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Also by Chris Bobonich
Plato’s Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics (Oxford)
Plato’s Laws: A Critical Guide (Cambridge) editor and contributor
Bloody Ivy: 13 Unsolved Campus Murders
Gone, Just Gone: Thirteen Baffling Disappearances
What Really Happened? Thirteen Forgotten Mysteries of the Past
Also by Harry M. Bobonich
Seeing Around Corners: How Creative People Think
Big Mine Run: Recollections of the Coal Region
World War II: Memories of a GI
The Great Depression: Hard Times in the Coal Region
Pathfinders and Pioneers; Women in Science, Math & Medicine
Bloody Ivy: 13 Unsolved Campus Murders
Gone, Just Gone: Thirteen Baffling Disappearances
What Really Happened? Thirteen Forgotten Mysteries of the Past
Dedication
For Gloria
Introduction
The further backward you look,
The further forward you can see.
--Winston Churchill
It was the beginning of the 20th century; one that arguably ranks as one of several that saw the most change of the last ten centuries. While we tend to be hopeful and optimistic when a new year comes around, we are even more excited and kook forward to better things happening at the turn of a new century. The 20th century, however, with its new and more deadly weapons was one of the most violent in human history.
Many books have been written about “The Great War,” which later was called World War I. This book, however, provides an unusual and engaging account about the home front during that war as seen from over 150 newspaper articles taken directly from the Shenandoah Evening Herald in Schuylkill County (The Coal Region) in Pennsylvania. The stories give an indication of what it was like to live during that time—which was not that long ago—and yet is so vastly different from America today. Furthermore, the articles mirror what was going on throughout the entire country.
We also feature a number of fascinating and colorful individuals, some who did not make it back and others who became famous after returning from the war—namely, a prime minister, several presidents and even a satanic dictator. Further we highlight a few of the horrific battles of that calamitous conflict. The appendix includes all Schuylkill County residents who were killed, all nurses who enlisted and all volunteer ambulance drivers who served in the war.
It all started in the early 1900s with the Russo-Japanese war from 1904-05. The Russian revolution followed, which lasted from 1905-07. Then, one small terrorist act in distant Sarajevo in 1914--the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand--did not appear to mean very much to the rest of the world, but was a tipping point. Franz Joseph I who was Ferdinand’s uncle simply said, “It is God’s will.” Clearly it wasn’t anything to suggest that the shooting episode would result in World War I that had such huge consequences for the entire world. Just as the radio audience in America in 1941 did not know where Pearl Harbor was, the newspaper readers in the United States in 1914 did not know where the strange name Sarajevo was located. The “little problem” in the Balkans, however, eventually resulted in a cataclysmic catastrophe.
Shortly afterward, empires on both sides clashed: World War I was underway and soon the world would be on fire. That small shooting episode by an obscure nobleman caused the European tinderbox to ignite and trigger a series of events that led to a global conflict. The world would not be the same again. In just one month, a small group of men with belligerent attitudes and hubris changed the course of the 20th century.
Meanwhile, the United States pursued a policy of non-intervention for the next several years until 1917. The conflict was unprecedented in the bloodshed, havoc and destruction it caused. Nevertheless, the complex war continues to fascinate us: it was a cataclysmic debacle that fashioned our modern world.And the long shadow of the war still remains over us to this day.
The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.
--Ferdinand Foch
A Brief History of the Coal Region
The coal-mining area in Northeastern Pennsylvania, called The Coal Region, is comprised of the North Anthracite and the South Anthracite Coal Fields.
Anthracite coal was discovered in 1762, and the first mining of anthracite began near Pittston in the North Anthracite Region in 1775. It wasn’t until 1790 that anthracite was discovered near Pottsville in Schuylkill County. Around the same time it also discovered at Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe) in Carbon County and at Shamokin in Northumberland County, all three towns are located in the South Anthracite Coal Field.
Anthracite, called hard coal, is a clean burning fuel and produces a lot of heat; however, it is not easy to ignite and at first was primarily used by blacksmiths. It was first used to heat a home in 1808 at Wilkes–Barre in the Northern Anthracite Coal Field. As heating furnaces became more popular and the public learned how to control and burn the coal, it eventually began to be used more widely to heat residential and commercial buildings. In 1810, the mining industry was just getting underway and only 350 tons of coal was mined that year. In the early days, transporting coal was a formidable undertaking and teams of horses’ hauled wagons loaded with coal very long distances to city markets.
By 1820, large shipments of hard coal were being shipped from the Lehigh Coal Mining Company to metropolitan areas. At that time, loading coal into boats and using canals was the main method of transporting it to the large cities in the east.
During the 1830s, a number of very small villages called “patch towns” got started in isolated areas throughout the region. Many immigrant workers were drawn to the area seeking employment and some lived in houses that were owned by the coal companies. They were mainly European families: the Germans came first followed by the Welsh and then the Irish. Later, Polish, Italian, and Lithuanian families arrived. It was a pattern that occurred throughout the area at the time. Shenandoah, which was settled in 1835, was one of those small towns. It is located in Schuylkill County one hundred miles northwest of Philadelphia.
By 1840, approximately 250,000 tons of coal was being mined yearly. With the advent of railroad into the anthracite region in 1842, the transportation of coal by canals decreased steadily. By 1853, the coal operators were producing 11 million tons of anthracite coal yearly and two decades later the yearly production reached 21 million tons. During the decade of the 1850s, anthracite
