On September 6, 1869, for instance, a blaze at the Avondale Mine in Luzerne County claimed the lives of 110 coal miners. "Wages were low, working conditions were atrocious, and deaths and serious injuries numbered in the hundreds each year," according to one account. It is not known whether the woman ever existed.įrom around 1873, the Mollies, who belonged to secret societies in Ireland opposed to British rule, fled Famine-stricken Ireland in the hopes of a new life, but instead, they found themselves in the coal mines of Pennsylvania, where conditions were a horror show, and the work was more akin to mine slavery. The pieces of paper were signed "Molly Maguire". Threatening notes were soon plastered on landlords' doors, in case they felt moved to treat their tenants the same way. The story goes the name "Molly Maguire" was adopted in 1840s Ireland when an elderly woman reportedly named Molly Maguire was turfed out of her rental home by a ruthless landlord and left to fend for herself. In any case, the tale remains part of local Pennsylvania lore.Īn attack in 1877 on a coal mine owner (Image: James Dabney McCabe / Wikicommons / Public domain) Indeed the truth of what happened, as well as the Mollies' very existence, is debated among historians to this day, particularly whether they were heroes or villains. It was one of the largest mass executions of any group by the US federal government in history, but the facts surrounding the labor movement that worked and organized in the Pennsylvania coal fields remain a mystery. The Mollies, as they were often called, was an alleged secret society of Irish mineworkers based in northeast Pennsylvania who fought for workers' rights and fairer wages for Irish Americans amid horrific working conditions.Īfter a string of often bloody conflicts that arose from protesting such conditions, twenty suspected members of the Molly Maguires were convicted of murder and other crimes and were executed by hanging in 18.įor all the latest news straight to your inbox, sign up for our FREE newsletters here. The legend of the Molly Maguires is one that has haunted Pennsylvania and the wider US for more than a century.
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