"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. To keep alive their identity and their spirit, immigrants throughout Pennsylvania, among them the Polish miners of Shenandoah, pooled their money to construct churches and synagogues large and small, some of them lavishly muralled and ornamented in the style of their homelands.