"Pennsylvania. - the mining troubles in the Schuylkill region - attack on the coal and iron police by a mob of Polish strikers, at Shenandoah, February 3d," Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, February 18, 1888.

Credit: Library of Congress

This cover illustration to Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and the accompanying story are typical of how the American press covered labor unrest in Pennsylvania's coal regions. Despite extensive documentation of brutality and lawlessness by Pennsylvania's infamous, company-employed Coal and Iron Police, newspapers and magazines routinely blamed the outbreak of violence on immigrant workers and their supporters.