This image showcases the elaborate costumes of the Kulpmont Ukrainian dancers, featured in an advertisement for Ukrainian Day at Lakewood Park in Schuylkill County in 1936.
The annual event brought together thousands of Ukrainian-Americans from across Pennsylvania’s Coal Region, celebrating Ukrainian heritage, music, and dance in a festival atmosphere.
The Record-American newspaper of Mahanoy City described the dance performances at Ukrainian Day:
“Selected groups of Ukrainian dancers in their rich native costumes will produce a fine selection of Ukrainian folk dances.
These Ukrainian national dances wherever exhibited met with great approval of American critics of art and so it is hoped that they will be enjoyed here also.”
Traditional Ukrainian folk dancing played a vital role in preserving cultural traditions for immigrants and their descendants in Pennsylvania’s anthracite mining towns. Events like Ukrainian Day at Lakewood Park helped reinforce a sense of community and identity, even as Ukrainian-Americans navigated life in a new country.
Ukrainians were among the thousands of Eastern Europeans who immigrated to Pennsylvania in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, drawn by work in the anthracite mines.
They built churches, cultural organizations, and fraternal societies to maintain their heritage and traditions.
Large community gatherings like Ukrainian Day became opportunities to celebrate identity and connect generations.
In towns like Kulpmont, Shenandoah, and Minersville, Ukrainian cultural traditions flourished, blending Old World customs with life in the Pennsylvania Coal Region.
More about Ukraine and the Coal Region
My interview with WNEP-16 about Ukrainians in Schuylkill County
Ukrainian Relief Day in Schuylkill County in 1917
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THIS was when America was great…celebrating such diversity! My paternal ancestors were among the Ukrainians who came here for a new life.