Lattimer Massacre
Hazle Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Here on September 10, 1897, nearly 400 immigrant coal miners on strike were met and fired upon by sheriff's deputies. Unarmed, they were marching from Harwood to Lattimer in support of higher wages and more equitable working conditions. Nineteen of the marchers were killed, and 38 were wounded. This was one of the most serious acts of violence in American labor history.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
On September 10, 1897, hundreds of unarmed immigrant coal miners marched near Hazleton to demand fairer wages and working conditions in the anthracite fields. Sheriff's deputies opened fire on the strikers, killing nineteen and wounding dozens more, most of them recent Eastern European immigrants. The bloodshed shocked the nation and became a rallying point for the growing labor movement and the United Mine Workers.
Why it matters
The Lattimer Massacre stands among the deadliest episodes in American labor history, exposing the violence immigrant workers faced in their fight for basic rights.
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Related events
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lattimer Massacre
Hazle Township, PA · est. 1997
On September 10, 1897, a group of unarmed immigrant coal miners—Polish, Slovak, and Lithuanian—marched from Harwood toward Lattimer demanding higher pay and fair treatment. Sheriff's deputies opened fire on the peaceful column, killing nineteen and wounding many more. The dead were laid to rest in the ethnic parish cemeteries around Hazleton, and the massacre became a rallying cry for the growing labor movement in the anthracite fields.
Eckley Miners' Village
Foster Township, PA · est. 2015
Founded in 1854 as Fillmore and soon renamed for mining engineer Eckley Coxe, this village was built to house the workers who dug anthracite coal from the hills of northeastern Pennsylvania. Many were European immigrants, and their tight rows of company houses made Eckley a classic 'coal patch' town of the late 1800s. When the collieries faded by the 1950s the community nearly vanished, only to be preserved after it served as a filming location for the 1970 movie 'The Molly Maguires' and became a state historic site.
Molly Maguire Executions
Jim Thorpe, PA · est. 2006
On June 21, 1877, four men accused of belonging to the "Molly Maguires," an alleged secret society of Irish miners, were hanged here in what came to be called the Day of the Rope. Their convictions rested largely on the undercover testimony of Pinkerton detective James McParlan, hired by coal interests. More than a century later, historians still debate the truth of the labor, class, and ethnic conflicts that drove the case, and even whether the organization truly existed.
Little Lithuania, USA
Shenandoah, PA · est. 2013
Since the late 1800s, the coal fields around Shenandoah drew Lithuanian immigrants in such numbers that Schuylkill County holds the greatest concentration of Lithuanian ancestry in the United States. Lured by work in the anthracite mines, they built churches, societies, and one of the nation's oldest Knights of Lithuania chapters to preserve their language and faith. The Rev. Andrius Stupinskas, who led one of the first Lithuanian American Catholic congregations in 1872, rests in the local St. George cemetery.