Newspaper boys in Kermit, Wayne County, West Virginia

Four young boys gather around two slightly older boys and their bicycles, most of them carrying the newspapers they will deliver on their paper routes. The young woman and the little girl in the yard see them off. For centuries the coal mined from the Appalachian mountains has provided inexpensive electricity in the United States, but it has come at an enormous environmental and personal cost to the residents of the region.

Image from a collection of photographs by Builder Levy of the mines and mining communities of Appalachia.

View the exhibit My Daddy was a Miner for related images.