“We Condemn the System” | Hazleton Mine Protest 1869

“We Condemn the System” | Hazleton Mine Protest 1869

In April 1869, miners in Pennsylvania’s Coal Region gathered in Hazleton to put their anger – and their demands – into the public record. At a time when coal companies controlled not only work underground but life above it, miners adopted a series of formal resolutions condemning the everyday practices that defined existence in the coal fields: company stores, withheld wages, forced deductions, and employer control that extended well beyond thei…