Path Was Steep, The: A Memoir of Appalachian Coal Camps During the Great Depression

Sue Pickett was a coal miner’s daughter who became a coal miner’s wife and witnessed and lived through the turbulent years of the Great Depression and the sometimes violent struggles between labor unions and coal mine bosses throughout the Appalachian South—especially her native Alabama. The dramatic central episode in her account is a March 1934 standoff between striking miners and the mine owners.

Pickett’s story is peopled with memorable characters, including her irrepressible husband Dav...