John O'Hara
Pottsville, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
This was the home, from 1916 to 1928, of one of America's best known novelists and short-story writers. Born at Pottsville in 1905, he used this anthracite region as a setting for several of his major works. O'Hara died at Princeton, N.J., in 1970.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
From 1916 to 1928 this Pottsville house was home to John O'Hara, born in the town in 1905, who became one of America's most widely read novelists and short-story writers. He turned his native anthracite coal region into fiction, using its class tensions and social textures as the setting for several of his major works. O'Hara died in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1970.
Why it matters
O'Hara translated the life of a Pennsylvania coal town into enduring American literature, giving the anthracite region a lasting place on the nation's literary map.
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Related people
- · John O'Hara
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Burd Patterson
Pottsville, PA · est. 1996
In the anthracite country around Pottsville, Burd Patterson helped unlock the hard coal that would fuel American industry, devising in 1835 a slope method for mining below the water table where earlier operators had been stopped cold. A few years later his Pottsville Furnace became the first to successfully smelt iron using anthracite, proving that Pennsylvania's stubborn hard coal could power a modern iron industry. His mansion, begun around 1830, led the procession of grand homes that came to line Mahantongo Street.
Pottsville Maroons
Pottsville, PA · est. 1999
In the mid-1920s the Pottsville Maroons carried this small coal-region town into the young National Football League, and in 1925 they compiled a record many considered the league's best. They capped the season by beating a Notre Dame all-star squad in a heavily promoted pro-versus-college game in Philadelphia — only to be denied the NFL title in a bitter league ruling. Strong local loyalty couldn't keep them, and the franchise left for Boston in 1929.
Schuylkill County
Pottsville, PA · est. 1982
Carved from Northampton and Berks counties in 1811 and named for the river that drains it, Schuylkill County sits atop the southern anthracite field. Pottsville, its seat, grew from a frontier borough in 1828 into a coal-boom city by 1911. Through the 19th century, hard coal mined here was hauled by canal and rail to fuel the furnaces and homes of the industrializing East.
Molly Maguire Executions
Pottsville, PA · est. 2006
On June 21, 1877—a day remembered in the anthracite region as 'Black Thursday'—six Irish immigrant mineworkers accused of belonging to the secret society known as the Molly Maguires were hanged here, with four more executed the same day at Mauch Chunk. The convictions rested largely on the testimony of Pinkerton detective James McParlan, who had infiltrated the coalfields on behalf of powerful mining and railroad interests. To this day historians debate the guilt of the accused, the fairness of the trials, and even whether the organization truly existed.