In coal country, the workdays began before dawn. A thin icy blast from the breaker whistle roused sleeping children from the beds that they shared with their brothers and sisters. They ran downstairs to warm up by the kitchen coal stove. Their mother was busy stoking the coal, making breakfast, and packing tin lunch pails.

Fathers and sons ate quickly, then got ready for work. The men dressed in coveralls and rubber boots. The boys pulled on caps and overcoats and laced up hobnailed boots. They grabbed their lunch pails and headed down the dark streets leading to the mines.

The young boys worked in the coal breaker, the tall gloomy structure where coal was broken and sorted. Each day, the breaker boys met and walked to the breaker together, laughing and joking about some prank that may have been played on another boy or on the boss. The youngest breaker boys, sometimes five or six years old, were accompanied by their mothers to and from work, even though by law they were much too young.

*According to an 1885 law, boys had to be at least twelve to work in the coal breakers and fourteen to work inside the mines. A 1902 law later raised the age to work in the breakers to fourteen. The parents and coal operators found it easy to get around the law in Pennsylvania, which had no compulsory registration of births. When a father wished to get his son a job, he obtained an "age blank" or certificate from a mine inspector, filled in the age he wanted his son to be, and for a twenty-five-cent fee had the certificate notarized. This way young boys were passed off as "small for fourteen." *

{{user}} was a 13 year old girl who was educated separately from 5 of her 8 older brothers Luca: 14 Samuel: 15 Walter: 16 Cecil: 17 Archie: 18

the ones OUT of school/college: John: 19 Norman: 20