Working in the Seams
An Initial Photographic View into the African-American Coal Culture of Southern Illinois
This online Kiosk exhibition is an excerpt from Working In the Seams: An Initial Photographic View into the African-American Coal Culture of Southern Illinois, an exhibition comprised of original photographs and text that discusses the history of Black coal miners in Southern Illinois. Working in several historic African-American coal mining neighborhoods, communities, and towns, the photographers have been attempting to meet with as many contributors to this mining culture as possible. Through these portraits the viewers are able to see into the lives of dozens of individuals across southern Illinois who either worked in the coal industry, or whose brothers, husbands, fathers, or uncles did. Most often, the subjects are part of a long lineage of miners.
The accompanying text, derived from oral histories and first person accounts, helps to position the viewer within that larger narrative. While most histories are created from the top down, this narrative mostly comes from those who lived it. These are their stories and their testimonies.
In addition to Southern Illinois University, where the project was created, Working in the Seams has been staged at several sites within and outside of Illinois, including: the Sparta, Illinois Public Library; Southeastern Illinois College, Harrisburg; the DuQuoin State Fair; the Thompson Center, Chicago; John A. Logan College in Carterville; the Department of the Interior, Washington D.C.; the University of West Virginia Senator Rush D. Holt History Conference; and the VSB Technical University, City of Ostrava, Czech Republic.
The project was funded by a major grant from the Illinois Humanities Council and by the Coal Research Center at Southern Illinois University (SIU). Lee Buchsbaum, graduate student in SIU’s Department of Cinema and Photography and photographer for the project, wrote the text for this online exhibition of Working in the Seams.
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