In
Pennsylvania Mining Families
, Barry P. Michrina offers a luminous portrait of Pennsylvania coal miners and their response to economic oppression. He follows them from the great coal strike of 1927 through daily threats of injury and death in the mines to the departure of children and grandchildren as the industry has declined. Drawing on numerous first-hand interviews, as well as extensive archival research, he analyzes the change in work practices, the miners' own views about their ever-evolving situation, and relationships between miners and mining companies—undercutting the stereotypical picture of the rebellious miner.