Breaker Boy - Coal Breaking

Coal Breaking

The first function of a coal breaker is to break coal into pieces and sort these pieces into categories of nearly uniform size, a process known as breaking. But coal is often mixed with impurities such as rock, slate, sulphur, ash (or "bone"), clay, or soil. Thus, the second function of a coal breaker is to remove as many impurities as economically desirable and technologically feasible, and then grade the coal based on the percent of impurities remaining.

In the U.S. prior to 1830, bituminous and anthracite coal underwent little processing before being sent to market. The miner himself would use a sledgehammer to break up large lumps of coal, then use a rake whose teeth were set two inches apart to collect the larger pieces of coal for shipment to the surface. The smaller lumps of coal were considered nonmarketable and left in the mine. Beginning about 1830, surface processing of coal began. Lumps of coal were placed on plates of perforated cast iron and "breakers" would hammer on the coal until it was in pieces small enough to fall through the holes. A second screen caught the coal, and was shaken (by hand, animal, steam, or water power) to remove the unmarketable smaller lumps. This "broken and screened" coal was worth much more than "broken" coal or lump coal.