
01/07/2025
📸 1938, Mohegan, West Virginia.
Captured by photographer Marion Post Wolcott for the Farm Security Administration, this image shows a group of miners’ wives walking home after payday—groceries in hand, shoulders squared, eyes forward.
Their husbands worked deep underground in the coal mines, where every shift could mean injury or worse. These women faced their own dangers: making ends meet, stretching every dollar, and keeping families running on hope and grit.
Payday was more than a transaction—it was a moment of breathing room, a chance to restock, and maybe even dream a little.
Wolcott didn’t just take photos. She preserved strength in real time—the kind worn not as medals but in the creases of aprons, in the steady steps back home, in the silence between words.
This photo is a tribute to the women behind the mines.
They weren’t underground—but they were every bit as strong.