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West Virginia law prohibited employing children younger than twelve and any child younger than fourteen in mines during school hours. Operators insisted that responsibility for enforcement of these statutes fell to parents rather than employers*.  (Clopper [Child Labor 1908]) CC started work in the mines at the age of nine after his mother died.  His father got him a job and left him at Margaret Johnson’s boarding house when he remarried.  Older siblings were already out on their own and younger ones were left with one married sibling or another. (Gillespie Oral History and Interviews)

*Not that we’d ever start down that path again.  Well, at least it isn’t legal for minors to work in dangerous jobs like mining anymore.  Oh…  Legislation like this certainly wouldn’t be a trend in modern times.

Girls were prohibited by statute and custom from mine work, but Roxie Cooper Gillespie reported that her sister would sometimes sneak into the mine after hours with their father to shoot down coal in preparation for the morning. (WV State Codes, Gillespie Oral History and Interviews) 

Mine doors are important for maintaining proper ventilation underground. Automatic doors were eventually available, but like electronically-controlled pneumatic train brakes, just because they were available, didn’t mean they were automatically adopted.

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