as far back as 1885, when the first mechanical stripping operation in Illinois was opened near Danville on properties controlled by individuals who were later to organize the present company.” From humble beginnings with the use of a “dry land” dredge purchased from the Marion Steam Shovel Co. equipped with a 50-ft boom and entirely built of wood, U.E., by 1938 was able to handle 1,600 cu yd per hour by a Bucyrus-Erie 950-B 30-cu yd shovel at the new Buckheart mine opened near Canton, Ill., the year before.
Capable of producing up to 16,000 tons each day from four operations throughout central and southern Illinois, United Electric had been the subject of many articles in Coal Age throughout the decades as the company pioneered advances in surface mining. As a way to trace the progress made in strip mining, “back in the clamorous days of 1920, when buyers were bidding feverishly against one another for tonnage” surface mining in Illinois had a combined total output of 589,540 tons. “Last year, United Electric’s premier producer, Fidelity No. 11—alone poured out more than twice that tonnage.”
The world’s largest of its kind, Fidelity, located 6 miles west of DuQuoin, Ill., started production in 1929 as a three-pit operation. In 1938, it was producing from only two pits with a third one held in reserve. “Stripping in two pits is accomplished by one Marion 5480 shovel and one Marion 5480 dragline working in tandem. In this operation, the dragline, working in advance of the shovel, removes the clay, placing it behind the rock retaining wall which has been made by the shovel in removing the hard material down to the coal in the previous cut. The third pit is equipped with a Marion 5600 shovel, which in 1929 had the greatest capacity of any shovel built, and today, when judged by any factor other than dipper size, still is the world’s largest shovel. It has a maximum dumping height of 82½ ft which exceeds by about 25 percent the dumping height of other large shovels.” Maximum dumping radius of the 5600 was 146 ft, max cutting height was 97 ft—both far in excess of the cutting height of other shovels. With a weight of 1,750 tons and a motor driven generation rated at 1,700 kva, it was “greater than any other shovel ever built.”
However, in the August 1938 issue, the editors published a piece titled “Kansas Fields Use Largest of Shovels to Strip Thinnest of Seams.” With major seams only 18 to 36 in. thick, producers there had long been using shovels that were larger and heavier than any others. “Ratio of cover to thickness of seam mined has ranged from 18 to 20. Because continuous progress is a real watchword in modern stripping, recent years have witnessed many changes in equipment and operating practices.” At the No. 17 operation of the Pittsburg & Midway Mining Co., the 22-in. mineral bed is stripped by a Bucyrus 750-B shovel with a 62-ft dipper stick, 87-ft boom and 24-cu yd bucket. At the No. 22 mine of the Clemens Coal Co., the Weir-Pittsburg seam is 36 in. thick and lies under about 46-ft of cover. The stripping shovel is a 23-cu yd Marion 5560 with a 96-ft boom and 56-ft dipper stick. Other large equipment was also deployed throughout the Pittsburg coalfields in eastern Kansas as the regional producers strived to stay competitive with other fuels as well as other surface mined coal.
Though attention was often paid in the magazine to the stories of the largest machines in the nation, often it was the smaller ones that made the most difference to a producer’s bottom line. In the August 1939 issue, Associate Editor Ivan A. Given penned a piece about the recently approved use of butane fuel powered 80-ton semi-trailers then being used at several Sinclair strip mines throughout the Midwest. “The first to use tractor-trailer haulage on a major scale, the Sinclair stripping organization has been continuously active in the development of this medium of transportation since it adopted the automotive type of equipment nearly seven years ago in 1932. Since then capacity has increased culminating last February in the installation of an 80-ton semi-trailer being pulled by a two-engine butane-electric tractor equipped with two 125-hp electric driving motors.”
Automobile haulage had proven a large savings over rail and locomotive uses as well as an increase in operating flexibility. “At the end of February 1939, the 80-ton unit was making about 14 round trips per shift of seven hours. Average load per trip was close to 75 tons, or an average of 13 dipper loads of coal. Average daily mileage was around 85, and butane consumption was close to 20 gal. per hour. Between May 3, 1938, and January 8, 1939, the initial butane unit ran a total of 8,800 miles, during which time the engine was not touched.”
Underground Mining in the Late 1930s
Mechanization of loading, as in past years, held the spotlight. Coal Age reported that 81 mobile loaders were purchased by some 35 companies nationwide that year. Not great, but certainly an improvement over years past. Mobile loaders were the most sought after items. “New high-tonnage machines pushed still higher the output per machine-shift. In one instance an average of 500 tons per machine per shift is reported.” Though Indiana and Illinois maintained their equipment leadership that year, producers throughout Northern and Southern Appalachia began purchasing more frequently.
In the August 1936 issue, Ivan Given profiled the Robinson Run No. 1 mine near Morgantown, W.Va., that, through mechanization, was able to average 15.6 tons per man-shaft. “Using mobile loaders for both solid work and pillar robbing, the Christopher Mining Co., formerly C.L.S. Coal Co., extracts 90 percent or more of the marketable portion of the seam. Incorporating the principle of pillar extraction into its mining plan, the company has standardized on retreat working; i.e., development entries are driven to the boundary, after which rooms-and-pillars are mined back to the main entry serving the property. An even better than the 15.6 tons per man shaft is expected when additional equipment is installed.”
Extracting from an 8 to 9 foot seam, normal operations at the mine consisted of three seven hour shifts per day. With direct current at 250 volts, “major equipment in use at the time this article was prepared consisted of one Joy 10-BU loader, one Joy 11-BU loader, one Sullivan 7-AU track-mounted cutting and shearing machine” and a variety of shortwall cutters and cable-reel locomotives, portable coal drills and drop bottom mine cars.
In 1936, operators installed an estimated 345 mobile loaders and 590 conveyors, “all evidences of the strides made in mechanization” that year. Swept up in the spirit of progress that year in West Virginia, the venerable Gay Mines fully mechanized. “The Gay Coal & Coke Co., of Mt. Gay, mechanized both its mines 100 percent. All coal at the No. 1, with a seam thickness of 6 ft, was loaded by machines, and starting June 1, all coal at the No. 2 Gay mine, where the thickness is 4 ft was produced mechanically using power drilling.” The company reported “Mechanical loading enabled us to produce 48 percent more coal this year than in our previous best year.”
Another change in 1936 came in Illinois with the development of a new trackless-mining system by James Fletcher of Chicago. “The transportation unit is the connecting link between mobile loaders at the face and a belt system carrying the coal to the outside or to a mine-car loading station, depending on conditions. One such system was in operation at the property of the Blue Bird Coal Co. in Carries Mills, Ill., throughout the last half of the year. The new unit consists of a battery-powered tractor with rubber tires to which is attached by means of a swivel coupling, a two-wheeled bottom-dumping trailer. Front wheels on the tractor, which is steered like an automobile, are equipped with single tires; rear wheels on the tractor and the trailer wheels are equipped with dual tires. Tractor and trailer run on the mine floor.” Several issues throughout the rest of the decade reported the progress of rubber-tired haulage. Calling it “the latest mechanization development,” mines throughout the nation bought various different shuttle cars and loading machines as new models were developed.
Conveyor machines also were more increasingly deployed, particularly in Central Appalachia. New in April 1939 was the system installed at the Cabin Creek No. 7 mine of the Carbon Fuel Co., located in the Cabin Creek district south of Charleston, W.Va., in Kanawha County. Mining the Powellton seam, the new mine was equipped with a fleet of brand new loading and haulage equipment. The new 2,000 ft conveyor sections were installed along the length of the main headings. Production started out high as “face crews have been loading 12 to 14 tons per man-shift.” Carbon Fuel pioneered mechanization in the Kanawha field when in 1930 it invested over $500,000 in preparation equipment, mobile loaders and auxiliary equipment to mechanize at its No. 9 mine.
Coal Preparation in the Late 1930s
To stay competitive, mines nationwide began installing new more mechanized equipment in their preparation plants as well as underground. Typical of these new plants and upgrades was the stoker coal plant at Consol’s Millers Creek mine near Van Lear, Ky., profiled in the July 1937 issue. “Steel and concrete construction, surge and storage bins equipped with coal-lowering devices, horizontal double-deck screens which reduce height, adjustable gate openings to mixing feeders of the constant-speed belt type automatic stops to forestall improper mixtures and oil sprays at six points are features of the design.” The mine plant, profiled in the October 1935 issue, was modernized in 1935 by a slope conveyor and a 600-ton per hour four-track concrete and steel tipple designed and built by the Fairmont Machinery Co., which also handled the stoker plant.
In the July 1939 issue, Coal Age profiled Peabody Coal Co.’s Westville No. 24 plant. Fifth in a line of installations throughout its Illinois operations, the new mechanical preparation plant “features maximum flexibility, washing of all coal from 6-in. down, storage bins for washed carbon and a rescreening plant with bins and proportioning feeders for shipping stoker or screenings with definitely fixed percentages of the various size fractions. Rescreener sizes also may be returned to the main mixing conveyor for mixing with the larger washed and hand-picked sizes in making combinations or modifications with, if desired, specified percentages of rescreener grades.” A “weak and treacherous soapstone” roof or “white rock” was the major impetus to adopt washing at the plant. Placed in service in January 1939, the rated capacity at the new No. 24 plant was 600 tons per hour.
