Story
Labor & working livesWhen the Coal Strike Interrupted Daytime Light
Reported October 1900
October 1900 reports described a coal shortage that stopped daytime incandescent service and threatened further curtailment at night.
Some details remain uncertainThe anthracite strike reached beyond the mine gates into a service people used in town. On October 11, 1900, two Pottsville newspapers reported that a shortage of coal had compelled the Shamokin Electric Light Company to stop its daytime incandescent lights from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon.
The Republican and Herald placed the interruption among its strike notes. The Miners Journal printed closely similar wording, then added a warning: continued fuel scarcity might require the plant to curtail some night lights as well. The nighttime restriction was a possibility, not an interruption the paper said had already happened.
The stated hours show a generating plant adjusting service to a disrupted fuel supply. The notices do not identify individual customers, say how long the schedule lasted, or describe a complete townwide blackout. They do reveal a practical connection between the miners' dispute and electric service: machinery capable of producing light still depended on coal being available to run it.