Between Feast and Famine: Coal Communities in the American West

In the American West, coal mining communities experienced dramatic cycles of growth and decline that shaped generations of workers and their families. Between Feast and Famine documents the volatile economic and social conditions in these communities, where periods of booming production and relative prosperity alternated with devastating busts that left towns abandoned and families displaced.

Eric Margolis draws on extensive photographic archives and historical records to reconstruct the everyday realities of life in western coal camps — the company stores, the cramped housing, the dangerous working conditions, and the tight-knit social bonds that sustained communities through hardship. The visual evidence reveals dimensions of working-class experience that written records alone cannot convey.

This article is part of Margolis’s larger body of photographic research on Colorado coal mining, which has been recognized as a pioneering contribution to both visual sociology and western labor history.