John Siney and the First Coal Miners Union

Near this spot in eighteen sixty-eight, Irish-born labor organizer John Siney helped form the Workingmen's Benevolent Association of Schuylkill County, one of the first real unions of anthracite coal miners in the United States. Within a short time, the association had grown to tens of thousands of members across the coalfields. Under Siney's leadership, it secured state mine safety laws and negotiated what is often described as the first labor contract in the American coal industry.

He went on to lead the Miners National Association and was active in the Greenback Labor Party, which pushed for workers' rights and currency reform. Siney spent his career trying to give miners something the industry never wanted them to have: a voice.