Remembering Lattimer: Labor, Migration, and Race in Pennsylvania Anthracite Country

by Paul A. Shackel

On September 10, 1897, a group of 400 striking coal miners--workers of Polish, Slovak, and Lithuanian descent or origin--marched on Lattimer, Pennsylvania. There, law enforcement officers fired without warning into the protesters, killing nineteen miners and wounding thirty-eight others. The bloody day quickly faded into history. Paul A. Shackel confronts the legacies and lessons of the Lattimer event. Beginning with a dramatic retelling of the incident, Shackel traces how the violence, and the acquittal of the deputies who perpetrated it, spurred membership in the United Mine Workers. By blending archival and archaeological research with interviews, he weighs how the people living in the region remember--and forget--what happened. Now in positions of power, the descendants of the slain miners have themselves become rabidly anti-union and anti-immigrant as Dominicans and other Latinos change the community. Shackel shows how the social, economic, and political circumstances surrounding historic Lattimer connect in profound ways to the riven communities of today. Compelling and timely, Remembering Lattimer restores an American tragedy to our public memory.

176 pages, Hardcover

Published September 19, 2018

Reviews

[Mitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book combines a few different things. First, the events of Lattimer and those leading up to it. Next, a detailed history of public remembrance. There is a section on archaeology of the Lattimer site. And lastly, what's happened in the region since (and how it might relate).
The most interesting part to me (already very familiar with most pieces of the book) is that after the massacre, no one spoke about it for generations. This mirrors what happened with the Molly Maguires. Any tie to the events was good for automatic blacklisting and eviction in the company-dominated era. Families of the slain didn't pass down the story. People who survived the massacre were forced out of the region (many returning penniless to Eastern Europe). A school teacher who cared for the wounded was blacklisted from teaching, and a coal baron who donated to the widows' and orphans' fund was shunned. Multiple attempts to create a momument, even one placed in another town, were shut down. It wasn't until the 1970s and the passing of that generation that people could get traction in public remembrance. And still there is (some) pushback today.

The book also does a great 101 on the field of public memory. I knew little about that and it was great framing for the story itself. That framing has to do a lot of work because some of the chapters have no real narrative from the author. I wish they did. There's also a decent intro to archeology including the inside-the-field-view of how archaeology relates to memory and public power.

Most fun fact—Cesar Chavez spoke at the Lattimer memorial! And all the state/local union heads gave him props, calling the farm workers' movement the modern day Lattimer strike.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having grown up in the Hazleton area (HAHS Class of '94), I've always been fascinated by the Lattimer Massacre story. I've read several accounts of it. I have a book that's just a compilation of newspaper articles from the era reporting on the trial as it unfolded. So this topic has always been compelling to me, and I've often wondered how much this plight of immigrant labor being demonized and massacred impacted my own ethical and political leanings as I grew up.

Paul Shackel unfolds the story the way I've always seen it in my mind's eye. His account of the actual history is fortified by strong citations and reliable sources. As noted, I've seen many of the newspaper articles myself, so I know the language and the disdain shown to the laborers because of their immigrant status. It's fascinating to see how - as the Lattimer story faded into semi-obscurity - that those who resurrected it did so largely as a labor narrative, often explicitly trying to avoid any reference to the workers' ethnic heritage. Bravo to those who fought against the whitewashing!

Shackel provides a strong accounting of the current climate in the Hazleton area. If more people read his book, maybe some of the failures of the past can avoid being repeated. I'm a skeptic of the human race, and it's only a matter of time until the cycle goes around again, but I'm happy to find someone who believes that maybe we can do better this time. I hope so.