Betty Jean Hall, a fiery lawyer from the coal fields of eastern Kentucky who brought successful complaints against big coal companies for discriminating against women, paving the way for thousands of them to secure jobs in the industry, died on Aug. 16 in Cary, N.C., near Raleigh. She was 78.
Her death, in a hospital, was confirmed by her daughter, Tiffany Olsen, who did not provide a cause.
In 1977, Ms. Hall embarked on a seemingly unlikely campaign: putting women in coal mines. It was a matter of simple economics for her and for thousands of other women in Appalachia, one of America’s poorest regions. Coal mining jobs could pay three times as much as alternatives like waitressing or teaching.
That year, Ms. Hall founded the Coal Employment Project in Jacksboro, Tenn., and got a $5,000 grant from the Ms. Foundation, which had been established several years earlier by Gloria Steinem and others. In the spring of 1978, Ms. Hall filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor against 153 coal companies for discriminating against women.
By December 1978, Consolidation Coal Company, a major mine operator, agreed to pay $370,000 to 70 women who had been denied jobs, and to hire one woman for every four men.