This 1873 illustration from Harper’s Weekly Magazine shows two young boys working deep below ground as “door tenders.” These boys had important responsibilities within a coal mine in Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal fields.

Door tenders, boys as young as 12, opened and closed doors within the mine to allow coal and the men who mined it through the underground tunnels. The doors assisted in keeping the mines properly ventilated, allowing for a flow of fresh air to enter the mine along a predetermined course while foul air could be directed on an outward course.

Reverend John McDowell, a former door tender or “door boy,” described the role in 1902:

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The ambition of every breaker boy is to enter the mines, and at the first opportunity he begins there as a door boy,—never over fourteen years of age and often under.

The work of the door boy is not so laborious as that in the breaker, but is more monotonous. He must be on hand when the first trip of cars enter in the morning and remain until the last comes out at night. His duty is to open and shut the door as men and cars pass through the door, which controls and regulates the ventilation of the mine.

He is alone in the darkness and silence all day, save when other men and boys pass through his door. Not many of these boys care to read, and if they did it would be impossible in the dim light of their small lamp. Whittling and whistling are the boy’s chief recreations.

The door boy’s wages vary from sixty five to seventy five cents a day, and from this he provides his own lamp, cotton and oil. Just as the breaker boy wants to be a door-boy, the door boy wants to be a [mule] driver…

(Illustration: Accessed via Hathitrust)

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