The Slate Picker's House

At Eckley, the smallest and oldest miners homes had only a living room and kitchen-dining area on the first floor and a sleeping loft above, and the poorest families lived in them. Men living there with their families were often hurt, older, or otherwise unable to work underground, and worked instead in the breaker as slate pickers, performing a variety of menial tasks. Daily survival was difficult. Women and small children prepared meals, cleaned, washed laundry, hauled water, firewood, and coal, tended the garden, canned food, and fed the few farm animals they might own. Many women also took in additional laundry, scrubbed floors, did seamstress work, or otherwise subsidized the family home, and they sold or bartered extra produce, fruit, baked goods, and products from their animals. Girls went to school until about sixth or seventh grade, then worked in local factories or mills to help support their families.

Pennsylvania · United States