Convicts, Coal, and the Banner Mine Tragedy

In the late 1850s Jefferson County, Alabama, and town of Elyton (the future Birmingham) became the focus of a remarkable industrial and mining revolution. Together with the surrounding mineral-rich counties the area was penetrated by railroads. Surprisingly large deposit of bituminous coal, limestone, and iron ore--the exact ingredients for the manufacture of iron and, later, steel--began to be exploited. Now with transportation, modern extractive techniques, and capital, the region's geological riches-endlessly described as being locked in the bowels of the earth"--began yielding enormous profits. This book is about the me who worked involuntarily in the Banner Coal Mine owned by the Pratt Consolidated Coal Company and about the repercussions and consequences that followed an explosion at the mine in the spring of 1911...."