Pit women

the long version

"In the first half of the 20th century miners' wives worked at home almost as hard as their husbands worked in the pits, and for much longer hours. They were essential to the coal industry in so far as they kept one generation fit for work while rearing the next. Such domestic responsibilities were similar to those of all working class wives, but pit women carried them out in much more difficult circumstances than their contemporaries elsewhere. Their husbands' work was more dangerous, more dirty and, in the inter-war years, more irregular. The atmosphere of their villages was more polluted, their housing worse. Health services developed more slowly there and the acceptance of family limitations came relatively late."--Jacket.