Miners’ Wives Praised
Times were tough in Nova Scotia’s coal mines in 1931. Economic depression left many miners with fewer shifts, growing debts and not enough income to support their families. An article in the Halifax Mail discussed how miners’ wives were coping.
The article, called “Miners’ Wives Praised: Economy and Cleanliness Apparent Despite Depressed Conditions,” was part of a series the newspaper published in 1931 about the state of the province’s coal mines during the Great Depression.
Since Fall 1930, according to the article, “mines have been working only part time. This means that the Miner has earned only part time wages and part time wages is what he and his wife and family have had to live on.”
About two-thirds of the miners at that time were being paid a maximum of $5.00 per day, but most were paid around $3.40 per day – when they got shifts. The reporter, not named in the article, wrote, “I found all statements were generally qualified by the phrase ‘when he gets it,’” referring to the reduced number of shifts at the time.
One coal miner’s wife, asked how she and her family were faring, said, “Draggin’, just draggin along.”
The woman explained: “My man had two shifts this week. At $3.73 a day that would be $7.46 for the week. The dollar off for the ‘off taxes’ and $3.00 for an advance he had last week leaves $3.46 this week for us fifteen people to live on. That’s no good. If it were not for the relief, we could not exist.”
“Off taxes” referred to money deducted to pay for things like a form of health insurance and government social programs. The article explains, “The dollar is made up of 30 cents for the hospital, 40 cents for the doctor and 30 cents relief.” (The 30 cents relief was tax to help fund the financial support governments were giving miners.)
Off taxes could also include, for example, 50 cents for the church, 50 cents for the poll tax, 25 cents for sanitary, 50 cents for water and $1.30 in dues to the United Mine Workers union.
While deductions for things like health care left them with less money, many of the miners and their wives liked the off taxes system: “It’s cheaper,” said one woman. Another said, “They’d never be paid otherwise. If we were working outside, clear of the Company altogether, the Doctor would cost us much more, not to mention the hospital.”
Another, who had ten children, said, “We have never had a doctor in the house. Still, our ‘off tax’ for the Doctor has gone to help those who have had to have him and meantime we have been protected.”
Struggling to make ends meet, miners could get an advance on their next week’s pay, but that meant they received less money the following week.
As one woman put it, “If my man pays $3.00 in, her can get an order for groceries for $9.00. That will give us our food for the week and we’ll have 73 cents for rent, coal, light, clothes and all the other necessaries of life. When you get an advance on your [pay] envelope, that spoils the next week’s pay, but the grocery man we have now will give you only so much credit and no more, so we have sometimes to get an advance.”
Many mining families living in company houses were not being charged rent, but the unpaid rent became a debt they would eventually have to pay to the company. The average rent for a miner’s house, according to the reporter’s interviews, was about $6.00 per month.
One woman said, “Company houses are the cheapest thing you can be in here because the rent is so low and now that there is so little work, we are not paying rent, although it is being charged up to us.”
Commenting on the debts they were racking up, a wife said, “When good times do come, you’ve got to pay your back bills and whenever will we be able to buy our clothes and household bedding which is being all worn out? My man has only one suit of clothes. Of course he takes the greatest care of it and takes it off as soon as he comes home, but it is wearing out just the same. For myself, I dressed on 89 cents last year. This little house-dress was all I bought and it cost 89 cents.”
The article said the company houses “all contain five rooms. The houses have no bathrooms but as the sewers were laid last year they will doubtless soon be connected.” The company houses in New Waterford “are newer and larger. They have eight rooms each and many of them have attractive gardens.”
The lack of work and reduced income had serious implications: “…rent and fuel and light unpaid, no clothes, want of nourishing food and general ‘Doing Without,’ the watery soup, perhaps, instead of nourishing meat….”
The reporter “found some of the day workers faring better than others, not because they had more money, but because their families were not quite so large. Very few miners have small families.” After interviewing various women at a particular mine, the reporter calculated that a total of 39 children lived in just six company houses, an average of 6.5 kids per family. However, some families were much larger.
The reporter praised the miners’ wives for keeping clean and tidy houses and being so economical: “A person surely worthy of our tribute is the Miner’s wife. Splendidly she has arisen to this crisis of depression, for it is on her in the last analysis that the burden chiefly falls, and it is owing to her management that the family have been able to exist as well as they have.”
Today, Nova Scotia’s mining and quarrying industry employs over 3000 Nova Scotians, mostly in rural areas, and it is the highest-paying resource industry in the province. Its average total compensation (wages and benefits) is $102,000 per year.
Row of miners' houses in Sydney Mines. Thanks to the Nova Scotia Archives.
Thanks to the Nova Scotia Archives.
