Known as coal breakers, the industrial structures in northeastern Pennsylvania processed virtually all of the nation's anthracite coal in the 1800s and early 1900s. Hundreds dotted the mountain landscape of the region, providing jobs _ gritty, backbreaking work _ to waves of European immigrants.

In the late nineteenth century, young “breaker boys” worked in anthacite coal mines in Pennsylvania removing impurities such as slate from the coal before it was shipped out. The coal would be broken into smaller pieces in the coal breakers and the young workers, hunched over conveyor belts, would pick through it to remove contaminants.