How America’s Deadliest Industrial Disaster Was Almost Erased

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One of the worst industrial disasters in our nation’s history occurred in West Virginia in the 1930s. Not in a coal mine – but in a tunnel chiseled out of a mountain for a hydroelectric power plant. Hundreds of workers, most of them poor and Black, quietly died from breathing in silica dust. For decades, the true scale of the devastation was buried by the companies behind the project. Featured in this episode: Catherine Venable Moore Dr. Martin Cherniack Sources: Dr. Martin Cherniack’s book The Hawk’s Nest Incident: America’s Worst Industrial Disaster Catherine Venable Moore’s “The Book of the Dead” in Oxford American: https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-94-fall-2016/the-book-of-the-dead Muriel Rukeyser's Book of the Dead George Robinson’s Congressional Testimony NPR’s reporting on the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/20/685821214/before-black-lung-the-hawks-nest-tunnel-disaster-killed-hundreds See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.©2026 Audible (P)2026 Audible