The film-maker Elaine McMillion Sheldon grew up roving around West Virginia. Like many children of Appalachia, her world was shaped by coal – her father worked for a mining company, and the family moved to seven coal fields in 12 years for his job. Her brother became a fourth-generation miner. “Everybody in my community worked in the coal mines,” she said. “If you were going to stay there and work, if you weren’t a doctor or a lawyer, that’s what you did.”
It wasn’t until she studied abroad as an undergraduate and asked people what they did for work that she realized the totalizing extent of coal. “Not everywhere has a king,” said Sheldon. “Not everywhere is completely dominated by this industry that controls everything from our rituals to the ways we live our life.”
