This striking illustration, originally published in the pages of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in 1863, captures the rapidly industrializing city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, at the height of the Civil War.

At the time, Scranton was swiftly transforming from a collection of smaller boroughs into one of the most important industrial hubs of Pennsylvania’s Coal Region. Coal mines, iron furnaces, and railroads fueled its growth, powering the Union war effort while reshaping the landscape and social fabric of the region.

Despite this critical role in supporting the Union cause, the city didn’t immediately impress every observer. The Harper’s Magazine correspondent described Scranton in stark, somewhat unflattering terms, emphasizing its gritty industrial nature and sharp class divide:

The town presents neither a very beautiful nor magnificent appearance to the eye.

One endless pile of brick greets the eye wherever it turns, as indeed is the case in all the large towns of Eastern Pennsylvania…

As for the town of Scranton, seen from this point, I confess that I was best pleased with that portion of it which vulgarly goes by the name of Shantyville – a thousand rude huts, closely packed together, tier upon tier, with narrow alleys between…

Here live the miners and the laborers employed in the various coal and iron works, occupying in this humble style the whole western side of the town, which upon the opposite side are gathered the Scrantonian elegance and respectability in their more assuming homes.

The area referenced by the Harper’s writer as “Shantyville” was populated largely by newly arrived immigrants – Irish, Welsh, German, and later Italian and Eastern European families – who sought opportunities amid the booming coal and iron industries. This area of South Scranton was known at the time as Shanty Hill or Nativity, according to a September 1926 article in the Scranton Times about the 19th century names for the region’s many diverse neighborhoods.

Scranton sat atop vast deposits of anthracite coal, and its ironworks produced rails that linked cities across America. The city became a focal point of America’s early Industrial Revolution, even if observers sometimes struggled to see beyond its smoky skies and humble workers’ dwellings.

As the Civil War raged, Scranton’s iron furnaces operated around the clock, supplying the United States Army with essential materials. Anthracite coal extracted from nearby mines not only powered the furnaces but also fueled the U.S. Navy’s blockade of Confederate ports.

With increased wartime demand, immigrants and laborers flooded into Scranton and neighboring communities, building makeshift homes and neighborhoods like Shanty Hill. These humble settlements became vital but overlooked communities that sustained the city’s industry and wartime economy.

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Read more stories about Scranton, Pennsylvania

“The most populous and thrifty town in northern Pennsylvania” – Scranton in 1861

A Scranton miner’s recollection of mining techniques and dangers in the 1860s

Frederick Douglass in Scranton, PA | November 1867

A breaker boy’s memory of a childhood at work | Llewelyn Evans in 1943

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