page_title: History of Poles in the United States
section_title: Mining
hierarchical_section_title: History of Poles in the United States / 1870–1914 / Wave of Polish immigration / Fields of work / Mining
caption_attribution_description: Coal miner (Polish) — Capels, McDowell County, West Virginia
context_page_description: The history of Poles in the United States dates to the American Colonial era. Poles have lived in present-day United States territories for over 400 years—since 1608. There are 10 million Americans of Polish descent in the U.S. today, making it the largest diaspora of Poles in the world. Polish Americans have always been the largest group of Slavic origin in the United States.
  Historians divide Polish American immigration into three "waves", the largest from 1870 to 1914, a second after World War II, and a third after Poland's independence in 1989. Most Polish Americans are descended from the first wave, when millions of Poles fled Polish districts of Germany, Russia, and Austria. This group is often called the za chlebem immigrants because most were peasants in Poland who did not own land and lacked basic subsistence. Austrian Poles were from Galicia, unarguably the most destitute region in Europe at the time. Up to a third of Poles living in the United States returned to Poland after a few years, but the majority stayed.
context_section_description: West Virginia experienced an influx of immigrant coal miners during the early 20th century, increasing the number of Poles in West Virginia to almost 15,000 by 1930. Poles were the third-largest immigrant group in West Virginia, following the Italians and the Hungarians, who also joined the mining industry in large numbers. Poles often worked alongside other Slavic immigrants, and recorded work safety signs from the mines in the 1930s were commonly posted in Polish, Lithuanian, Czech, and Hungarian languages. Poles predominated certain communities, comprising the largest ethnic group in 5 towns by 1908: Raleigh in Raleigh County, Scotts Run in Monongalia County, and Whipple and Carlisle in Fayette County. Pennsylvania attracted the greatest number of Polish miners. Polish immigration to Luzerne County was popular from the end of the Civil War. Employment in the mining industry increased from 35,000 in 1870 to over 180,000 in 1914. According to historian Brian McCook, over 80% of Poles in northern Pennsylvania were laborers in the coal mines prior to World War I. Northern Pennsylvania contains over 99% of America's anthracite coal, which was favored for home heating during the colder months. Demand for the coal was seasonal and left many workers unemployed for 3 to 4 months each summer. Poles joined ethnic and Catholic insurance programs with fellow workers, pooling funds together for medical and disability insurance. In 1903 a Polish-language newspaper, Gornik, later Gornik Pensylwanski (Pennsylvanian Miner), was started in Wilkes-Barre to share local industry news. A Pennsylvania State Investigating Committee in 1897 found the workers' salaries to be severely low, stating it was "utterly impossible for any moderate sized family to more than exist, let alone enjoy the comforts which every American workingman desires and deserves." In Pennsylvania, miners averaged $521.41 ($14837) per year, and historians have calculated that $460 ($13090) would allow basic survival in northern Pennsylvania. In 1904 Frank Julian Warne claimed that a Slavic miner could have a monthly salary of $30 ($854) and still send a $20 ($569) remittance monthly to Poland. He found Slavic miners lived together, 14 unmarried men in an apartment, buying food collectively, required only $4 ($113.82) a month for living expenses and $5 to $12 ($142.28–341.47) each on rent. In 1915, Coal Age magazine estimated that $10 million ($285 million) was sent back to Poland annually from Polish miners. Warne accused the Slavs of depressing wages and effectively "attacking and retarding communal advancement" by the United Mine Workers. Miners had to purchase their own working supplies, and company management enforced requirements that the equipment and blasting powder be purchased from the company store, at prices exceeding 30% over retail. Warne argued that Slavs did not feel the financial burden of increasing material supplies because of their lower standard-of-living, weakening their support for the United Mine Worker strikes. Laws were pushed by the United Mine Workers to limit Polish competition; the Pennsylvania Legislature passed a law in 1897 mandating that a worker perform as a laborer for at least two years and pass an examination in English to receive a promotion. Polish miners joined the United Mine Workers and joined in strikes during the turn of the twentieth century, bridging past nativist concerns. Descendants of the Polish miners still exist in the northern industrial areas of West Virginia, and many have dispersed across the U.S. Polish immigrants were favored for mining, where hundreds died each year, because they "played their part with a devotion, amenability, and steadiness not excelled by men of the old immigration." A novel set in 1901 written from the perspective of a young Polish American in a coal mining family, Theodore Roosevelt by Jennifer Armstrong, reflects the poor conditions and labor struggles affecting the miners. A Coal Miner's Bride: the Diary of Anetka Kaminska by Susan Campbell Bartoletti is written from the perspective of a 13
caption: A Polish American coal miner in Capels, West Virginia, 1938.
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