In 1911, activist Lewis Hine found 13-year-old Willie Brieden working as a nipper 500 feet underground in Pittston, PA - alone in the dark, opening heavy doors as gas hissed nearby. Days later, Willie was home sick, coughing from endless hours in the damp mine. A childhood bent to anthracite's demands, captured in one image. Read the full story.
Snow, culm banks, and an abandoned headframe are all that remain at Maple Hill Colliery, once one of the largest anthracite operations above Shenandoah. This short piece pairs a stark winter photograph from 2000 with the story of a mine that shipped more than 27 million tons of coal before going silent in 1955. Read the full story.
In 1938, Tower City residents opened the Herald newspaper to despair: The Brookside Colliery - lifeblood of their town - was shut down as “unsafe and unprofitable.” Pillars robbed, tunnels flooded, 1,200 jobs vanished; families turned to relief, WPA, and bootleg mining. The mining era in Williams Valley's history was coming to an end. Read the full story.
In 1894, author Stephen Crane ventured into Pennsylvania’s coal fields and documented the gritty scene in McClure’s Magazine. His vivid descriptions capture the rumble of looming colliery machinery and miners returning in coal-dusted exhaustion. Discover a first-hand view into a relentless underground world. Read the full story.
We recently acquired this colorized postcard of the Glen Burn Colliery near Shamokin
This journal documents a year of work at two anthracite collieries in Schuylkill County.
Pottsville photograph A.M. Allen made a trip to northern Schuylkill County to capture an image of the Shenandoah City Colliery.
This map from the Library of Congress collections includes fantastic illustrations of the Coal Region during the Civil War.
Isaac Kunkel photographed the Williamstown Colliery in 1860s and documented the birth of a new town.
Discover the traditions of a Christmas in a 19th-century Schuylkill County patch town, where miners’ families in Kalmia, gathered around a simple Christmas tree in their schoolhouse. Through firsthand accounts, explore how Coal Region communities celebrated amidst coal dust and hard labor. Read the Full Story.