Anthropology
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Item Past and Present: Immigration and Museum Exhibitions in the Anthracite Coal Region(Museum Anthropology, 2024) Aryn Neurock Schriner; Paul A. Shackel; AuthorsNortheastern Pennsylvania was home to the anthracite coal industry for about two centuries. The area was originally settled by various waves of immigrants, first from Western, then Southern and Eastern Europe. The new immigrant miners faced many forms of prejudice and were exploited in a system of unchecked capitalism. They were racialized and placed at the bottom of the job hierarchy. Some capitalists did not consider them human and, therefore, not deserving of safe working conditions, decent housing, and equal pay. At the turn of the twenty-first century, a new wave of Hispanic immigrants from the Caribbean, Mexico, and South and Central America entered the region to work mainly in low-paying fulfillment center jobs. Their arrival is being met with various forms of xenophobia, much like the immigrant miners faced over a century ago. The online exhibition “We Are Anthracite,” hosted by the Anthracite Heritage Museum, addresses the call from the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) for museums to be civically engaged, build social capital and connecting new populations to place. The exhibition bridges the experiences between the past coal mining communities and new Hispanic immigrants. The state operated museum hosting this exhibition lends validity to the new immigrants’ place in this region, creating a narrative that their experiences are similar to the region’s inhabitants’ ancestors. By connecting common experiences, past and present, we are creating a form of bridging social capital that connects these different populations. While the northeastern Pennsylvania immigrant story is not well-known, it is rich and complex, like many Rust Belt communities undergoing similar major demographic shifts.Item Anthracite Memories: Semantic Tagging and Coal Mining Oral Histories(2023) Paul A. ShackelOral histories are a critical source of information about lived experiences of past events. They have been analyzed both for their form – linguistically as texts, performances, and expressive accounts – and their content for understanding historic events and personal experiences. Here we focus on sentiment analysis approaches frequently applied to big data research questions, but less often utilized by anthropologists working with oral histories. Oral histories collected half a century ago in the anthracite mining communities of northeastern Pennsylvania are examined by considering methodological and historical questions. This project explores how oral history and data science might be productively combined to understand these now historic communities' everyday lives and working conditions. Bakhtin's (1981) concept of chronotope helps us understand the memory of these anthracite coal mining communities' daily life and working conditions.