The United States at the dawn of the twentieth century was a nation transformed. The rural, agrarian nation of Jefferson's time and Jefferson's vision had embarked on a Hamiltonian evolution, the magnitude of which none of the founders could possibly have envisioned. The network of railroads begun scarcely three-quarters of a century before now stretched ocean to ocean and Gulf to Canadian border. Giant steamships criss-crossed the oceans, hauling cargo and passengers, and especially, immigrants. The steel skeletons of skyscrapers were suddenly thrust above the streets of Chicago and New York and would soon be rising in nearly every city of significant size. Steel bridges carried traffic over rivers, spanning unsupported over distances unimaginable a few decades before, Steam and electricity had replaced the waterwheel as a source of power at factories, freeing the nation's manufacturing industries to flee beyond their once river-bound constraints. Electric lights illuminated businesses and homes alike. And all this transformation was fueled by one particular commodity.
In the decade that closed the old century and opened the new – 1895 to 1905 – railroads, steamships, and the steel industry produced a nearly insatiable appetite for coal. Also, during that decade, more coal was mined in the United States than had been mined throughout its history. Coal was not only the sole source of power for railroads and steamships, it was the sole source of fuel for the production of electricity, the use of which was increasing dramatically each year. Electricity was also critical to the production of iron and steel for the building of the cities of Chicago, Milwaukee, and the other cities along the Great Lakes. Coal was King.As the coal industry rushed to satisfy the seemingly insatiable demand for its product, the stage was set for the worst coal mine disaster in U.S. history.
Davitt McAteer, Monongah: The Tragic Story of the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster
