Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania in the 1920s

Work

Coal ordered the city

Wilkes-Barre was not just a mining camp; it was one of the two big business centers of the northern anthracite field². The region around it formed a continuous chain of mining towns² tied to collieries, offices, foundries, and machine shops.

Who lived here

Old and new miners

Anthracite labor had shifted from earlier English, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish miners² toward Slavs and southern Europeans², including Polish and Lithuanian families. Wilkes-Barre’s churches and schools show that ethnic neighborhoods were part of daily life.

Faith

Many calendars, many churches

A person could orient the city by institutions such as First Welsh Presbyterian Church⁵, Holy Trinity Lithuanian Catholic Church⁵, the Hebrew Institute⁵, and Temple Israel⁶. As across the anthracite region, church dues, collections, and benefit societies formed part of household budgeting.

Law & power

Operators, unions, city men

The people consulted about living standards included coal companies, union officials, school officials, bankers, clergy, and merchants². That list shows how many authorities could touch an ordinary household: employer, union local, parish, school board, bank, and city officials.

What people feared

Strike lines stayed close

The 1922 anthracite suspension reached the city’s edge when about 200 people confronted 60 firemen⁴ at the East Boston colliery in Luzerne, three miles west of Wilkes-Barre. The fear was not abstract: keeping a mine idle, protected, or producing could bring deputies and crowds into the same place.

Home & table

Electric light, coal heat

As across the anthracite region, wage-earners’ houses generally used electricity for lighting², while rural sections might still use kerosene. The same study treated coal, hauling, light, clothing, food, rent, insurance, church giving, and carfare as ordinary budget items.

Money

Two-cent papers, falling prices

A daily paper usually cost two cents a copy². Family living costs in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre were estimated to have fallen 18.1 percent between July 1920 and February 1922², but that still left families counting rent, coal, shoes, church dues, insurance, and carfare.

Roads & news

Trolleys made the valley

Electric railway lines connected Wilkes-Barre with Duryea, Nanticoke, Pittston, and Plymouth³. News also moved through daily newspapers², which were cheap enough to be a regular purchase for many wage earners.

Year by year

1. 1920The federal census counted 73,833 people in Wilkes-Barre. here^1,2
2. 1920The high cost-of-living point used in later anthracite wage studies came in July 1920. the country²
3. 1922Temple Israel was established as a Wilkes-Barre congregation. here⁶
4. 1922The Hebrew Institute opened on Northampton Street for the Heights’ eastern European Jewish community. here⁵
5. 1922The anthracite suspension brought a crowd confrontation at the East Boston colliery in Luzerne, three miles west of Wilkes-Barre. nearby⁴
6. 1925Bus service began to appear in Pennsylvania trolley systems, a sign of the competition electric railways would face later in the decade. the country
7. 1927The execution of Sacco and Vanzetti in Massachusetts became national labor and immigrant news that would have been noticed in an industrial city. the country
8. 1929The Wall Street crash began a national economic crisis that people in a coal city would soon feel through employment, credit, and demand for fuel. the country

Pictures from the time

What the sources say

• The 1920 census counted 73,833 people in Wilkes-Barre. from the sources^1,2
• Wilkes-Barre stood in Luzerne County on the east side of the Susquehanna River in the Wyoming Valley. from the sources²
• In a 1922 cost-of-living study, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre were named the two large business centers of the northern anthracite field. from the sources²
• The same 1922 study described the northern field in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties as a continuous chain of mining towns from Forest City to Shickshinny. from the sources²
• Anthracite operations in the United States were concentrated in less than 500 square miles of eastern Pennsylvania, and Luzerne was one of five counties producing over 90 percent of the output. from the sources²
• The 1922 study said early English, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish miners had been gradually replaced in the anthracite labor force by Slavs and southern Europeans, including people from Poland and Lithuania. from the sources²
• A 1922 electric-railway listing said the Wyoming Valley street railway lines ran from Wilkes-Barre to Duryea and Nanticoke on the east side of the Susquehanna and to Pittston and Plymouth on the west side. from the sources³
• For recreation in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, a 1922 mine-workers’ budget study listed public parks, libraries, motion-picture theatres, and a municipal swimming pool. from the sources²
• Daily newspapers in the anthracite districts generally sold for two cents a copy in the early 1920s. from the sources²
• In February 1922, the study’s investigators visited 35 anthracite-region communities and consulted Wilkes-Barre’s Chamber of Commerce, social agencies, clergy, school officials, bankers, coal companies, union officials, and merchants. from the sources²
• The Heights neighborhood included First Welsh Presbyterian Church, built in 1890 at 74 South Meade Street. from the sources⁵
• The Hebrew Institute on Northampton Street was built in 1922 for the Heights’ eastern European Jewish community. from the sources⁵
• Holy Trinity Lithuanian Catholic Church at 416 East South Street dated from 1911. from the sources⁵
• Temple Israel was established as a Wilkes-Barre congregation in 1922 at 239 South River Street. inferred⁶
• During the 1922 anthracite suspension, the main local disturbance reported in the scholarship occurred three miles west of Wilkes-Barre in Luzerne, where a crowd of about 200 confronted 60 firemen at the East Boston colliery. from the sources⁴
• The 1922 cost-of-living study estimated that family living costs in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre had fallen 18.1 percent between July 1920 and February 1922 for families in non-company-owned houses. from the sources²
• The same study said electricity was generally used for lighting in wage-earners’ houses in the anthracite region, except in rural sections where kerosene lamps were sometimes used. from the sources²
• Mine workers’ families in the region often carried life, accident, sickness, or burial insurance through companies, national societies, or church societies. from the sources²
• No online source opened here gives a block-by-block description of ordinary Wilkes-Barre houses in the 1920s. not known
• No opened source gives exact Wilkes-Barre grocery prices by store in this decade, only regional anthracite prices and budgets. not known

Sources

1. 1920 Census: Volume 1, Population, Number and Distribution of Inhabitants. United States Census Bureau, 1921
2. The Cost of Living Among Wage Earners, Anthracite Region of Pennsylvania, February 1922. National Industrial Conference Board, 1922
3. Electric Railway Section, April 29, 1922. Commercial and Financial Chronicle / FRASER, 1922
4. The Pennsylvania Anthracite Strike of 1922. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1975
5. The Heights. SAH Archipedia, 2012
6. History. Temple Israel, Wilkes-Barre

Wilkes-Barre in other decades

Nearby, about the same time