Learning before earning
Work and leisure in the region
A structured training programme in the Ruhr mining industry began in the 1920s. It was part of a new corporate social policy introduced by employers: young miners were to be systematically trained and, through attractive leisure activities, become connected to the colliery after work and integrated into a ‘work community’.
The exhibition ‘Keine Herrenjahre’ (No easy Years) reconstructs the stages of apprenticeship with original exhibits from the apprenticeship workshop, the vocational school and the teaching area, among other places.
It focuses on the day-to-day work life of young career starters, their living conditions in the colony, the apprentice hostel and the Pestalozzi village, as well as their leisure activities in the contexts of company social policy, working-class culture and the modern leisure industry. The exhibition also outlines the various educational and cultural influences encountered by young miners, showing how they dealt with these, and the extent to which young miners shaped their own culture and history.
Clean and healthy
Hygiene and healthcare in the Ruhr mining industry
When the Zollern Colliery washhouse was built, changing rooms and washrooms for miners had already become standard practice in Ruhr region collieries. Bathing basins, which shift workers climbed into to wash and which spread infectious diseases, were becoming a thing of the past. Facilities at the Zollern pithead baths were in line with the standards of the time: a changing room with a shower area and hooks for miners to hang their clothes under the ceiling. After the Second World War, the showers were moved to an extension and a new changing room was created, where only street clothes were hung.
The exhibition ‘Clean and Healthy’ traces the history of the facility’s changing room equipment and embeds this in the general history of hygiene. It uses image and audio records to introduce the people who worked in and used the changing room: the changing room attendant, who kept it clean, and the miners, for whom the changing room was also an important place to communicate. The miners' wives, who until 1969 washed and maintained the miners' work clothes, are also included. Medical equipment from the colliery's on-site health centres is also on display.
Explosion hazard
Mine rescue services and testing facilities
Working in mining involves numerous hazards. In addition to everyday work accidents, mining accidents regularly occur, claiming a large number of lives. Since the mid-19th century, not only has the amount of coal mined increased, but so has the number of underground explosions. Coal mining releases methane, which becomes explosive when mixed with air in certain concentrations, forming what is known as ‘firedamp’. Coal dust is another potential source of explosion.
The most devastating accidents are the result of combined firedamp and coal dust explosions, which can travel several hundred metres through the mine structure. This exhibition focuses on specific accident hazards in mining and commemorates serious mining accidents in the Ruhr area. In a simulated training room, training and rescue equipment familiarises visitors with the work of the mine rescue unit and the exhibits pay tribute to their commitment and achievements. Models, experimental setups and test objects from Dortmund’s Tremonia experimental mine and Derne’s mining test track also demonstrate successful improvements in mine safety.
I had a comrade
Fatal accidents in mining
This exhibition uses the example of the Zollern Colliery to address one of the most difficult chapters in mining history, namely fatal accidents at work. It documents the 161 fatal accidents that occurred at the Zollern II/IV Colliery.
The chronological overview of fatal accidents at Zollern shows which accidents were typical, how frequently they occurred and how they changed over time. From a perspective never seen before, the exhibition gives visitors a vivid and almost brutal insight into the mine’s history and work processes.
The exhibition space is furnished with only a few objects. This makes it appear sparse and reduced to the essentials. A simple wall stone is mounted on the wall, which was provided on permanent loan by the Bochum Mining Association. The stone, dedicated to ‘the dead’, used to hang in the foyer of the association.