In the wake of the Coal Strike of 1902, a reporter for McClure’s Magazine documented a remarkable scene: a union meeting of child mineworkers in Harwood, Pennsylvania, just outside Hazleton.
The firsthand account, published in 1903 as part of Children of the Coal Shadow, offers a rare glimpse into the organization and solidarity of young coal workers.
The journalist described the scene:
At Harwood, a village about four miles from Hazleton, I attended a meeting of a Junior Local. Promptly at 8 o’clock the boys, about 50 in number, gathered in the schoolhouse.
Their oily caps and grimy overalls gave evidence of their having only recently left their day’s toil in the mines and breakers. After the blinds had been drawn, and the door locked, the president mounted the teacher’s platform and called the meeting to order by pounding on the desk with his first.
On the front row of benches sat the vice president, treasurer, and secretary. Comparatively few of the members who filled the benches in the room would have been pronounced by any observer of ordinary perspicacity outside the perjured world of Anthracite as being more than 10 years of age.
‘How old are you?’ I asked the assembled meeting, and the answer came back in a grand chorus, ‘Thirteen.’ An accord of ideas, as well as ages, worthy of a union…
The weekly meeting of the union is the great event in the life of every child in the coal fields… The debates relate to grievances, and they are always of a serious and sometimes of a strenuous character.
The Coal Strike of 1902, led by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), brought national attention to the brutal conditions faced by Pennsylvania’s anthracite mineworkers, including the children who worked long hours in coal breakers and underground mines.
The Harwood meeting, described in McClure’s, reveals how even the youngest workers engaged in the labor movement – debating grievances, electing officers, and demanding fair treatment. Their solidarity reflected a broader working-class resistance against the exploitative coal industry.
Read the full article here
Read more about the 1902 Coal Strike
“Among the Pennsylvania coal-strikers” – A dispatch from the 1902 Coal Strike
A Thanksgiving sermon in the aftermath of the 1902 Coal Strike
Coal Region Books: Theodore Roosevelt’s leadership during the 1902 Coal Strike
“Stick to the Union” – Factory girls supported union miners during Coal Strike of 1902
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