This 1869 Harper’s Weekly illustration shows crowds gathered in Pennsylvania’s Coal Region as the remains of a victim of the Avondale Mine Disaster were carried to a funeral. The scene captures a community in mourning in the days after the region’s deadliest mining catastrophe.

The Avondale Mine Disaster killed 110 men and boys in September 1869, making it the deadliest mine disaster in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania. While this engraving depicts the aftermath at Avondale specifically, it also stands in for the grief that followed mining accidents across the entire region.

In the wake of accidents, especially those that took multiple lives, communities came out in force to mourn. The working-class communities of the anthracite coal fields came together to remember their fallen friends and family.

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Read more about the aftermath of mining disasters in Pennsylvania’s Coal Region

Poem immortalized a child mineworker lost in a disaster in 1871 | Coal Region

“Never been so terrified in my life” – Interview with a survivor of the 1977 Porter Tunnel Disaster

First funerals for the victims of the East Brookside Mine Disaster | August 1913

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