Marat Moore Papers

The Marat Moore Collection consists of audiotapes, transcriptions of Moore's interviews of women coal miners, and photographs of selected women miners. Related items such as correspondence between Moore and the women interviewed and/or newsclippings are included in the files of a number of the women. The collection contains both original and edited transcripts of the interviews. Moore used much of this material as the basis for her 1996 book, Women in the Mines: Stories of Life and Work.

While the dates of the interviews span the period from 1980-86, the information contained within the tapes and transcripts cover a period from 1914 through 1986. Moore interviewed two groups of women: those who worked in the mines during the decades from 1920 through 1940, and those who worked during the years from 1970 through 1986. The former Moore called "pioneer" miners, and the latter "second generation". Two additional interviews are of special interest: one with Helen Korich Krmpotich, a survivor of the April 3, 1914 "Ludlow Massacre" of miners and their families in Trinidad, Colorado by militia and agents of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company; and one with Minnie Lunsford, a coal miner's wife who lived in "bloody" Harlan County, Kentucky during the 1930s, and who participated in the 1973-74 Brookside Mine strike in that county.

Taped interviews of the following women have not been transcribed: Gwenn Ainscough, Ruby Anderson, Pat Estrada, Arna Cash, Ernestine Colburn, Sandy Dorsey, Doris Megan, Phyllis Ann Miller, Rosa Pitts, Liberty Rigas and Janice Tipton. In addition, the interviews with Susie Steele, Sandra Bailey, Kathy Beverly, Nancy Bowen and Helen Korich Krmpotich are documented in transcripts within the collection, but the audio tapes of these interviews are not included in the group.

Some important subjects discussed in the interviews are mine disasters, strikes, safety conditions in the mines, mine related stress on the families of coal miners, sexual harassment and other problems of particular concern to women miners. The interviews also provide insight into the language used by miners.