Whiskey Run: Where Coal Dust Mixed with Murder

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Whiskey Run: Where Coal Dust Mixed with Murder In an overgrown valley about 12 miles west of Indiana and one mile from West Lebanon lies the site of a mysterious R&P (Rochester and Pittsburgh) coal town known as Whiskey Run. For over fifty years, the community of Whiskey Run has been synonymous with violence, secrecy and unsolved murder. Even the source of the town’s name is uncertain, with several versions vying for authenticity....
read more

To Organize the Unorganized

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on To Organize the Unorganized The year 1919 was marked by an explosion of activity in the American labor movement. Discontent surged among industrial workers as promises of wage increases and improved working conditions, made by employers during World War One, failed to materialize. Telegraph operators, theater ushers and textile workers joined firemen, policemen and dock workers to oppose some of the country’s most...
read more

Ernest: Life in a Mining Town

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Ernest: Life in a Mining Town In 1904, the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company began deep mining in Ernest, Pennsylvania. In 1965, the industry there came to an end. Between these two dates, people lived out their lives in this small community northwest of Indiana, where for over sixty years every facet of existence revolved around the digging of coal from the hillsides surrounding the town. But what was life like in a...
read more

A Woman’s Day: Work and Anxiety

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Woman’s Day: Work and Anxiety Many books and articles have been written about the lives of early Pennsylvania coal miners and their involvement in labor-management strife, unionization problems, and mine disasters. But has anyone remembered the women who packed the miners’ dinner pails, washed their blackened clothing, and waited in anguish outside the mines when disaster struck? The lives of these women also were...
read more

That Magnificent Fight for Unionism: The Somerset County Strike of 1922

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on That Magnificent Fight for Unionism: The Somerset County Strike of 1922 During 1920 and 1921, western Pennsylvania’s coal mine operators campaigned vigorously to slash wages of the miners they employed. Because demand for coal declined after World War One the operators were forced to reduce production, resulting in stack, or in some cases, the complete shutdown of operations. Many miners drifted to factory jobs in nearby cities, or simply clung to hope -and...
read more