“One afternoon, hunting for subjects, I took the trolley from Mahanoy City in the sunset to Shenandoah, and as we breasted a hill this is what I saw: the long lines of crosses are trolley poles the huge castle a coal breaker, the great town American, but the people, the miners who go to the churches which crown it, speak languages and worship creeds I do not know or understand. There, and not in Philadelphia, are the new Americans—but most Americans do not know it.“

Artist Joseph Pennell sketched this ominous, dark scene near Shenandoah, Pennsylvania in 1910.

Joseph Pennell was a Philadelphia-born artist who built an international reputation through his etchings, lithographs, and pen-and-ink drawings of European architecture.

A prolific artist and critic, Pennell wrote or illustrated more than 100 books, leaving a lasting impact. I encountered several Pennell illustrations while visiting the Musée d’Orsay in Paris in December 2024.

This image comes from the collection of the Library of Congress.

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Read more about Shenandoah, Pennsylvania

Deadly riots in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania | 1900

A 1938 photograph shows desolate Coal Region landscape during the Great Depression

A photograph of Shenandoah from the collections of the New York Public Library

A colorized postcard of the West Shenandoah Colliery

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