Anthracite Ghosts

This book is an archaeological excavation of anomalous phenomena that still lingers to haunt various locations in the anthracite coal region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The unearthing of this haunting presence is both a metaphorical excavation (the bringing "into the light" of various dramas, events, and experiences of an individual and collective nature), and a physical engagement (the emergence of ghostly presence through investigative field performances). This anthracite coal region drama is viewed through the use of a "deep map" of short, but compendious, "ghost" narratives. This "deep map" consists of autobiographical events, symmetrical archaeological practices, memories of local places, ethnic folklore, haunting traces and manifestations, natural history, the use of ascientific fieldmethodology, and a sincere, and profound,sensitivity to the land. These "ghost" narratives are a subtle, multi-layered and "deep mining" of a small regional landscape that has long been neglected, and been perceived as "insignificant" social history. This book is meant to change that perceptionthrough a sensualunearthing of its haunting uncertainties.

This book is a ghost story, meant to be read on cold, dark, windy, and snow-covered wintry nights. These are not traditional tales of haunted houses, but rather are personal narratives of cultural hauntings of long forgotten histories of ethnic struggles, and Native American beliefs. It is an image of a landscape (and its people) that goes far deeper than the mere surface manifestations of ruined and abandoned structures, and the bits and pieces of broken dreams and aspirations. This is a different kind of embedded narrative. It is an excavation that penetrates to the very heart of ghostly drama. Experiences, conceptualized as a form of haunting, provide a framework for the recall of various incidents of personal memory and emotional resonance at specific places. This serves two purposes: It creates a personal landscape characterized by elements of spookiness (once dense forests, abandoned structures and mineshafts, coal patches); uncertainities that result in episodic haunting dramas (the socioeconomic impact of ethnic migrations); and ghostly presences (interpretations of these ethnic groups as a response to their physical surroundings); It provides a framework (in the 2nd part) for the analysis of other similiar haunted landscapes. A methodology is used that incorporates techniques derived from archaeology, ethnography, and performance studies. In doing so, it introduces a new multidisciplinary research methodology called Ethnoarchaeoghostology. This book is a dedicatory salute, however humble, to the achievements and daily struggles of those who came before to inhabit this Mahanoy Area. These hauntings fill-in the blank spaces between the words in historical narratives, and thus gives the reader a different image of events in local and regional social histories. In doing so, they show that greatness is not measured by the content of what we do, but how, on a daily basis, we do it.

Ghost Research is archaeological work that requires specific field practices. This book introduces the investigative techniques of a "ghost archaeology". This is defined as a scientific discipline of the "ordinary", a search for the repetitive patterns of cultural behavior that can be unearthed during an field investigation. Six case studies of cultural hauntings are presented which illustrate the usefulness of archaeological methodology and techniques in field research. The investigation of ghostly presence at Gettysburg, in the anthracite coal region, at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, and a Civil War haunting in Petersburg, Virginia are cited. These investigations show how potential evidential data can be uncovered, if only the investigators would maintain an archaeological sensibility in their fieldwork operations.

Coal miners evoke admiration and sympathy from the public, and writers -- some seeking a muse, others a cause -- traditionally champion them. David C. Duke explores more than one hundred years of this tradition in literature, poetry, drama, and film. Duke argues that as most writers spoke about rather than to the mining community, miners became stock characters in an industrial morality play, robbed of individuality or humanity. He discusses activist-writers such as John Reed, Theodore Dreiser, and Denise Giardina, who assisted striking workers, and looks at the writing of miners themselves. He examines portrayals of miners from The Trail of the Lonesome Pine to Matewan and The Kentucky Cycle. The most comprehensive study on the subject to date, Writers and Miners investigates the vexed political and creative relationship between activists and artists and those they seek to represent.

Li Su's life was very exciting. Last month, he married his thirteenth beautiful wife, a young international model, in the United States. Last week, he bought a fifteenth private island in the South Pacific and planned to make a golf course. A few days ago, he even rejected the investment invitation of the Roschell family. Hm, he looked down on that small amount of money! He's a genius, he's a legend! At the age of 20, he had millions of properties and at the age of 23, he was evaluated as the youngest rich man in Asia. His life was filled with glory and glory. Of course, he also had a weakness of wanting to boast to the best of his ability, and that was that even at the end of his life, he still hadn't changed his habit of bragging. Yes, it was all bragging.

Publisher description

Today, many of the historic coal-mining communities of the Rocky Mountains are uninhabited ghost towns. Yet behind the crumbled ruins are tales of perseverance, danger and romance. A devastating mine explosion on Halloween shatters the lives of mining families in Nordegg. The miners of Mountain Park build a hockey rink still celebrated in local lore. A young immigrant couple in Mercoal establishes a successful business only to have their love story sadly cut short. These 11 dramatic and poignant ghost-town tales are sure to fascinate all who love pioneer history.