“The frenzy and what came of it.” After the fires burned out and the strikes were crushed, this 1877 illustration captured what remained. A worker sits in the wreckage, a reminder of the violence and destruction following America’s first great labor uprising. Read the Full Story.
In the spring of 1933, Rabbi Louis Levitsky of Wilkes-Barre stood before a women’s club and said what much of the world wasn’t ready to hear. Across the Coal Region, Jewish communities were already organizing, writing, and raising money — while the rest of the world looked away. Read my latest for RealClear Pennsylvania.
In 1892, Colonel Frederick Hitchcock stood before a room of fellow veterans in Scranton, PA and said what needed saying — that the nation's treatment of the nearly 200,000 Black men who fought for the Union during the Civil War was "an everlasting shame." Read the full story.
On June 6, 1944, as Allied troops stormed ashore at Normandy, women in Scranton, PA gathered at St. Peter's Cathedral to pray. This photograph from the Scranton Tribune captures that moment — the Coal Region holding its breath on the "longest day." Read the story.
Around 1905, this photograph captured miners deep beneath Scranton preparing to send a car of anthracite coal up a shaft that may have stretched 1,500 feet to the surface. Read the Full Story.
“Our country needs the aid of every young man, in this, its hour of need.” Writing from Harrisburg, PA in April 1861, a 19-year-old Scottish immigrant tried to explain why he had volunteered for service in the Civil War - framing the conflict as both a duty and a test of loyalty to his adopted country at the very moment it was on the verge of fracturing. Read the letter.
“Great Titanic sinks with 1500 on board.” In the days after the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic, the news finally reached Pennsylvania's Coal Region in full force. This Scranton front page captures the moment when shock, scale, and tragedy came into focus for readers. Read the Story.
In August 1963, dozens of residents from Scranton traveled to Washington, DC for the March for Jobs and Freedom, witnessing Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech firsthand. Their reflections capture a powerful moment during the Civil Rights Movement that felt, as one attendee said, like “This is America.” Read the Full Story.
In January 1865, Welsh immigrant and Scranton resident Henry F. Evans wrote home after fighting ashore at Fort Fisher with the U.S. Navy. His letter captures the chaos, fear, and brutality of sailors turned infantry in one of the Civil War’s decisive battles. Read the full story.
In the winter of 1926, a Hazleton, PA reporter went looking for dry Coal Region towns - and found the opposite. Bootleg liquor flowed freely across Carbon, Luzerne, and Schuylkill counties, especially at Christmas. Prohibition barely touched coal country. This new video brings that story to life. Watch the latest video.