Coal Pickers. From an oft seen old postcard of the Region, (but see also ... )... (and here).

The typical miner, laborer or breaker worker was not paid very much. So his family, even and especially the women, did all they could to implement the meager finances of the family. One of the ways to do this was to Pick Coal from the immense fields of mine waste surrounding the patchtowns. This supplemented the bought coal used to keep the kitchen coal range and the parlor heater burning all year round.

It was a heavy job, begun by trundling the heavy, oaken, iron-wheeled wheelbarrow out of the shanty, then pushing it to wherever youngster scouts reported that some coal had recently fallen, or been kicked, off the gondola cars. (This beneficence often being a conspiratoral action of the working menfolk on the surface). A bushelbag of coal would be hand picked and loaded on the barrow, then pushed home to be hammer cracked to stove size and stored on the backyard coal pile or put in another shanty.

Oviously there was no need or requirement for health spas in those days. And the coal companies frowned on the activity. One of the more strenuous tasks of the Coal and Iron Cops (rent-a-cop guards hired by the coal company) was to run these distaff malefactors off. Apparently we see a couple of these local worthies set on mules high on the coal bank, observing the activity but this time giving the ladies a break. Mules and especially horses were definitely not the steeds of the working class.

I've recently heard that I probably lost an uncle (or aunt) in this fashion, the grandmother having been chased and run to a miscarriage by a member of that usually layabout private police force.