Earl Dotter, Coalfield Generations: Health, Mining, and the Environment; Southern Spaces

Coalfield Generations: Health, Mining, and the Environment

Earl Dotter, Photographer

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"Coalfield Generations: Health, Mining, and the Environment" was selected for the 2008 Southern Spaces series "Space, Place, and Appalachia," a collection of innovative, interdisciplinary publications exploring Appalachian geographies through multimedia presentations.

Abstract:

In this photo essay set in mining communities of southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, Earl Dotter seeks out changes in consumption and leisure, healthcare, coal mining practices, and the environment that have occurred since he first photographed in the region in 1968. The lives of Dotter's Appalachian subjects and the impact of the coal industry on landscapes continue to be central themes in his work. Through these color photos, taken in 2005 and 2006, Dotter presents new work done with digital cameras.

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Introduction:

Taking pictures in conjunction with Volunteers In Service To America (1968-1970), then continuing with Miners for Democracy and the United Mine Workers Journal, Earl Dotter was one of the first to document miners' fights for better healthcare, pensions, working and living conditions. As his work expanded to the textile and fishing industries, Dotter maintained an emphasis on the multi-faceted, dangerous, and detrimental conditions facing rank-and-file workers and their families. In the photo essay featured here, Dotter continues his attention to miners, having photographed some individuals, such as black lung pioneer Dr. Donald Rasmussen, for decades, and families, such as the Hipshires of Logan County, West Virginia, for generations.

"Coalfield Generations: Health, Mining, and the Environment" presents images taken in 2005 and 2006 during Dotter's trips to towns in eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia. He documents transformations in the mining industry, including health and safety initiatives and technological changes. Selected images from this essay have appeared in two exhibitions at Wheeling Jesuit University: "The Genesis of Downtown: Logan-Welch West Virginia Urban Coalfield Life, The Photographs of Russell Lee and Earl Dotter, 1946 and 2006" and "Our Future in Retrospect: Coal Miner Health in Appalachia."

"Coalfield Generations" provides new images, organizing them around themes that Dotter has explored for three decades: Town Life, Health Issues and Healthcare, Working at the Mines, and Mining and the Environment. The accompanying commentary from a 2008 interview with Southern Spaces provides insight into his work.

	In Town Life, Dotter photographs residents in eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia as they go about daily lives and leisure pursuits. He visits a local swimming pool, a baseball field, family gardens, a supermarket, and a Wal-Mart built on a strip mine bench, using each setting to highlight the ways in which commerce and consumption are transforming the mountain landscape.
	Health Issues and Healthcare acknowledges the prevalence of chronic disease in the region, including black lung, but also such illnesses as heart problems, diabetes, and hypertension. Dotter distinguishes generational differences in miners' healthcare: retired and actively-working miners have benefit plans with affordable access to local care, while many working-age coalminers have been laid off, leaving them with few, if any, healthcare options.
	Working at the Mines sketches the contemporary coal industry and life in the mines. While technological advances have made work safer, Dotter records the aftermath of catastrophes, such as the 2006 Sago Mine disaster. His images of laid-off and out-of-work miners suggest current tensions between miners and coal company management.
	Mining and the Environment delves into surface mining processes and their impact on Appalachia's mountains, waterways, and landscapes. Heavy coal trucks and erosion damage the region's roadways, contributing to dangerous driving conditions and automobile fatalities. Dotter also finds a new generation of volunteers coming to the region to test water quality and assess the environmental costs of industrial mining.

Map of the area photographed by Dotter (Base Map Data: U.S. Census Bureau)
(click map to see larger version)

About the Photographer:

Since 1968, Earl Dotter has photographed miners in Appalachia. Trained at the School of Visual Arts (1967-1968), Dotter became interested in photography, publishing his early work in New York magazine. In 1968, he joined VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), working with miners and their families in Cookville, Tennessee. In 1972, Dotter became a staffer of the mine-reform newspaper, The Miner's Voice, before photographing for the United Mine Workers of America's United Mine Workers (UMW) Journal. Dotter documented miners' health and safety conditions as well as the changing aspects of miners' lives. Leaving the UMW Journal in 1977, he continued to photograph the Appalachian coalfields, as well as Carolina textile towns and other sites of hazardous work, producing his 1996 exhibit, "The Quiet Sickness: A Photographic Chronicle of Hazardous Work in America," and a 1999 exhibit, "Appalachian Chronicle, 1969-1999: The Photographs of Earl Dotter." Dotter has won numerous awards for photojournalism and contributions to the labor movement.

Audio clip:

In an audio excerpt, Earl Dotter describes his early work in Appalachia, from VISTA to the UMW Journal, (9:56 min.)
Telephone interview with Earl Dotter, March 11, 2008 by the editorial staff of Southern Spaces.

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