Voices of the Knox Mine Disaster

Voices of the Knox Mine Disaster

Author: Robert P. Wolensky

Publisher: Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13:

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Relive the drama of the Knox Mine Disaster of January 22, 1959, through the voices of survivors, the victims' families, contemporary newspaper accounts, and the literature and music generated by the tragedy. Read the poignant and often shocking first-person accounts of those who lived through one of the most devastating disasters in American mining history. This companion volume to the best-selling book The Knox Mine Disaster, published in 1999 by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, also offers a detailed study on how the citizens of northeastern Pennsylvania have memorialized and remembered the last major catastrophe to strike Pennsylvania's anthracite industry.


Tragedy at Avondale

Tragedy at Avondale

Author: Robert P. Wolensky

Publisher: Canal History & Technology Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780930973407

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The nation was horrified when news of the coalmine fire at the Avondale mine in Plymouth Township, Luzerne County, on Sept. 6, 1869, appeared in newspapers. Reports called it ?the unparalleled disaster.? Even more shocked were mineworkers and their families throughout the anthracite region. of Pennsylvania.This book by Robert Wolensky and the late Joseph Keating presents details of the tragedy, along with numerous illustrations from periodicals of the time. A selection of striking modern images from Sue Hand?s ?Anthracite Miners and Their Hollowed Ground? complement the text and the contemporary images.The authors go well beyond a thoroughly researched recounting of the events before and after the fire, and analyze the prevailing social and work environments in the anthracite region at the time, including favoritism, nationalistic resentment and even hatred, Molly Maguirism, politics and resistance to mine-safety laws that could have prevented the tragedy, and recent community efforts to memorialize the site and event.Among the many issues discussed are: Why and how did it happen? Was the fire that trapped and killed 108 men and boys underground an accident? Was it arson? Was the Coroner?s Jury willing to listen to the testimony of some more than of others? What was the national and even international response to such a terrible event? How did writers use the tragedy in their poetry and works of fiction? Why is this tragedy still unresolved in the minds of local residents?


The Real Disaster Is Above Ground

The Real Disaster Is Above Ground

Author: J. Stephen Kroll-Smith

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2014-07-11

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 0813150566

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In the 1950s Centralia was a small town, like many others in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania. But since the 1960s, it has been consumed, outwardly and inwardly by a fire that has inexorably spread in the abandoned mines beneath it. The earth smokes, subsides, and breathes poisonous gases. No less destructive has been the spread of dissension and enmity among the townspeople. The Real Disaster Above Ground tells the story of the fire and the tragic failure of all efforts to counter it. This study of the Centralia fire represents the most thorough canvass of the documentary materials and the community that has appeared. The authors report on the futile efforts of residents to reach a common understanding of an underground threat that was not readily visible and invited multiple interpretations. They trace the hazard management strategies of government agencies that, ironically, all too often created additional threats to the welfare of Centralians. They report on the birth and demise of community organizations, each with its own solution to the problem and its diehard partisans. The final solution, now being put into effect, is to abandon the town and relocate its people. Centralia's environmental disaster, the authors argue, is not a local or isolated phenomenon. It warns of the danger lurking in our own technology when safeguards fail and disaster management policy is not in place to respond to failure, as the examples of Chernobyl and Bhopal have clearly demonstrated. The lessons in this study of the fate of a small town in Pennsylvania are indeed sobering. They should be pondered by a variety of social scientists and planners, by all those dealing with the behavior of people under stress and those responsible for the welfare of the public.


Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History

Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History

Author: Ballard C. Campbell

Publisher: Infobase Publishing

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 1438130120

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Presents a chronologically-arranged reference to catastrophic events in American history, including natural disasters, economic depressions, riots, murders, and terrorist attacks.


From the Molly Maguires to the United Mine Workers

From the Molly Maguires to the United Mine Workers

Author: Harold W. Aurand

Publisher:

Published: 1971

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13:

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USA. Historical account of coal mining and trade unionization attempts among coal miners in pennsylvania from 1869 to 1897 - covers labour relations conflicts, wages, working conditions, political aspects, etc. Bibliography pp. 193 to 214 and statistical tables.


Remembering Lattimer

Remembering Lattimer

Author: Paul A. Shackel

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2018-09-19

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 0252050738

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On September 10, 1897, a group of 400 striking coal miners--workers of Polish, Slovak, and Lithuanian descent or origin--marched on Lattimer, Pennsylvania. There, law enforcement officers fired without warning into the protesters, killing nineteen miners and wounding thirty-eight others. The bloody day quickly faded into history. Paul A. Shackel confronts the legacies and lessons of the Lattimer event. Beginning with a dramatic retelling of the incident, Shackel traces how the violence, and the acquittal of the deputies who perpetrated it, spurred membership in the United Mine Workers. By blending archival and archaeological research with interviews, he weighs how the people living in the region remember--and forget--what happened. Now in positions of power, the descendants of the slain miners have themselves become rabidly anti-union and anti-immigrant as Dominicans and other Latinos change the community. Shackel shows how the social, economic, and political circumstances surrounding historic Lattimer connect in profound ways to the riven communities of today. Compelling and timely, Remembering Lattimer restores an American tragedy to our public memory.