Families on the Culm Banks: A Journalist’s Account of Pennsylvania’s 1902 Coal Strike

Families on the Culm Banks: A Journalist’s Account of Pennsylvania’s 1902 Coal Strike

In September 1902, a reporter from the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper traveled to the Coal Region to document life during the Great 1902 Coal Strike. The reporter interviewed a striking mineworker at his house about how they were supporting themselves during the strike by picking coal from culm banks located near the town of Plymouth, Pennsylvania: “All that we have is what we get from the culm banks… All of us rich and poor people alike, pick coal th…