These remarkable sketches show life in the Coal Region during the middle part of the 19th century, a crucial time in the area's history.
Sketches of the Coal Region from 1877

These remarkable sketches show life in the Coal Region during the middle part of the 19th century, a crucial time in the area's history.
As a French town fell to Irvin Schwartz's 26th Infantry Regiment, he documented the amusing scenes he witnessed among celebrating French civilians.
And a German immigrant with a (now) famous last name raced to Schuylkill County to quench the city's thirst for suds.
In this short letter from July 1944, Schwartz thanks the editor of the Press-Herald and comments on the souvenirs he picked up in France.
On December 1, 1871, the Kalmia Colliery breaker burned to the ground, nearly killing a night crew of workers trapped inside by the fumes.
This dispatch from the 1902 Coal Strike eloquently describes the battle lines as the strike entered its pivotal fifth month.
Pfc. Irvin Schwartz wrote home to Schuylkill County in June 1944 to celebrate the work of his hometown newspaper in their coverage of D-Day.
An editorial from a newspaper in Pottsville during the 1918 pandemic reminds us to be thankful for life amid a time of death.
A detailed description of how Schuylkill County celebrated Thanksgiving as the Civil War reached its climax.
Pfc. Schwartz writes from Normandy in the weeks after the D-Day landings about what he'd read in his hometown newspaper in Pennsylvania.