Harlan Native Honored as Female Coal Miner

Throughout her short-lived life, Harlan County native Mary Ann Robinson had many mountains to climb, many doors closed in her face, but she didn’t let that stop her from accomplishing things others thought she couldn’t. Widowed at the age of 34 with eight children to raise, Robinson had heard about a federal law called the Equal Pay Act, which passed in 1963, and protected both women and men from sex discrimination in pay rates. Because of this law, she chose to apply for work in the coal mines, where women weren’t working in the area, to support her family.