It was cheap to mine and so markets were saturated. Labor was cheap as immigrants first from Wales and Ireland poured into the area. By the late nineteenth century the immigrants were coming from Poland, Slovenia, and Lithuania. Materials abound on the coal mines of the region. The older books were written by men who supported the coal barons.
Newer accounts tell the story of the miners and their families through research and oral histories.
The Photographic Legacy of John Horgan Jr. Another major industry was the railroads. The were five railroads in Scranton, hauling coal out of the valley to the eastern coast cities. The English, Germans and later the Irish had the good jobs of working as the train crews, consisting of engineers, firemen and conductors. The Italians worked as the skilled craftsmen in the building and repair shops.