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Coal mining was the economic engine that drove the bustling towns of the Drumheller Valley in the 1920s, so residents expected that boys would drop out of school after eighth grade to go work in the pits. Often, a young man’s first job entailed pushing empty coal cars from the coal face to the main track, after which he might progress to driving ponies, operating machinery or digging the coal itself. And even though girls and women were not allowed to work in the mines, their lives were bound to the rhythm of the mines all the same. In most cases, their fathers and brothers were miners and they eventually married miners themselves. This exhibition will explore the choices facing a young person living in the Drumheller Valley in the 1920s.
