COLLECTION NAME:
Colorado Coal Project
Record
Collection Name:
Colorado Coal Project
Title:
Coal mining in Weld County (Part 3 of 3)
Creator:
Margolis, Eric, 1947-
Creator:
McMahan, Ronald L.
Subject:
Coal mines and mining
Subject:
Coal miners--Labor unions--Colorado
Subject:
Columbine Mine (Weld County, Colo.)
Subject:
Coal miners--Health and hygiene--United States
Subject:
Free enterprise--Public opinion--United States
Subject:
Quality of life--United States--History
Subject:
Coal miners--Personal narratives
Subject:
Retirees
Subject:
Interviews
Description:
Retired coal miners, Claude and Lawrence Amicarella recount their coal mining days. They talk about working and living conditions and give examples of the prejudice held toward miners during the forties and fifties. They share their views on corrupt United Mine Workers officials, the incompetence of mine superintendents, bad management decisions, e.g. bringing in machinery that was too big for a mine. They believe that a free enterprise system should include the right to form labor unions and that all natural resources should be nationalized. They recall buying a company house, paying the weighman to be accurate, and surviving on low wages by working overtime. By comparison, they say, Western miners were highly mobile, while a sense of being stuck prevailed in the Eastern mining towns. It perplexes them why miners are considered "undesirables" when their lives were hard and their services indispensable.
Description Type:
summary
Description:
Transcript begins pg. 9 of pdf; 10:00 -- Discussion about impact of strip mining and harmful mining practices (pg. 15 of pdf transcript); 20:00 -- Comparisons of miners' lives in the East vs. the West (pg. 20 of pdf transcript); 30:00 -- Cycle of rising wages and inflation, incompetent mining supervisors (pg. 26 of pdf transcript); 40:00-- Problems of free enterprise system, lack of regulation for overtime (pg. 31 of pdf transcript); 50:00 -- Organizing miners for their protection (pg. 38 of pdf transcript); 60:00 -- Poor management decisions in mines, buying a company house (pg. 46 of pdf trnscript); Pages 46-54 of transcript Amicarella2 are not in the video.
Description Type:
segmentSequence
Publisher:
University of Colorado Boulder Archives
Contributor:
Amicarella, Claude, 1911-1986
Contributor:
Amicarella, Lawrence, 1902-1988
Date:
1978-02-21
Type:
Moving image
Format:
video/mov
Identifier:
134-Amicarella.mov
Language:
English
Relation:
Title: Coal mining in Weld County (Part 1 of 2)
Relation Type:
isFormatOf
Relation:
Title: Coal mining in Weld County (Part 2 of 2)
Relation Type:
isFormatOf
Relation:
Title: Coal mining in Weld County (Part 1 of 3)
Relation Type:
isPartOf
Relation:
Title: Coal mining in Weld County (Part 2 of 3)
Relation Type:
isPartOf
Coverage (Spatial):
Boulder County (Colorado, United States, North America) (civil)
Coverage (Temporal):
1920/1978
Coverage (Spatial):
Colorado (United States, North America) (first order administrative divisions)
Coverage (Spatial):
Columbine Mine (Weld, Colorado, United States, North America) (mine)
Coverage (Spatial):
Weld County (Colorado, United States, North America) (civil)
Rights:
This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). URI http://rightsstatem…