Description
Tams gives the financial details of the volatile business, and offers capsule biographies of the other major developers of the Southern West Virginia coal fields. It was a passion for Tams. He never married, and tended his business and his town with paternal care. After retirement, this industrial baron spent his final decades in a modest bungalow in his little coal-camp community, watching the town he had built fade back into the mountains. It is W. P. Tams's passion and attitude, as much as his place at the center of history, which make The Smokeless Coal Fields of West Virginia worth reading nearly 40 years after its first publication. Tams's 1963 account of his career, The Smokeless Coal Fields of West Virginia, offers a unique perspective on the business and the life of coal mining. The book is especially valuable for its account of the daily life and work of the miners, engineers, and families in the mines and in the mining towns. Our reprint of this fascinating and important book combines Tams's original work with a new introduction by Ronald D. Eller, author of Miners, Millhands, & Mountaineers.
About the Author
William Purviance Tams (1883-1977) was born in Staunton, Virginia, USA and went to work in the coalfields after studying engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg. He launched his own company, Gulf Smokeless Coal, in the new Winding Gulf coalfield in 1908.
Book Information
ISBN 9780937058558
Author W. P. Tams
Format Paperback
Page Count 117
Imprint West Virginia University Press
Publisher West Virginia University Press
Weight(grams) 333g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 155mm * 10mm