Face of Decline

Thomas Dublin, Walter Licht

Description

The anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania once prospered. Today, very little mining or industry remains, although residents have made valiant efforts to restore the fabric of their communities. In The Face of Decline, the noted historians Thomas Dublin and Walter Licht offer a sweeping history of this area over the course of the twentieth century. Combining business, labor, social, political, and environmental history, Dublin and Licht delve into coal communities to explore grassroots ethnic life and labor activism, economic revitalization, and the varied impact of economic decline across generations of mining families.The Face of Decline also features the responses to economic crisis of organized capital and labor, local business elites, redevelopment agencies, and state and federal governments. Dublin and Licht draw on a remarkable range of sources: oral histories and survey questionnaires; documentary photographs; the records of coal companies, local governments, and industrial development corporations; federal censuses; and community newspapers. The authors examine the impact of enduring economic decline across a wide region but focus especially on a small group of mining communities in the region's Panther Valley, from Jim Thorpe through Lansford to Tamaqua. The authors also place the anthracite region within a broader conceptual framework, comparing anthracite's decline to parallel developments in European coal basins and Appalachia and to deindustrialization in the United States more generally.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Pensilvania
• Local history
• 20th century
• Pennsylvania
• History of the Americas
• Pennsylvanie

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501707308
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

T H E FA C E O F D E C L I N E

To the people of the anthracite region who shared their stories and helped us understand their lives

The Face of DECLINE The Pennsylvania Anthracite Region in the Twentieth Century

Thomas Dublin and Walter Licht

C O R N E L L U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S Ithaca and London

Title page: Anxious wives of miners, Knox Mine disaster, Port Griffith, January 1959. Photograph by George Harvan.

Cornell University Press gratefully acknowledges receipt of grants from the University of Pennsylvania and the State University of New York at Binghamton which aided in the production of this book.

© Copyright 2005 by Thomas Dublin and Walter Licht

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2005 by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2005

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dublin, Thomas, 1946– The face of decline : the Pennsylvania anthracite region in the twentieth century / Thomas Dublin and Walter Licht. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-3469-3 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 8014-3469-6 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-8473-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8014-8473-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Anthracite coal industry—Pennsylvania—History—20th century. 2. Coal miners—Pennsylvania—His- tory—20th century. 3. Pennslyvania—Economic conditions—20th century. I. Licht, Walter, 1946– II. Title.

HD9547.P4D83 2005 338.2'725'097480904—dx22

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List of Illustrations

Introduction

Contents

Creating the Anthracite Region From Prehistoric Times to 1900

Apogee and Descent The Anthracite Region in the Early Twentieth Century

The Anthracite Miners’ New Deal The Thirties

Reprieve and Final Collapse, 1940–1970 Capital and Labor Respond

Industrial Development Efforts Community and Governmental Responses

Personal Responses to Decline Fathers and Mothers, 1945–1990 Personal Responses to Decline Sons and Daughters, 1945–1990 Legacies

Appendixes Notes Selected Bibliography Acknowledgments Index

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Illustrations

Pennsylvania anthracite region, 2004 Mike Sabron while working at Lanscoal, ca. 1970 Mike Sabron, Lanscoal miner, Lansford, fall 1996 Coal mine at Summit Hill, 1821 Chutes loading canal boats on the Lehigh River Honey Brook breaker, No. 2, with exiting coal trains Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company mine, No. 7 tunnel, ca. 1870 The Avondale Colliery disaster—bringing out the dead Molly Maguires: the march to death, Pottsville, June 21, 1877 Strikers marching to Lattimer, September 10, 1897 Strikers chasing scabs, 1902 strike President Theodore Roosevelt, Bishop Michael J. Hoban, John Mitchell, Scranton View of the Ewen breaker of the Pennsylvania Coal Co., S. Pittston, Pa., January 10, 1911 Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company houses, Lansford, ca. 1900 A mining town, ca. 1902 St. Thomas Aquinas Church and towering culm bank, Archbald, Pa North End, Boston Stripping, Loree Colliery, Larksville, Luzerne County, 1921 Equalization demonstration in Lansford, August 17, 1933 Equalization protesters with signs, Lansford, August 17, 1933 Equalization delegation to Lehigh Navigation Coal, August 1933 Accident at a bootleg mine, Wiggans Patch, near Shenandoah, 1936 End of the shift, No. 6 mine, LC&N, 1953 Two miners drilling in the Mammoth Vein, Coaldale No. 8, ca. 1950 Motorman at No. 6 mine, LC&N, 1952 Inclined planes, No. 6 breaker, Lansford, 1950 Skeleton of Coaldale No. 8 breaker; sold for scrap, 1965 Anxious wives of miners, Knox Mine disaster, Port Griffith, January 1959 Smoke from underground fire, Carbondale, 1949 CAN DO fundraising at garment factory in Hazleton, ca. 1956 Entrance sign, Valmont Industrial Park, Hazleton, 1960 Lansford Sportswear workroom, 1956 House fallen into Mine Cave at Mayfield, 1908 Shenandoah: view of spires and houses as seen over coalyards on outskirts of town, 1938 Empty storefront, formerly Knittle Hardware, Ridge St., Lansford, 2004 Empty storefront, formerly Valley Footwear, Ridge St., Lansford, 2004 Bright’s workforce, 1932, in front of store building Mine fire exhaust, Centralia, 2003 Route 61, south of Centralia, 2003, showing effects of Centralia mine fire

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I L L U S T R AT I O N S

Miners’ monument, Lansford, 1978 Lanscoal miners, 1966 George Harvan, in front of No. 9 Mine, ca. 1969 Washing the dust down, Lanscoal miners, 1967 View of Coaldale breaker and empty coal cars, 1955 “Valley Shot to Hell,” Coaldale, 1953 Joe “Gimbo” Geusic, Lanscoal miner, ca. 1967 Locust Summit breaker with lone remaining worker, 1994 Exterior view, No. 9 Mine entrance, Lansford, 1974 New life for an old mine, No. 9 Mine on reopening, 1995

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T H E FA C E O F D E C L I N E