In the early 1870s, the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania were aflame with the enthusiasm of the industrial laboring class learning to utilize its collective power. One of the first successful labor unions in America – the Workingmen’s Benevolent Association (WBA) – had gained a foothold in the mining towns and villages of the region.

One of the region’s where this early union had a strong showing was in Mahanoy City, in northern Schuylkill County. During a strike in the spring of 1871, an artist for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper captured a scene in the town as non-union workers traveled through a heckling crowd of striking workers and their families. The scene was a forerunner of larger (and more violent) scenes to come in future decades.

The newspaper, with a slight tilt toward the plight of the non-union workers, described the scene in its March 25, 1871 edition:

Mahanoy City, Pa., has for several years past been the rendezvous of miners on the strike for higher wages.

On the arrival of the principal mail trains a crowd of several thousand persons will assemble at the post office, and await the delivery of letters and papers. During the recent trouble at the mines this city was, as usual, the scene of intense excitement.

A party of miners, who were content to work for the established price, were kept in employment, while the dissatisfied ones ‘knocked off’ until their employers would agree to honor a higher schedule of pay.

The workingmen returned from the mines daily at about 5 o’clock, and as they passed along the principal thoroughfare the strikers ranged themselves on either side, and hooted their old companions as they hurried through the lines.

Women and children joined in the taunts, and although great indignation was exhibited, the strikers wisely refrained from an attack on the steady miners.

Ultimately, the WBA was crushed by the mine operators, led by Franklin Gowen of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, later in the 1870s. Not until the rise of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) in the first years of the 20th century did a labor union again find sway and importance in the financial affairs of the region.

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Read more about labor history in the Coal Region

A tribute to a Coal Region labor leader – John Siney

Visiting John Siney’s grave with labor leader Terence Powderly

The Lattimer Massacre | September 10, 1897

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