This photograph appeared on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer on September 26, 1900 as the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania were in turmoil amid the largest miners’ strike in the region’s history to that date.
The photograph was taken as 2,000 striking mineworkers paraded through the center of Mahanoy City in northern Schuylkill County.
The strike set the stage for a much larger mine strike in the summer of 1902 that led to major gains for the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).
Read more about the 1900 Coal Strike
“Mother Jones” at Shenandoah, Pennsylvania | September 1900
Breaker boy out on strike | 1900
A journalist’s description of John Mitchell, leader of the United Mine Workers of America | 1900
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Every working person in Pennsylvania
owes a debt of gratitude to these UMWA men and women of The Anthracite. They fought to end industrial slavery and child labor. As Con Carbon, the minstrel of the mine patch, used to sing “Me Johnny Mitchell Man!”