LIBRARY OF CONGRESS: UNION MAN SONG (recorded in Newkirk Tunnel Mine in Tamaqua)

Recorded in the Newkirk Tunnel Mine in Tamaqua is a 1946/1947 audio recording of “Union Man” courtesy of the United States Library of Congress website.
The site adds that the contributors were Albert Morgan (singer) and George Gershon/Korson (recordist).
It was first published in the Library Of Congress LP AFS L16 “Songs and Ballards of the Anthracite Miners”, 1947. (bibliographic history).
The Newkirk Tunnel was first driven in 1868 to a depth of 505 feet into Sharp Mountain. Owned by the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company since 1975, the tunnel was expanded during the 1940’s to a depth of 2,211 feet and mined 1,800 feet and 7,200 feet west. A cleaning plant and railroad loading facilities were located just outside the tunnel.

Click below to listen to “Union Man” or HERE to listen to it on your own player.

Click HERE to view more information via the Library Of Congress website.
Click HERE to view some TamaquaArea.com outer photos of the mine taken in March 2010.

One comment

I have a copy of the LP album (AFS L16). In it, the notes for “Union Man” credit the singer, Albert Morgan, with being the composer of this song. There is an additional work on the album recorded contemporaneously in the Newkirk Tunnel Mine. This was of James Muldowney performing on his fiddle the reel “Rolling on the Rye Grass” – unfortunately it is not available online. The LP album contains twelve additional field recordings made in the anthracite region by George Korson in 1946. All are worth hearing; each shines its own light on the culture of the miners – as does Korson’s book: ‘Minstrels of the Mine Patch’, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1938. BTW my grandfather once worked in the Newkirk mine as a trackman.

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Robert Lee Costic says:

March 14, 2015 at 4:25 AM

I have a copy of the LP album (AFS L16). In it, the notes for “Union Man” credit the singer, Albert Morgan, with being the composer of this song. There is an additional work on the album recorded contemporaneously in the Newkirk Tunnel Mine. This was of James Muldowney performing on his fiddle the reel “Rolling on the Rye Grass” – unfortunately it is not available online. The LP album contains twelve additional field recordings made in the anthracite region by George Korson in 1946. All are worth hearing; each shines its own light on the culture of the miners – as does Korson’s book: ‘Minstrels of the Mine Patch’, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1938. BTW my grandfather once worked in the Newkirk mine as a trackman.

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