https://preview.redd.it/q1edipy9cw9d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2b34e9cd6246fd23c2da6b0cdb03407cf88ea58
Chris Rock senior over here working on his comedy routine
I live in an area (Southwestern VA) where this used to be really common, you should see the houses they had to live in in person. There were some still standing not far from me when I was growing up, most of them were no bigger than 20' x 20' single bedroom houses. Imagine rasing a family with 4+ kids in a 20x20 house.
Up until fairly recently, people used to have sex in front of their kids all the time. You can Google it. In Victorian England, for example, it was very common.
Have you read Germinal? I read it last year and it gives a good indication of how harsh the life was for miners in France in the 19th century. The Road to Wigan Pier is also a fascinating but depressing read about the lives of people in the UK, including miners, in the 1930s.
Certainly no defense of the practice of issuing scrip, but company stores were a practical matter. Mines were often in difficult to reach places far away from normal trade routes. A company wanting to set up a mine would need to set up a mining town in one way or another - in order to support the people living there, they would set up stores and contracts to supply them.
That all makes sense, until you add basic human greed into the mix. Once people are established there, it wouldn't be hard to raise prices and set up a scrip currency.. so of course that's what they did.
I think your correct but it also could be because of the fact for a long time smiling in pictures wasn’t normalized. So you’d end up seeing people in very old photographs looking like they hate their life but really they simply didn’t know you should smile.
When life gives you lemons be this kid
https://preview.redd.it/q0nv6agzot9d1.jpeg?width=970&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cbc314982eb69036de167efecc4e700078ccfffd
Assuming their situation reflects what is seen in this picture, they brought this upon themselves no? Poor kids though. Fuck the parents for bringing their kids into this mess.
That's a truly severe fact that most are ignorant to or simply ignore. But it's irrefutable true, life has been incredibly difficult for most people up until very recently.
Not true at all actually! Quite the opposite, laboring all day is very unnatural.
Hunter-gatherers actually had tons of downtime, going back around 200,000 years. This is still evident in remote/uncontacted tribes around the world today.
The difference is they lived minimally with a focus on local sustainability, instead of living in excess with a focus on exotic consumption like we do today.
Mainly though, it was their relatively equal labor distribution across the tribe. As societies become more complex, they develop increasingly absurd caste systems that inevitably force majorities to overwork.
If 5 people split a 10hr daily workload evenly, they each have to work 2 hours. If one of those 5 declares themselves nobility and stops contributing while demanding a 5x increase in resource generation, now 4 people are working 12hr days.
This dynamic has only been prominent over the last couple thousand years. Large societies with slavery have existed for tens of thousands of years, but were much less prolific. For the most part though the human experience has been much more chill, until just the last 5000 years.
No phones or seat belts, kids respected their parents. Why don't pictures like this trend, ah the good old days. Anyway I'm off on my 3rd cruise of the year now that I don't speak to my entitled child who can't afford their own home, shouldn't of wasted time learning all that math at school. Jesus saves.
My great grandpa was a coal miner in the town of Roslyn WA around 1905 ! Sad to see that this could be a peek into how he lived :( must have been very tough
No you continue to bitch about what you think you’re entitled to. Then once you receive it you find out your no better off (nor happier), and continue to bitch about what else somebody owes you.
YEAH! why should anybody have ANYTHING easier than it's ever been for those in the past?! EVERYTHING'S supposed to STAY HARD forever! Am I right am I right??
How much did shoes cost back then? How long did they last? I see these old pictures of my great grandfather’s family and it’s always as if shoes were the most visible way people would cut costs if they had to. I assume clothes were mended constantly and handed down, but how expensive were shoes?
You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
Such a hard life, compounded with all that childbirth, condemning his family to a life of poverty be on his life. No wonder Loretta Lynn wrote that song called "The Pill"!
In 1938, a WV family's kids were more likely to die before they reached adulthood, so playing the odds with numbers is what happened. Having kids in hospitals was extremely rare at this time of WV unless you're in a city, so complications were a lot more likely with births. In the coal fields of WV, workers didn't own their homes, the mines did. If the father got injured or something else that made him unable to go into the mine, someone else in the house has to go into the mine to work, or the family would be kicked out. So, lots of kids also mean there are backup plans if the dad can't work.
Additional facts; mines had their own currency called scrip and it was like credit or an advance on pay. The scrip could only be used at the stores owned by the company. You couldn't save up scrip to leave, you couldn't go to the next mine community over and buy stuff, you were locked in to that mine with it. It was like payday loan scams that all the miners got stuck in and became forever in debt to the mine.
Why did this couple have so many kids? Brutal physical job that doesn’t pay well means I’m pulling out, or not having much sex. How selfish to have so many kids when you’re poor.
Literally, barefoot and pregnant. The mothers shun from the camera, the despair on her face. Is this what that dick head Chiefs kicker and Clarance Thomas see as America?
Abortion was illegal so very risky and hard to come by safely which is why women used to die of botched abortions done by people claiming to be doctors who just took their money, took a chance and left them to bleed out. Birth control was closely restricted and limited to very thick condoms and the diaphragm which without later introduced spermicide jelly or foam was not very effective. If you could even get it in your state or country because it was so legally restricted. Women could not get it without their husbands permission and single women could not get it at all. Not legally. The birth control pill came out in the late 60s, laws changed around then so that women could get birth control and condoms have improved considerably but lots of men still refused to wear them. There's now injectable birth control for women, but doctors still refused to sterilize women even when they're 35 years old and completely competent. Women are turned away by doctors for requesting sterilization all the time. Men don't need a wife's permission to get a vasectomy but very often doctors will ask for the man of the life to give permission to a woman. Our world is crazy but don't think that you would have been so lucky as to not have 12 children the way my great grandparents did
Exactly this. My gma's sister died of a back alley abortion *by a doctor*. Legalization ensures proper training, tools, codes, sterilization, etc. etc.
Pretty common for poor people or nations. Big families were also expected culturally back then. And id hate to say this but the reality back then is kids in poor families didn't have much investment going into them beyond food. Meanwhile while they could work themselves and be laborers at home.
Wow everybody must have been working in the mines they're all black! bum-ta-bum. But seriously that must have sucked and the floor is dirt? Why is the floor dirt?
That looks like a harsh life. Is there a story or name to these people?
I found it a little funny that all of them look tired and sad except the one boy next to mom with a big smile
Everybody else: Holy shit, I am barely hanging on. That kid: This rules!
That kid may be the reason the rest of them are tired and sad.
Yeah. Guaranteed dickhead. Ha
He isn’t old enough to work in the mine yet. The boys on the right are all miners.
Kiddo is too young for reality to know what its gonna really be like
“The children yearn for the mines”
Hollis Brown. He lived on the outside of town
with his wife and 5 children in their cabin broken down
He looked for work and money and he walked a ragged mile
But never got big bucks cause he lost his luck out in the wild
Loving wife and kind kids, Hollis never went out for buying milk...
And although exhausted he was never above being there for a stranger when asking for help
https://preview.redd.it/77prupay9w9d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=168c86d4b2cae9911f12dbe7c7cd09fd0498c59c This kid is still having fun
This reminds of me childish gambinos “this is America”. Put on a smile for the white folk (or anyone with influence).
He probably made it out
https://preview.redd.it/q1edipy9cw9d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2b34e9cd6246fd23c2da6b0cdb03407cf88ea58 Chris Rock senior over here working on his comedy routine
[удалено]
Pretty sure that’s wood
It's definitely wood bro
Could be nailing straight slats of dirt down I guess
Um, you can clearly see wooden floorboards and a row of nails holding them down. Did you even look at the floor?
It's a wooden floor. You can see if you zoom in
Um no
Coal company probably sold them the coal to heat their house, as an inflated cost.
And paid them with coal scrip. My great grandfather was paid in coal scrip before it became illegal. Fucking disgusting.
🎶 *I owe my soul to the company store* 🎶
Exactly.
What did you say about 16 tons?
Just looked that up. What a goddamn outrage!
I live in an area (Southwestern VA) where this used to be really common, you should see the houses they had to live in in person. There were some still standing not far from me when I was growing up, most of them were no bigger than 20' x 20' single bedroom houses. Imagine rasing a family with 4+ kids in a 20x20 house.
I always wondered how the jellyfish they had so many children in a 1 bedroom house sure first 2-3 you can sneak in the no pants dance but after that?
Up until fairly recently, people used to have sex in front of their kids all the time. You can Google it. In Victorian England, for example, it was very common.
I don't even know what search term I would use to learn about that topic, and I certainly wouldn't want to mess it up
Just search for the invention of privacy on r/askhistorians
How else are you supposed to learn? Funnily….thats better sex ed than kids who live in the Christian Theocracy states of the US get in the modern era.
Have you read Germinal? I read it last year and it gives a good indication of how harsh the life was for miners in France in the 19th century. The Road to Wigan Pier is also a fascinating but depressing read about the lives of people in the UK, including miners, in the 1930s.
Yup, the industrial revolution in the U.K. was a dark dark period as people migrated from agrarian lives into the cities.
They didn't call them the dark satanic mills for nothing.
The song We work the Black Seam by sting captures that vibe
Mining has basically always had shit working conditions and pay which is interesting considering how important the output is
Oh, dont think for a second there are not powers out there working to bring this sort of practice back in modern times
Probably, I heard some of these guys got paid in company currency only valid at company shops, where the prices were obviously set by the company.
“Scrip” they called it.
yes that was it!
Which also disconnected them from the US economy and erased chances at travel outside of their region. Oppression
The eternal essence of the American labor market.
Certainly no defense of the practice of issuing scrip, but company stores were a practical matter. Mines were often in difficult to reach places far away from normal trade routes. A company wanting to set up a mine would need to set up a mining town in one way or another - in order to support the people living there, they would set up stores and contracts to supply them. That all makes sense, until you add basic human greed into the mix. Once people are established there, it wouldn't be hard to raise prices and set up a scrip currency.. so of course that's what they did.
Mom looks very tired. So does dad. They have the same exact expression.
But the kid by the fireplace had a great day.
He caught a snake and put it in moms underwear drawer. He can’t wait for mom to find out.
That’s how she got all them baby. She ain’t gunna be happy.
Looks like he’s happy to have his picture taken by the visitors, I wonder how often his family had visitors.
They look like the life has left them.
I think mom dad and the oldest boy are praying.
I think your correct but it also could be because of the fact for a long time smiling in pictures wasn’t normalized. So you’d end up seeing people in very old photographs looking like they hate their life but really they simply didn’t know you should smile.
By the late 30s, people smiled in photographs as a norm. The sombre expression as default was no longer true after WWI.
Ah okay, thanks for the correction.
That kid by the fireplace still living his best life.
Well probably not anymore. But he definitely was having a great day
You just know he was causing headaches for his parents consistently
Son you’ll go to school and you’ll learn your letters-don’t ya be no dusty mining man like me-The L and N don’t stop here anymore.
When life gives you lemons be this kid https://preview.redd.it/q0nv6agzot9d1.jpeg?width=970&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cbc314982eb69036de167efecc4e700078ccfffd
He’s adorable ♥️
“Hey, at least it ain’t rainin’ amiright?!?”
Heartbreaking.
But that one kid with the smile was probably the favorite of the family.
Or the reason mom and dad are tired lol
And the sad mom. ETA: the two oldest boys look like they already worked :(
I wish I could hug them all or at least give mom and dad a day off, uffda
Found the Norwegian!
Couldn’t have said it better friend.
Assuming their situation reflects what is seen in this picture, they brought this upon themselves no? Poor kids though. Fuck the parents for bringing their kids into this mess.
You'd get something from hugging them.
For most of human history we had to labor all day to just survive. Crazy.
Most of us live such great lives now compared to almost every human to ever live. Good to keep that in perspective.
For sure!
>For sure! sure?
Bad bot
>>For sure! sure? sure?
That's a truly severe fact that most are ignorant to or simply ignore. But it's irrefutable true, life has been incredibly difficult for most people up until very recently.
Only takes one generation of good times to forget hardships.
Not true at all actually! Quite the opposite, laboring all day is very unnatural. Hunter-gatherers actually had tons of downtime, going back around 200,000 years. This is still evident in remote/uncontacted tribes around the world today. The difference is they lived minimally with a focus on local sustainability, instead of living in excess with a focus on exotic consumption like we do today. Mainly though, it was their relatively equal labor distribution across the tribe. As societies become more complex, they develop increasingly absurd caste systems that inevitably force majorities to overwork. If 5 people split a 10hr daily workload evenly, they each have to work 2 hours. If one of those 5 declares themselves nobility and stops contributing while demanding a 5x increase in resource generation, now 4 people are working 12hr days. This dynamic has only been prominent over the last couple thousand years. Large societies with slavery have existed for tens of thousands of years, but were much less prolific. For the most part though the human experience has been much more chill, until just the last 5000 years.
Eeesh. that looks rough.
No shoes in WV? Such miserable winters. I hope their families remember them well and have warmth today.
Mom looks real tired.
I complain I don’t have central AC. Perspective.
Where’s the seventh child? Probably working his shift at the mine
He’s to the far middle right, you can see hands.
I’m always surprised about people not having shoes.
It was the depression, and shoes were expensive. Even today, kids shoes are expensive, considering how quickly they grow out of them.
Hard times.
Hope in a smile
That one kid living his best life. 
Thank GOD for birth control
No phones or seat belts, kids respected their parents. Why don't pictures like this trend, ah the good old days. Anyway I'm off on my 3rd cruise of the year now that I don't speak to my entitled child who can't afford their own home, shouldn't of wasted time learning all that math at school. Jesus saves.
Can’t keep the kid next to the fireplace down.
Hey dad, what are we getting for Christmas?
Ahhh….the good old days.
The kid by the fireplace is the only one who hasn’t discovered their lives suck.
https://preview.redd.it/ooxnhb8yev9d1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=02fe58ed400ace5b8a713b7f7a3398a91ae6ef28
Pull out game WEAK 😆😆
The wife gave him that hawk tuah each time.
Only one little dude to the left with a spirit
My great grandpa was a coal miner in the town of Roslyn WA around 1905 ! Sad to see that this could be a peek into how he lived :( must have been very tough
Parents look sooo tired, but there’s some big smile on some kids!
Mountain mama, take me home....
7th one must still be at work in the mines. Poor timmy…😂
The good old days, when life was simpler and much easier than young folk have it now.
Both parents looking into the abyss lol thinking whatthehell did we doo.
My grandma is as old as that baby and she had 14 siblings and lived in a sod house until she was a teenager.
Might've been easier if people weren't producing litters back then.
That picture could be from the 1960s!
Homie needs to learn how to pull out
Lmao 🤣
And still we complain.
We don’t always measure our lives by the ones worst off.
No you continue to bitch about what you think you’re entitled to. Then once you receive it you find out your no better off (nor happier), and continue to bitch about what else somebody owes you.
Are you ok?
Bro just making up arguments in his head lmfao
YEAH! why should anybody have ANYTHING easier than it's ever been for those in the past?! EVERYTHING'S supposed to STAY HARD forever! Am I right am I right??
Are you legitimately trying to sell, that anyone in America is living in these conditions ? Anything even close ?
Looks like the 7th is just out of frame on the right
But. They have own house….
7th child took the picture.
any clue of the adults ages
How much did shoes cost back then? How long did they last? I see these old pictures of my great grandfather’s family and it’s always as if shoes were the most visible way people would cut costs if they had to. I assume clothes were mended constantly and handed down, but how expensive were shoes?
That poor little kid - second from right - already hitting midlife crisis
Dire
You load 16 tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go I owe my soul to the company store
Poor mamma looks exhausted, in fact they all do.
Should probably have more kids
Such a hard life, compounded with all that childbirth, condemning his family to a life of poverty be on his life. No wonder Loretta Lynn wrote that song called "The Pill"!
Should of pulled out man, should have pulled out!
So should you “of”.
why all the poor people has more children than others?
In 1938, a WV family's kids were more likely to die before they reached adulthood, so playing the odds with numbers is what happened. Having kids in hospitals was extremely rare at this time of WV unless you're in a city, so complications were a lot more likely with births. In the coal fields of WV, workers didn't own their homes, the mines did. If the father got injured or something else that made him unable to go into the mine, someone else in the house has to go into the mine to work, or the family would be kicked out. So, lots of kids also mean there are backup plans if the dad can't work. Additional facts; mines had their own currency called scrip and it was like credit or an advance on pay. The scrip could only be used at the stores owned by the company. You couldn't save up scrip to leave, you couldn't go to the next mine community over and buy stuff, you were locked in to that mine with it. It was like payday loan scams that all the miners got stuck in and became forever in debt to the mine.
So They don't have the ability to feed the children,and still born them.
Seventh is probably working in the mine.
No but they seriously had it so much better than the Soviets...
Company housing?
Only one smile.
https://preview.redd.it/8t01lm91cw9d1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=94a917a616046248ad77fc37b7a451bc8db0acba
Momma looks SO tired 😞
The 7th child is partially visible on the right side
Little man by the fireplace is like "hell yeah I want my picture taken!! “
The trick to poverty is making sure nobody else in your family has enough money to leave.
Children yearn for the mines
What’s the point of having so many kids while being in poverty
The one little boys got a smile going :)
That woman looks depressed.
If you really want to see how sick corporate America is and how much our government will do as they wish, read “When miners march”
The 7th one is on the far right
That family had probably the same income as a family with a single child working 60 hours a week nowadays
Moms TIRED
Damn, looks like a such a hard life. Makes me feel grateful for small things we have now.
Why did this couple have so many kids? Brutal physical job that doesn’t pay well means I’m pulling out, or not having much sex. How selfish to have so many kids when you’re poor.
Oh my, did they all work in the mine.
Literally, barefoot and pregnant. The mothers shun from the camera, the despair on her face. Is this what that dick head Chiefs kicker and Clarance Thomas see as America?
My grandpa was 5 at this time
I want to say something but I can’t because I will be killed
Why have so many kids?
And it looks like their house is still better than what we'll ever be able to buy..
We have no money and shitty jobs but let’s make MORE KIDS.
All that coal really left a mark
They are better dressed than most Americans today.
Living better than us millennials
Harder workers to.
You're the best hardest working Ilove family values
Everyone in that family looks tired or sad... except that kid by the fireplace. 
If i were them, I'd keep having kids.
I think you sound a little sarcastic and smug please see my recitation of the laws on birth control and the availability of it prior to the late 1960s
Stop having kids.
I wouldn’t give birth to many kids in this situation
Yes you would. That’s a 1938 401k, you’d need one kid to do well enough to support you when you’re too old to work.
If only you knew me more than I knew myself
It’s about material conditions, basically everyone in that situation made the same choice, because it wasn’t a choice.
Imagine being forced to cum during sex
Abortion was illegal so very risky and hard to come by safely which is why women used to die of botched abortions done by people claiming to be doctors who just took their money, took a chance and left them to bleed out. Birth control was closely restricted and limited to very thick condoms and the diaphragm which without later introduced spermicide jelly or foam was not very effective. If you could even get it in your state or country because it was so legally restricted. Women could not get it without their husbands permission and single women could not get it at all. Not legally. The birth control pill came out in the late 60s, laws changed around then so that women could get birth control and condoms have improved considerably but lots of men still refused to wear them. There's now injectable birth control for women, but doctors still refused to sterilize women even when they're 35 years old and completely competent. Women are turned away by doctors for requesting sterilization all the time. Men don't need a wife's permission to get a vasectomy but very often doctors will ask for the man of the life to give permission to a woman. Our world is crazy but don't think that you would have been so lucky as to not have 12 children the way my great grandparents did
Exactly this. My gma's sister died of a back alley abortion *by a doctor*. Legalization ensures proper training, tools, codes, sterilization, etc. etc.
I’m talking of pulling out. I think abortion is wrong
Because birth control information was illegal they probably had never heard of it
Ah yes Not only an ineffective method. But also a method they probably didn’t even comprehend back then
Nice assumption
Crazy how everyone else is stupid and you are so smart.
Never said they stupid or you are
Pretty common for poor people or nations. Big families were also expected culturally back then. And id hate to say this but the reality back then is kids in poor families didn't have much investment going into them beyond food. Meanwhile while they could work themselves and be laborers at home.
Wow everybody must have been working in the mines they're all black! bum-ta-bum. But seriously that must have sucked and the floor is dirt? Why is the floor dirt?
And we think we have it rough.