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Your Land is My Land: A Look at Bootleg Coal Mining During the Depression
Further Reading

Anderson, Terry L. and Fred S. McChesney. Property Rights: Cooperation, Conflict, and Law. . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Although a bit scholarly in nature, this book explores the history and complexities of property rights.

Ciervo, Arthur Vincent. Always in a hole: Life in a Pennsylvania coal town during the Great Depression and World War II. Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: Plank’s Suburban Press, 1996.

This book discusses the coal operations in Pennsylvania during the Great Depression.

Cohen, Allen, and Ronald Filippelli. Times of Sorrow and Hope: Documenting Everyday Life in Pennsylvania During the Depression and World War II, a Photographic Record. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003.

This book is a collection of photographs taken in Pennsylvania during the Great Depression (the 1930s and early 1940s) by the Farm Security Administration. An introductory essay is included.

Coode, Thomas H. and John F. Baumann. People, Poverty and Politics: Pennsylvanians During the Great Depression. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1981.

This useful volume explores the impact of and responses to the Great Depression in Pennsylvania in chapters ranging from coal mining in southwestern Pennsylvania to black housing in Philadelphia.

Ely, James W. The Guardian of Every Other Right: A Constitutional History of Property Rights (Bicentennial Essays on the Bill of Rights). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Excellent background on property rights.


Web Sites

Anthracite Heritage Museum-Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Who Are These Anthracite People http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/ppet/anthracite/page1.asp?secid=31

This article offers a snapshot of what the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania conveys to visitors about the mostly immigrant population of miners, their stories, and lives. If you can't get to the museum, this is a useful article. If you can, this will offer an idea of what the museum is all about.

Coal Region of Pennsylvania http://www.coalregion.com/

This website provides interesting native information of the coal region: recipes, vocabulary, and lists of coal patch towns. The Coal Region includes the following counties: Schuylkill, Carbon, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Northumberland, and Columbia

Documenting America-Library of Congress http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html

This collection entitled, "America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945" includes 1,600 color and 160,0000 black-and-white photographs of rural and small town America during the late 1930s and scenes of the defense and war mobilization effort from 1935-1945.

Life in the Mines: The Life of the Immigrant Miner http://www.iarelative.com/mines.htm

This site has an amazing array of links to various primary sources and books and movies to purchase. Examples include links to the United Mine Workers of America site, "Tales of the Mine Country", Molly Maguires", and one to the Louis Adamic article "The Great ‘Bootleg" Coal Industry," (used in this lesson).

MSN Encarta Encyclopedia, The Great Depression in the United States http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761584403/Great_Depression_in_the_...

This site offers background information on the causes and effects of the Great Depression.

Museum of Anthracite Mining-Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, A Walk Through the Rise and Fall of Anthracite Might http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/ppet/miningmuseum/page1.asp?secid=31

This article gives an extremely comprehensive account of the influence of Anthracite coal on Pennsylvania as it fluctuated throughout its early history and also describes some place of interest in Pennsylvania in relation to coal mining.

New Deal Network: The Great Depression, the 1930s, and the Roosevelt Administration http://newdeal.feri.org/index.htm

This rich and constantly growing database of photographs, political cartoons, and documents on the public works and arts projects of the New Deal also includes curriculum ideas for middle and high school teachers and students.

Penn State Libraries-The Times of Sorrow and Hope http://www.libraries.psu.edu/artshumanities/drc/psupress/index.htm

This site provides a complete catalog of photographs taken in nearly 200 Pennsylvania towns, villages, and cities, as part of a photography project under a New Deal program–the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information–during the 1930s and early 1940s.


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