Early Coal Mining in the Anthracite Region, Pennsylvania (Images of America Series) »

John Stuart Richards is descended from a family of coal miners and has spent many years researching early coal mining and the lives and times of the people in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania. He has presented numerous talks on early coal mining and life in the small Anthracite villages known as patch towns. An active member of the Schuylkill County Historical Society, he has worked with both the History Channel and the Discovery Channel. Richards has assembled these photographs into a fascinating historical look at early coal mining.

Four distinct anthracite coal fields encompass an area of 1,700 square miles in the northeastern portion of Pennsylvania. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, underground coal mining was at its zenith and the work of miners was more grueling and dangerous than it is today. Faces blackened by coal and helmet lamps lit by fire are no longer parts of the everyday lives of miners in the region. Early Coal Mining in the Anthracite Region is a journey into a world that was once very familiar. These vintage photographs of collieries, breakers, miners, drivers, and breaker boys illuminate the dark of the anthracite mines. The pictures of miners, roof falls, mules, and equipment deep underground tell the story of the hard lives lived around the hard coal. Above ground, breaker boys toiled in unbearable conditions inside the noisy, vibrating, soot-filled monsters known as coal breakers.