EASTON, Pa. — Welcome to coal country at the National Canal Museum.
Visitors can hear stories and see photos of some of the last underground coal miners of Northeast Pennsylvania at a new exhibition at the venue, inside Hugh Moore Park.
“Coal Country Portraits” showcases the men, women and children who helped extract the anthracite coal that helped powered America’s growth during the Industrial Revolution.
The show kicks off opening season for the museum, which is operated by the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor.
- The hard work of coal miners in Northeast Pennsylvania is part of a new exhibition at the National Canal Museum in Easton
- The core of the show features works by photographer George Harvan and artist Frank “WYSO” Wysochansky
- The exhibition runs from Saturday, April 1, to Dec. 17
Local sons of miners
The core of the exhibition is photographs by George Harvan and paintings and sculptures by Frank “WYSO” Wysochansky, an artist from Blakely, Lackawanna County, who died in 1994.
Harvan, who was from Lansford, Carbon County, donated his collection to the National Heritage Center before his death in 2002. Wysochanksy’s foundation loaned his work to the museum.
Both men were the children of immigrants and inspired by their fathers, who worked in the mining industry.
They wanted to showcase their living and working conditions, which often were hard and dangerous, Martha Capwell Fox, a museum and archives coordinator for the Heritage Corridor, said.
"This was what they were surrounded by," Capwell Fox said. "These were their neighbors, their environment, their family. They could have gone away, but neither of them went very far or for very long from where they came from.
“They were both very rooted in their surroundings and thought this needed to be documented.”
'Petroleum of that period'
Many of Harvan’s photographs are of miners from Lanscoal, a Lansford-based company formed by a group of men in 1960.
Around that time Harvan, who regularly donned a hard hat and lamp on the job, began documenting the operation, where 20 employees were the only remaining underground miners in Panther Valley until it shut down in 1972.
“It’s a good thing that Harvan [and Wysochansky] did that because of the fact that anthracite powered this country right after the Civil War until the 1920s," Capwell Fox said.
"It was the petroleum of that period of time. There has been a lot of studies since then, but at the time very few people were recording anything. So in the last years of the anthracite industry it’s really fortunate that we have this."
Wendi Blewett, a collections manager at the museum, said she was impressed by the photos and tidbits she came across while organizing the show.
“I thought it was interesting about Lanscoal," Blewett said. "I was under the impression a mine is operated by a large company and trickles down to the little people who do the mining. But they owned it. They were in charge of doing everything.
"I thought that was really fascinating. It was after the mines closed that they leased it out. They were the last of the mining companies."
Eight years of exhibitions
Also on display are photographs taken in the anthracite region by Lewis Hine in the early 1900s.
Hine’s work, particularly of miners working in the mines and coal breakers, helped development of child labor laws in our country.
The Heritage Corridor has been holding exhibitions at the museum since 2015.
Past shows include a look at the history of the Wilson-based Dixie Cups plant; a feature on the old amusement center, Island Park; and an in-depth look at the women who stepped into defense work in the region’s heavy industry during the second half of the 20th century.
“Coal Country Portraits” will be on display Saturday, April 1, through Dec. 17.
The National Canal Museum is open 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays during April and May.
Staring June 7, the museum will be open Wednesday through Sunday, with rides offered on the mule-drawn Josiah White II canal boat.
Admission is $8 for adults, $7 for ages 65 and older, $6 for ages 3-15 and free for those under 3.