Appalachian Ghost: A Photographic Reimagining of the Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster

Description:

In the early days of the Great Depression, the search for steady work drove thousands of migrant laborers--many of whom were African American--from all over Appalachia to a rural area near Fayetteville, West Virginia. Union Carbide Corporation had begun construction on a three-mile tunnel to divert the New River, and many hands were needed.

Toiling for five years in confined spaces with poor ventilation, no means of dust control, and limited use of personal breathing protection, the workers were repeatedly exposed to pure silica dust. Many developed silicosis, an incurable and debilitating lung disease that is estimated to have caused the deaths of nearly eight hundred workers, two-thirds of whom were Black. Soon after, the US House of Representatives Committee on Labor classified silicosis as an occupational hazard. Despite the disaster's impact, information about its severity was largely suppressed--a decision that ensured the event faded quickly from public memory. Aside from a small plaque at Hawk's Nest State Park, which inaccurately admits to only 109 victims, there is little to mark the site of the worst industrial accident to date in the United States.

In Appalachian Ghost: A Photographic Reimagining of the Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster, author Raymond Thompson Jr. explores the possibilities of that tragedy by reviving the faces and spaces of Hawk's Nest. Using primary source materials to re-create the workers' experiences in photographs, Thompson recontextualizes archival images to present a counter-archive that positions the Black experience at Hawk's Nest within the larger story of the American labor landscape. His photographs and poetry give voice to the silenced, resisting revisionist narratives that often ignore the sacrifices of African Americans and erase their instrumental role in the development of America's infrastructure.

Review Quotes:

This is an affecting, evocative, and visually stimulating homage to the forgotten laborers, at least two-thirds of them African American, who died because of their involvement in the construction of the three-mile Hawk's Nest Tunnel between 1930 and 1935. Ably assisted by poetry, photographs, and an engaging narrative, this book calls to me, and I suggest it will do so to anyone who is conversant with the history--even in a general sense--of the unprotected Black industrial worker in southern West Virginia.