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A breaker boy was a coal-mining worker in the
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Hindman, Hugh D. ''Child Labor: An American History.'' Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2002. and
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
whose job was to separate impurities from
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...
by hand in a
coal breaker A coal breaker is a coal processing plant which breaks coal into various useful sizes. Coal breakers also remove impurities from the coal (typically slate) and deposit them into a culm dump. The coal breaker is a forerunner of the modern coal pre ...
. Although breaker boys were primarily children, elderly coal miners who could no longer work in the mines because of age, disease, or accident were also sometimes employed as breaker boys. The use of breaker boys began in the mid-1860s. Although public disapproval of the employment of children as breaker boys existed by the mid-1880s, the practice did not end until the early 1920s.


Coal breaking

Coal came into wide use in the late 1590s in the United Kingdom after the island nation was widely deforested and a ban was placed on the harvesting of wood by
Charles I of England Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after hi ...
so that forests could be used solely by the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
.Burke, James. ''Connections.'' New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1978, . p. 163-170. A newly emergent
middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Com ...
increasingly demanded
glass Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling ( quenching ...
for windows, and the glass-making industry relied heavily on charcoal for fuel. With charcoal no longer available, this industry turned to coal. Demand for coal also increased after the invention of the
reverberatory furnace A reverberatory furnace is a metallurgical or process furnace that isolates the material being processed from contact with the fuel, but not from contact with combustion gases. The term ''reverberation'' is used here in a generic sense of ''re ...
and the development of methods for casting iron objects such as cannons. The first function of a coal breaker is to break coal into pieces and sort these pieces into categories of nearly uniform size, a process known as breaking.Ketchum, Milo Smith. ''The Design of Mine Structures.'' New York: McGraw-Hill, 1912. But coal is often mixed with impurities such as rock, slate, sulfur, ash (or "bone"),
clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
, or soil. Thus, the second function of a coal breaker is to remove as many impurities as economically desirable and technologically feasible, and then grade the coal based on the percent of impurities remaining. This was not necessary when coal was used in cottage-industry grade production methods, but became necessary when economies of scale moved production into early factories with a larger workforce and those installations began producing glass and iron in greater quantities. In the US prior to 1830, very little bituminous coal was mined and the fuel of the early
American Industrial Revolution The technological and industrial history of the United States describes the United States' emergence as one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world. The availability of land and literate labor, the absence of a landed arist ...
anthracite coal—underwent little processing before being sent to market, which was primarily ironworks and smithies producing
wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" ...
. The miner himself would use a sledgehammer to break up large lumps of coal, then use a rake whose teeth were set two inches apart to collect the larger pieces of coal for shipment to the surface.Korson, George Gershon. ''Black Rock: Mining Folklore of the Pennsylvania Dutch.'' Manchester, NH: Ayer Publishing, 1950. The smaller lumps of coal were considered non-marketable and left in the mine. Beginning about 1830, surface processing of coal in the US began concurrently with various canal projects in the Eastern Seaboard. These developments lagged behind that of Great Britain, better matching the timing of similar developments in Continental Europe. Great Britain, with its heavily deforested landscapes, simply had to find economic alternatives sooner, stimulating coal, iron, and machine developments leading ultimately to railroads and the infant
industrial chemical The chemical industry comprises the companies that produce industrial chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, it converts raw materials (oil, natural gas, air, water, metals, and minerals) into more than 70,000 different products. The ...
s industries of the 1860s. Lumps of coal were placed on plates of perforated
cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron– carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impur ...
and "breakers" would hammer on the coal until it was in pieces small enough to fall through the holes. A second screen caught the coal, and was shaken (by hand, animal, steam, or water power) to remove the unmarketable smaller lumps. This "broken and screened" coal was worth much more than "broken" coal or lump coal for the even sizes combusted with less trouble and need for tending once past the
ignition point The fire point of a fuel is the lowest temperature at which the vapour of that fuel will continue to burn for at least five seconds after ignition by an open flame of standard dimension. At the flash point, a lower temperature, a substance will ...
.


Use of breaker boys

Until about 1900, nearly all coal breaking facilities in the United States were labor-intensive. The removal of impurities was done by hand, usually by breaker boys between the ages of 8 and 12 years old.Freedman, Russell. ''Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor.'' Reprint ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998. Batchelor, Bob. ''The 1900s.'' Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. Clement, Ferguson and Reinier, Jacqueline S. ''Boyhood in America: An Encyclopedia. Volume 2: American Family.'' Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2001. Black, Brian. ''Nature and the Environment in Nineteenth-Century American Life.'' Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. The use of breaker boys began around 1866.Derickson, Alan. ''Black Lung: Anatomy of a Public Health Disaster.'' Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998. International Textbook Company. ''International Library of Technology: A Series of Textbooks for Persons Engaged in the Engineering Professions and Trades.'' Vol. 38. Scranton, Pa.: International Textbook Co., 1903. For 10 hours a day, six days a week, breaker boys would sit on wooden seats, perched over the chutes and conveyor belts, picking slate and other impurities out of the coal.Miller, Randall M. and Pencak, William. ''Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth.'' State College, Pa.: Penn State Press, 2003. Novak, Michael. ''The Guns of Lattimer.'' Reprint ed. New York: Transaction Publishers, 1996. Breaker boys working on top of chutes or conveyor belts would stop the coal by pushing their boots into the stream of fuel flowing beneath them, briefly pick out the impurities, and then let the coal pass on to the next breaker boy for further processing. Others would divert coal into a horizontal chute at which they sat, then pick the coal clean before allowing the fuel to flow into "clean"
coal bin A coal bin, coal store or coal bunker is a storage container for coal awaiting use or transportation. This can be either in domestic, commercial or industrial premises, or on a ship or locomotive tender, or at a coal mine or processing plant. Do ...
s. The work performed by breaker boys was hazardous. Breaker boys were forced to work without gloves so that they could better handle the slick coal. The slate, however, was sharp, and breaker boys would often leave work with their fingers cut and bleeding. Breaker boys sometimes also had their fingers amputated by the rapidly moving conveyor belts. Others lost feet, hands, arms, and legs as they moved among the machinery and became caught under conveyor belts or in gears. Many were crushed to death, their bodies retrieved from the gears of the machinery by supervisors only at the end of the working day. Others were caught in the rush of coal, and crushed to death or smothered. Dry coal would kick up so much dust that breaker boys sometimes wore lamps on their heads to see, and
asthma Asthma is a long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wheezing, co ...
and
black lung disease Coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP), also known as black lung disease or black lung, is an occupational type of pneumoconiosis caused by long-term exposure to coal dust. It is common in coal miners and others who work with coal. It is similar to ...
were common. Coal was often washed to remove impurities, which created sulfuric acid. The acid burned the hands of the breaker boys.


Public condemnation

Public condemnation of the use of breaker boys was so widespread that in 1885
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
enacted a law forbidding the employment of anyone under the age of 12 from working in a coal breaker, but the law was poorly enforced; many employers forged proof-of-age documentation, and many families forged birth certificates or other documents so their children could support the family. Estimates of the number of breaker boys at work in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania vary widely, and official statistics are generally considered by historians to undercount the numbers significantly. One estimate had 20,000 breaker boys working in the state in 1880, 18,000 working in 1900, 13,133 working in 1902, and 24,000 working in 1907."Install Mechanical Slate Pickers." ''Technical World Magazine.'' September 1906-February 1907. Technological innovations in the 1890s and 1900s (such as mechanical and water separators designed to remove impurities from coal) dramatically lowered the need for breaker boys, but adoption of the new technology was slow. By the 1910s, the use of breaker boys was dropping because of improvements in technology, stricter child labor laws, and the enactment of compulsory education laws. The practice of employing children in coal breakers largely ended by 1920 because of the efforts of the
National Child Labor Committee The National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) was a private, non-profit organization in the United States that served as a leading proponent for the national child labor reform movement. Its mission was to promote "the rights, awareness, dignity, well ...
, sociologist and
photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in other ...
Lewis Hine Lewis Wickes Hine (September 26, 1874 – November 3, 1940) was an American sociologist and muckraker photographer. His photographs were instrumental in bringing about the passage of the first child labor laws in the United States. Early life ...
, and the
National Consumers League The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is an American consumer organization. The National Consumers League is a private, nonprofit advocacy group representing consumers on marketplace and workplace issues. The NCL provides government, bu ...
, all of whom educated the public about the practice and succeeded in obtaining passage of national child labor laws.


Union activities

Breaker boys were known for their fierce independence and rejection of adult authority. Breaker boys often formed and joined
trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...
s, and precipitated a number of important strikes in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania.Blatz, Perry K. ''Democratic Miners: Work and Labor Relations in the Anthracite Coal Industry, 1875-1925.'' Ithaca, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1994. ; Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. ''Kids on Strike!'' Reprint ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003. Miller, Donald L. and Sharpless, Richard E. ''The Kingdom of Coal: Work, Enterprise, and Ethnic Communities in the Mine Fields.'' State College, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985. ; Smith, Page. ''The Rise of Industrial America: A People's History of the Post-Reconstruction Era.'' New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984. ; Josephson, Judith Pinkerton. ''Mother Jones: Fierce Fighter for Workers' Rights.'' Breckenridge, Colo.: Twenty-First Century Books, 1997. Among these were the strike which culminated in the
Lattimer Massacre The Lattimer massacre was the violent deaths of at least 19 unarmed striking immigrant anthracite miners at the Lattimer mine near Hazleton, Pennsylvania, United States, on September 10, 1897.Anderson, John W. ''Transitions: From Eastern Europ ...
and the
Coal Strike of 1902 The Coal strike of 1902 (also known as the anthracite coal strike) was a strike by the United Mine Workers of America in the anthracite coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania. Miners struck for higher wages, shorter workdays, and the recognition of ...
.


References


External links


"The Boys in the Breakers." eHistory. Multimedia Histories Section. The Ohio State University."Breaker Boys and Miners Tell About Their Hardships."
''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
.'' December 14, 1902. (Miners and breaker boys testify in 1902 before the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission regarding conditions at the Philadelphia Reading Coal Iron Company)
"Donald Miller: The Breaker Boys." ''America 1900,''
an episode of '' The American Experience on
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''
"A Pictorial Walk Through the 20th Century: Little Miners" Mine Safety and Health Administration. U.S. Department of Labor
{{DEFAULTSORT:Breaker Boy Coal mining Child labour Child labor in the United States Obsolete occupations Resource extraction occupations