Miners washing each other’s backs in the showers, a daily ritual at the end of the working day, 1945

Dutch miners washing each other’s backs in the showers, a daily ritual at the end of the working day, 1945.

Miners, who are covered in dust and soot, help each other to get clean in the showers after their shift at a mine in the Netherlands. Despite the hard work underground extracting the coal, the men seem to be in good spirits.

Coal dust produced a greasy dirt, which could only be removed by washing and rinsing several times. Daily warm showers were actually a luxury at the time, none of these people had showers or bathtubs at home.

Traditionally you would have a buddy who would wash your back and then you would do his, making sure not a spot was missed. Somehow it was a symbol of the comradeship and trust between the miners.

Coal mining in the mid-20th century was extremely difficult for the miners and their families. The underground work was dangerous, dirty, and often damp.

Miners working in the underground tunnels could not stand straight, ceilings in the tunnels being too low. They breathed stale dusty air, and many developed a breathing ailment known today as “Black Lung”.

Miners used lumber to prop up the roof where they worked, but often huge rocks would fall, thus trapping, injuring, or killing them. Miners complained that the coal companies did not supply them with adequate rails, cars, lumber, or fresh air. Explosive gas was present in some mines and many miners were injured or killed by blasts.

(Photo credit: Taconis, Kryn / Anefo / Nationaal Archief).

3 Comments

Arad Spitzer November 16, 2015

Its crazy to think now, in the automated 21st century, that manual coal mining used to have such an important roll in the world. The oldest mine known to us today is 43,000 years old and since, Towns were based merely on their mines, whole cultures were around coal mining, and coal was a top resource. Although that today coal is still the main fuel in many power stations, the consumption of coal grew 100 times greater in the last 200 years, and mining is still a major income source in South America, in the Western world coal has lost its status in the presence of Nuclear energy and green energy. Pictures like the one above belongs to the past, a past in which people spent all of their lives underground, under risks, with "Black Lungs". Pictures of men with black stains on their faces seems to me like something from the far past, before the Industrial Revolution, although it was only 30 years ago that the UK miners strike was ended. I guess that other people from different regions and age wouldn't think like me, but these are just my thoughts.

cronin February 28, 2016

We were not coal miners---buty my dad and I farmed together from childhood weel into my adulthood We worked with livestock all day and showered under one shower head before coming into the house---We always washed each others backs --Looking back--it was a good experience it showed how well we got along--When we were doing it we never gave it a thought

E T December 1, 2021

My grandad was a miner, an electrician in coal mines. When I was a child there was no bathroom in their house. He built one under the stairs. Previously there had been an outside “netty.”
The Industrial Revolution happened partly because of coal. Where many of my family came from, Ashington in Northumberland, the town barely existed before the Industrial Revolution, but because of the high demand for coal, the population exploded in the 19th C, as the mining for coal increased. The smell of coal fires and soot was everywhere. When my Grandma dusted the house, the windowsills would have fine soot on them again about half an hour later. Housework was a full time job.

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