This Mining Monday, we’re sharing these photographs of child laborers sorting coal at anthracite coal mills near Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1903. The photographer was Frank E. Schoonover, who had previously illustrated “Children of the Coal Shadows,” an expose of child labor in the coal counties of Pennsylvania, for McClure’s Magazine in February 1903. The following October, Schoonover traveled to Scranton and lived with a coal mining family for two weeks while photographing and sketching the mines and surrounding areas. These photographs are part of our Frank E. Schoonover negatives (Accession 2017.239) collection. For a selection of other digitized material from this collection, visit the collection page on our Digital Archives.
