Once a busy if impoverished center for the anthracite coal industry, northeastern Pennsylvania exists today as a region suffering inexorable decline--racked by economic hardship and rampant opioid abuse, abandoned by young people, and steeped in xenophobic fear. Paul A. Shackel merges analysis with oral history to document the devastating effects of a lifetime of structural violence on the people who have stayed behind. Heroic stories of workers facing the dangers of underground mining stand beside accounts of people living their lives in a toxic environment and battling deprivation and starvation by foraging, bartering, and relying on the good will of neighbors. As Shackel reveals the effects of these long-term traumas, he sheds light on people’s poor health and lack of well-being. The result is a valuable on-the-ground perspective that expands our understanding of the social fracturing, economic decay, and anger afflicting many communities across the United States.

Insightful and dramatic, The Ruined Anthracite combines archaeology, documentary research, and oral history to render the ongoing human cost of environmental devastation and unchecked capitalism.

Paul A. Shackel is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Maryland-College Park. His books include Remembering Lattimer: Labor, Migration, and Race in Pennsylvania Anthracite Country.

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1. Structural Violence in the Anthracite

Chapter 2. Coal and People

Chapter 3. Living in the Anthracite

Chapter 4. The Duplan Silk Mill and the Garment Industry in Northeastern Pennsylvania

Chapter 5. Food Insecurities in the Anthracite

Chapter 6. The Toxic Anthracite Environment

Chapter 7. Traditions, Traditional Medicines, and Powwowers

Chapter 8. Remembering the Anthracite

Chapter 9. The Making of Contemporary Northeastern Pennsylvania and the City of Hazleton

Chapter 10. Some Challenges Facing a Deindustrialized Community

Conclusion

References

Index