This paper will examine how coal mining has been represented in American literature. Many would say that little has changed in the mining industry since Upton Sinclair’s novel King Coal was published in 1917. Miners still work in deplorable, dangerous conditions and are exploited by the great Kings of Coal who knowingly operate unsafe mines. In addition to the immediate impact on the miners and their families are the long-term consequences that mining has on the environment. In this paper, I will examine how contemporary authors like Tawni O’Dell, whose novel Back Roads (2000) was an Oprah Book Club selection, and Ann Pancake depict the mining industry and its impact on the environment in their novels, and I will make connections to Sinclair’s King Coal and Tillie Olsen’s Yonnondio: From the Thirties.
About the presenterDiane M. Todd (Bucci)
Dr. Diane M. Todd (Bucci) is Professor of English and Communications Skills at Robert Morris University. Her research interests embrace representations of the historically oppressed, which includes women’s, multicultural, and working-class literature.