1902 Anthracite Coal Strike
Scranton, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
In May 1902, 150,000 mineworkers struck for six months for union recognition, higher wages, shorter hours, and other demands. The Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, set up by President Theodore Roosevelt, held hearings at the Lackawanna County Courthouse and granted some demands in March 1903. Among the longest in U.S. history, the strike introduced unbiased federal intervention in labor disputes.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In May 1902, roughly 150,000 anthracite miners walked off the job across northeastern Pennsylvania, staying out for six months over union recognition, better pay, and shorter hours. With the nation's coal supply threatened, President Theodore Roosevelt convened the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, which held hearings at the Lackawanna County Courthouse in Scranton and granted several of the miners' demands in 1903.
Why it matters
The strike marked the first time a president stepped in as a neutral arbiter of a major labor dispute, setting a lasting precedent for federal involvement in relations between labor and capital.
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Related people
- ¡ Theodore Roosevelt
Related events
- ¡ 1902 Anthracite Coal Strike
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lackawanna County
Scranton, PA ¡ est. 1982
The last of Pennsylvania's 67 counties, Lackawanna was carved from Luzerne County in 1878, its name drawn from a Native word for a forking stream. Its heart was Scranton, a city that rose on the black wealth beneath it: hard anthracite coal. By the late nineteenth century the region had become, by its own proud claim, the anthracite mining capital of the world, drawing waves of immigrant laborers into its collieries and coal towns.
First Electric Cars
Scranton, PA ¡ est. 1948
On November 30, 1886, Scranton launched what is celebrated as the first street railway system in the United States built entirely for electric operation, running between the city center and the Green Ridge section. In an age when most urban transit still relied on horses, this was a bold leap into a new technology. The achievement earned Scranton its enduring nickname, the Electric City.
Coal Miners' and Laborers' Strike
Scranton, PA ¡ est. 2008
On August 1, 1877, the anthracite city of Scranton erupted in violence as armed citizens fired on striking workers, killing four and wounding many, including the mayor. The clash was a local flashpoint of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the nationwide upheaval that spread through cities gripped by the depression that began in 1873. Coal miners and laborers here joined a wave of workers demanding relief from wage cuts and hard times.
Lackawanna Iron
Scranton, PA ¡ est. 1947
Long before Scranton was a city, iron was already being forged in the woods of Slocum Hollow as early as 1797. In 1840 the Scranton family and their partners launched the works that became the Lackawanna Iron Company, and in 1847 the furnaces here rolled iron rails for the Erie Railroad â helping tie together the nation's booming rail network. The company added steelmaking in 1875, riding the Gilded Age industrial surge, before the operation finally closed in 1902.