ABOUT THIS SERIES
"In 1975 I closed my optometric office in order to do a photo series in the steel mills of the Buffalo area (plus one series in Philadelphia). In this series, I tried, if possible, to film the workers both at work and at home with their families." –Milton Rogovin
ABOUT THIS SERIES
This series portrays miners in ten nations. In 1962, Milton and Anne Rogovin traveled to Appalachia for the first of nine visits. Photographs were taken of mountains devastated by mining operations as well as of miners at their work places and in the neighborhoods where they worked. Milton captured the effects of Black Lung disease and unemployment. In the Family of Miners series, workers were photographed with hard hats and lanterns and coal blackened faces, at rest, in below-ground changing rooms, or on elevators descending into the mines. When not at work, they were photographed at festivals, at local pubs, or at home with their families or with their pets.
At that time, only women in the US were allowed to work below ground. Milton made a special effort to photograph these women. Miners in this series are African, African-American, Hispanic, Asian and white.
After Milton received the W. Eugene Smith Award for Documentary Photography (1983) from the International Center of Photography, he was able to expand his Family of Miners series to include ten nations. Mines were photographed in Zimbabwe (1989), Mexico (1988), Cuba (1984-89), Appalachia (1962-87), Czechoslovakia (1990), Germany (1984), France (1981), Spain (1983), Scotland (1982), and China (1986).
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