Archives Experience Newsletter - March 12, 2024

Spotlight on Russell Lee

Power and Light highlights Lee’s lesser known series of photographs he took to illustrate a nationwide survey of health and medical conditions in mining camps. The exhibition features more than 200 of his photographs of coal miners and their families in their homes, mines, and communities. The full series, which includes nearly 2,800 of Lee’s photographs, can only be found in the holdings of the National Archives. These images document inhumane living and working conditions, but they also depict the joy, strength, and resilience of the minersʼ families and communities.

The images in the Power and Light exhibit are from the Medical Survey of the Bituminous Coal Industry, which was conducted by Navy personnel in 1946. The study was initiated under the Truman Administration as part of an agreement that ended a labor strike. The study aimed to determine the scope of medical, housing, and sanitary resources coal mine workers needed. The photographs Lee captured convey intimate moments in mining communities from Virginia to Wyoming. Although the bulk of soft coal mining was done in Appalachia, mines were scattered across the nation.
A few of the photographs from the survey are below, but you can see more than 200 large-scale prints, projections, and digital interactives on display in the exhibit from March 16, 2024 through July 6, 2025.

1/8 – Children of miners. Colorado - National Archives Identifier: 540396

2/8 – James Robert Howard has gotten his safety lamp at lamp house. Of the 232 employees at this mine, 60% are Negroes. West Virginia- National Archives Identifier: 540805

3/8 – Mrs. Aron Conway and baby swinging on porch of their home in company housing project. Alabama - National Archives Identifier: 540599

4/8 – Miners' wives and children on the front porch of a typical, fifty year old house. Kentucky - National Archives Identifier: 541201

5/8 – Nick Varanakis, miner, playing the Greek lire [sic] in his home. Utah - National Archives Identifier: 540519

6/8 – Group of men and boys in front of the post office waiting for the mail. Oklahoma - National Archives Identifier: 540660

7/8 – Kitchen in home of Charles B. Lewis, miner, who lives in company housing project. Wyoming - National Archives Identifier: 540580

8/8 – Mrs. Tudor Circo on the backporch of the house for which she and her husband pay $3.50 monthly. Virginia - National Archives Identifier: 541108

 

Lee firmly believed that photography could inspire positive change. His purpose as a photographer was to bring social issues to public awareness and to document problems so they might be remedied. His coal survey photos did have a positive effect. They turned the tide on the public’s attitude in favor of coal miners, which had been negatively affected by the strike. The publication of the photographs in 1947 generated support for improving the miners’ situation and spurred improvements in mine safety regulations and the building of new health-care facilities.

Power & Light: Russell Lee’s Coal Survey and programs presented in conjunction with the exhibit are made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation through the generous support of The Mars Family & Mars, Incorporated, and Anonymous.
The images below are some of Lee’s better-known work, although they were not part of the coal survey. These images are from Lee’s work for the Farm Security Administration and are shared courtesy of the Library of Congress.