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

> A hard-coal city, crowded with mine families, trolley lines, churches, newspapers, and arguments over wages and power.

- Place: Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania (41.246, -75.881)
- Years: 1920 to 1929
- Page: https://yorehistory.com/place/wilkes-barre-luzerne-county-pennsylvania/1920s
- Step into it (interactive): https://yorehistory.com/?step=Wilkes-Barre%2C%20Luzerne%20County%2C%20Pennsylvania%2C%20United%20States&at=41.2459,-75.8813&year=1925

## Looking around

Stand near the center of Wilkes-Barre and turn slowly: this is a city of 73,833 people in 1920[1][2], one of the larger places in Pennsylvania. The Susquehanna River[2] lies beside the city, and the Wyoming Valley runs north and south as a chain of mining towns. Electric cars connect the square to Nanticoke, Plymouth, Pittston, and Duryea[3]. Around the city are the offices, shops, and households of the northern anthracite field[2], with Scranton and Wilkes-Barre as its large business centers. Ordinary recreation is visible in public parks, libraries, motion-picture theatres, and a municipal swimming pool[2]. Churches and synagogues mark neighborhoods: the First Welsh Presbyterian Church[5], the Hebrew Institute[5], Holy Trinity Lithuanian Catholic Church[5], and the new Temple Israel congregation. News comes cheaply through daily papers sold for two cents[2].

## 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 field[2]. The region around it formed a continuous chain of mining towns[2] 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 miners[2] toward Slavs and southern Europeans[2], 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 Church[5], Holy Trinity Lithuanian Catholic Church[5], the Hebrew Institute[5], and Temple Israel[6]. 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 merchants[2]. 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 firemen[4] 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 lighting[2], 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 copy[2]. Family living costs in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre were estimated to have fallen 18.1 percent between July 1920 and February 1922[2], 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 Plymouth[3]. News also moved through daily newspapers[2], which were cheap enough to be a regular purchase for many wage earners.

## Year by year

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

## 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 sources)[2]
- 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 sources)[2]
- 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 sources)[2]
- 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 sources)[2]
- 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 sources)[2]
- 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 sources)[3]
- 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 sources)[2]
- Daily newspapers in the anthracite districts generally sold for two cents a copy in the early 1920s. (from the sources)[2]
- 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 sources)[2]
- The Heights neighborhood included First Welsh Presbyterian Church, built in 1890 at 74 South Meade Street. (from the sources)[5]
- The Hebrew Institute on Northampton Street was built in 1922 for the Heights’ eastern European Jewish community. (from the sources)[5]
- Holy Trinity Lithuanian Catholic Church at 416 East South Street dated from 1911. (from the sources)[5]
- Temple Israel was established as a Wilkes-Barre congregation in 1922 at 239 South River Street. (inferred)[6]
- 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 sources)[4]
- 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 sources)[2]
- 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 sources)[2]
- Mine workers’ families in the region often carried life, accident, sickness, or burial insurance through companies, national societies, or church societies. (from the sources)[2]
- 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. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1921/dec/vol-01-population.html
2. The Cost of Living Among Wage Earners, Anthracite Region of Pennsylvania, February 1922. National Industrial Conference Board, 1922. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/The_cost_of_living_among_wage_earners,_anthracite_region_of_Pennsylvania,_February,_1922_..._(IA_cu31924032460465).pdf
3. Electric Railway Section, April 29, 1922. Commercial and Financial Chronicle / FRASER, 1922. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/cfc/cfc_19220429_supplement.pdf
4. The Pennsylvania Anthracite Strike of 1922. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1975. https://journals.psu.edu/pmhb/article/download/43137/42858
5. The Heights. SAH Archipedia, 2012. https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-02-LU37
6. History. Temple Israel, Wilkes-Barre. https://www.templewb.org/welcome/history/

## The same place in other decades

- [Wilkes-Barré in the 1790s](https://yorehistory.com/place/wilkes-barre-luzerne-county-pennsylvania/1790s/md)
- [Wyoming Valley, Luzerne County in the 1820s](https://yorehistory.com/place/wyoming-valley-luzerne-county-pennsylvania/1820s/md)
- [Kingston in the 1830s](https://yorehistory.com/place/kingston-luzerne-county-pennsylvania/1830s/md)
- [Wilkes-Barre in the 1870s](https://yorehistory.com/place/wilkes-barre-luzerne-county-pennsylvania/1870s/md)
- [Wilkes-Barre in the 1880s](https://yorehistory.com/place/wilkes-barre-luzerne-county-pennsylvania/1880s/md)
- [Wilkes-Barre in the 1900s](https://yorehistory.com/place/wilkes-barre-luzerne-county-pennsylvania/1900s/md)
- [Wilkes-Barre in the 1950s](https://yorehistory.com/place/wilkes-barre-luzerne-county-pennsylvania/1950s/md)
- [Wilkes-Barre in the 1980s](https://yorehistory.com/place/wilkes-barre-luzerne-county-pennsylvania/1980s/md)

## Nearby, about the same time

- [Dallas, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania in the 1950s](https://yorehistory.com/place/dallas-luzerne-county-pennsylvania/1950s/md) (12 km)
- [Scranton, Lackawanna, Pennsylvania in the 1940s](https://yorehistory.com/place/scranton-lackawanna-pennsylvania/1940s/md) (26 km)
- [Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania in the 1890s](https://yorehistory.com/place/doylestown-bucks-county-pennsylvania/1890s/md) (122 km)
- [Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania in the 1950s](https://yorehistory.com/place/newtown-bucks-county-pennsylvania/1950s/md) (138 km)
- [Princeton, New Jersey in the 1930s](https://yorehistory.com/place/princeton-new-jersey/1930s/md) (143 km)
- [Montclair, Essex County, New Jersey in the 1920s](https://yorehistory.com/place/montclair-essex-county-new-jersey/1920s/md) (148 km)

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Researched by Yore's AI historian (gpt-5.5) on 2026-10-11 from the sources listed. It is about the place and the time, not about any person. Statements marked "inferred" are conclusions, not records. Cite as: Yore, "Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania in the 1920s", https://yorehistory.com/place/wilkes-barre-luzerne-county-pennsylvania/1920s