In the summer of 1913, The Colliery Engineer magazine captured a striking image of Coal Region women returning from the mountains with baskets full of freshly picked berries. These “Huckleberry Miners” – wives and daughters of immigrant mineworkers – relied on foraging to help sustain their families.

In Schuylkill County, even berry-picking became a fight for fair wages, as women organized to push back against exploitation.

Here’s the caption:

Our cover picture illustrates a familiar scene in many coal fields in the Appalachian regions. It depicts a group of wives and daughters of foreign-speaking mine workers returning from a berry-picking expedition.

Last year some of the pickers near McAdoo, Pa., where the United Mine Workers are particularly strong, formed a union against cut prices, and pickers who sold below the standard were chased from the bush and their berries were confiscated.

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Read more about women in the Coal Region

Interviews with women during the 1900 Coal Strike reveal details of hardship and struggle in the patch towns near Hazleton

Protest blocks the streets of Tower City, Pennsylvania – 1958

“Incidents of a by-gone age” – A description of life in the Coal Region before the Civil War

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