Continuity and Decline in the Anthracite Towns of Pennsylvania

Abstract

The residents of the anthracite towns of northeastern Pennsylvania show a considerable loyalty to a landscape that provides them with little of material value. This should remind the observer that any broad concept of place must address two different aspects of a landscape: the physical support it provides (means) and the intangible rewards it offers (meaning). The two parts are related to each other through time, however. Most simply, the meaning in the landscape is provided from the past and the means are provision for the future; more complexly, the previous means—the economic history—are a significant part of the meaning, and individuals’ judgment of whether the landscape's means are sufficient or insufficient to maintain its residents into the future depends on the strength of its meaning. Place is not separable from its past or its promise. The strength the anthracite towns show in the face of their decline is a product of their history. Difficult times in the early coal towns created communities so strong as to discourage people from leaving the unproductive landscape even now that the hard coal industry is essentially dead.

Key Words:

• depressed regions
• social geography
• anthracite miners
• eastern Pennsylvania