Diamonds in the Rough

"In Diamonds in the Rough, Jim Day rescues the land and people of the Cahaba coal fields from historical obscurity, exposing them to a larger audience than can the local museums and historical societies that dot the district. He makes the story of the people available and interesting to avocational historians without sacrificing the analysis demanded by academics." —Alabama Review

“We should appreciate what Day has done in this one: a well-written and interesting study of the human side of coal mining in central Alabama.”
—The Journal of Southern History
“Day’s discovery of massive documentation of the earliest geological and economic development of the antebellum Bibb-Shelby County coal industry is a remarkable accomplishment. More important, he has mastered the complex financial and social structures, which are essential for any understanding of the subject. His work on I. T. Tichenor and the complicated coal baron rivalries and alliances of the Reconstruction era are no less important. Day writes as an honest broker, presenting both sides of the complicated management-labor divide without the special pleading either way that accompanies far too much labor history in Alabama. . . . This is rich social, economic, and labor history at its best.”—Wayne Flynt, author of Poor But Proud: Alabama's Poor Whites and Keeping the Faith: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives

 

“Diamonds in the Rough will serve as an excellent addition to the literature on southern industrialization. Day has done a great deal of research that he has worked into an accessible, thorough, and very clear history of the Cahaba coal field." –Sean Patrick Adams,author of Old Dominion, Industrial Commonwealth: Coal, Politics, and Economy in Antebellum America

“While concentrating on the Cahaba Coal Field, Diamonds in the Rough focuses on mining practices and labor problems throughout the coal industry in the Birmingham district from the mid-1800s to the 1970s. Not only is Day's book an appealing account, it is an excellence reference and adds to the collective knowledge of the mining industry at a place where it originated just prior to the Civil War. It belongs in the bookshelves of all who love to explore Alabama's industrial beginnings.”
–James R. Bennett,author of Tannehill and the Growth of the Alabama Iron Industry and coauthor of Iron and Steel: A Guide to Birmingham Area Industrial Heritage Sites