Credit: Library of Congress
Orphaned at the age of 6, John Mitchell soon entered the coal mines, joined the Knights of Labor at age 15, and the newly formed United Mine Workers of America at the age of 19. After becoming president of the UMWA in 1898, Mitchell became one of the nation's most powerful labor leaders, and in 1902 ordered the walkout that shut down the nation’s anthracite coal mines. In this photograph, Mitchell sits with ex-president Theodore Roosevelt and father Michael J. Hoban, the Scranton bishop who backed the coal miners during the 1902.
