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Jake Wynn – Public Historian

Exploring the history of Pennsylvania’s Coal Region

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Breaker Boys

“The Breaker Boy” – A poem from 1897 about the child laborers of the Coal Region

Posted on August 4, 2020August 3, 2020 by Jake Wynn
Breaker boys in the early 20th century in Pennsylvania's anthracite

In 1897, a former breaker boy penned a poem in remembrance of the child laborers of the Coal Region.

Posted in Luzerne County, Wilkes-BarreTagged 1897, Breaker, Breaker Boys, Children, Coal, Coal Mining, Coal Region, Luzerne County, Newspaper, Pennsylvania, Photography, Pittston, Poetry, Wilkes-Barre2 Comments

A remembrance of a boyhood in Schuylkill County during the Civil War

Posted on November 9, 2019November 20, 2019 by Jake Wynn

A memoir from the 1930s describes the hard life of a breaker boy in Civil War-era Schuylkill County.

Posted in Civil War, Schuylkill CountyTagged Abraham Lincoln, anthracite, Autobiography, Breaker Boys, Civil War, Coal Mining, Coal Region, East Norwegian Township, Memoir, New Castle Township, Pennsylvania, Schuylkill County2 Comments

“Children of the mine” – The Coal Region’s breaker boys at work

Posted on September 20, 2018May 5, 2025 by Jake Wynn
Breaker boys at work in Schuylkill County Pennsylvania in the 1880s

"Children of the mine are they, born in the shadow of the culm heaps with the roar of the breakers ever in their ears, with mines beneath their feet."

Posted in Anthracite mining, Coal RegionTagged Breaker Boys, Coal, Coal Mining, Coal Region, Coal Strike of 1902, Labor, Pennsylvania2 Comments

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