During the nineteenth century the American economy was able to expand rapidly due to the availability of cheap and plentiful supplies of coal. This primary resource collection covers all aspects of this important energy source through a selection of letters, pamphlets, industry reports and newspaper articles.

Volume 2 Making Coal a Household Name, 1835-1875 Introduction Denison Olmsted, 'Observations on the Use of Anthracite Coal', in The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the Year 1837 (1837) Caleb Cushing, 'Article X. The Anthracite Coal Trade of Pennsylvania', North American Review (1836) William Williams Mather, Report on the Geological Reconnaissance of Kentucky, Made in 1838 (1839), extract [Charles Ellet], An Address to the Stockholders of the Schuylkill Navigation Company, in Reply to a Pamphlet Circulated by the Reading Rail Road Company (1844) Isaac Lea, Report to the Directors of the Pequa Railroad and Improvement Company (1849) Is Coal Mining a Safe Investment Bet? Anon., 'The Coal Business', Mining Magazine (1853) Anon., 'Mining: Its Embarrassments and Results', Mining Magazine(1854) Anon., 'Is Mining a Legitimate Business? Mines as a Means of Investment', Mining Magazine (1858) 'A Correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce', 'Visit to a Coal Mine', Hunt's Merchant Magazine (1854) David Thomas Ansted, 'The Ohio and Kanawha Valleys, and the Coal Basin of the Kanawha', in Scenery, Science and Art (1854) Herman Haupt, The Coal Business on the Pennsylvania Railroad. A Communication Addressed to the President, Directors, and Stockholders of the Pennsylvania Railroad, on the Cost of Transportation (1857) Little Rock Mining Company, A Statement of the Operations of the Little Rock Mining Co. in the La Salle Coal Basin. Cheap Fuel for Chicago and the North-West (1858) Volney L. Maxwell, Mineral Coal. Two Lectures, by Volney L. Maxwell, Esq., Read at Institute Hall, Wilkes-Barre, Penn'a, in February, 1858 (1869) Eli Bowen, Coal and the Coal Trade (1862) 'Stockholders of the Consumers' Mutual Coal Co.', The Consumers' Mutual Coal Company (1864) 'The Boatmen of the Schuylkill Canal', Appeal of the Boatmen of the Schuylkill Canal, to the Coal Consumers, Coal Producers and the Coal Land Owners, for Protection Against the Intended Monopoly of t