photo #8457436

Daughter of a tiff miner sitting at their home in Washington County, Missouri, 1939. "Tiff miner" refers to miners of barite ore, also known as "tiff", which was used to make white lead paint. The work was dangerous and manual, taking place in crude, untimbered holes that were 10–15 feet deep. The process involved hand sorting the conveyor belt output, removing heavy galena nuggets first. The remaining feed was then washed in a log washer to remove red clay, but this process also washed tiny ore pieces into a lake, where they sank to the bottom.