Inspired by a refrain of her girlhood -- "Your grandfather survived the Cherry Mine disaster" -- Karen Tintori began a search for her family's role in the harrowing tragedy of 1909. She uncovered the stories of victims, survivors, widows, orphans, townspeople, firefighters, reporters, and mine owners, and wove them together to pen Trapped, a riveting account of the tragic day that would inspire America's first worker's compensation laws and hasten much-needed child labor reform.
On a Saturday morning in November of 1909, four hundred and eighty men went down into the mines as they had...