pp xxii280 March 1997 216x138mm paperback 0-7083-1387-6
Available in North America from Scranton University Press
`Dr Jones has definitively and meticulously chronicled the rise and decline of Scranton's Welsh community and its fleeting golden age.' History
`Written throughout in sparkling prose, the book tackless issues of enormous complexity with impressive lucidity.' Welsh History Review
`An absorbing human interest narrative.' New Welsh Reiew
Between the years 1860 and 1920, around 80,000 Welsh immigrants settled in the United States. A striking feature of Welsh settlement during this period is the concentration of the Welsh in one state: Pennsylvania, and within it, the north-east Pennsylvania anthracite coalfield. In 1900, over 17 per cent of Welsh immigrants were living in and around the cities of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in an area about twice the size of the Rhondda Valley in the south Wales most of them had left.
This book focuses on Scranton, the epicentre of Welsh America during its golden era. The author examines cultural life, the literary and musical societies, eisteddfodau and religious groups as well as other aspects of popular culture such as insobriety and sports that the leaders of the Welsh community frowned upon. He also analyses the self-image of Welsh America as reflected in its own newspapers and periodicals; the relationship of the Welsh with other ethnic groups; and, of course, the anthracite industry which in its boom years drew thousands of skilled Welsh miners across the Atlantic.
WILLIAM D. JONES studied history at University College, Cardiff and gained a Ph.D. for his research into Welsh settlement in USA. Formerly Assistant Keeper at the Welsh Industrial and Maritime Museum in Cardiff, he is now Lecturer in Modern Welsh History at the School of History and Archaeology, University of Wales, Cardiff. Dr Jones is author (with Beth Thomas) of Coal's Domain/Teyrnas y Glo (Cardiff, 1993) and numerous articles on and Welsh industrial and social history.
Wales in America is Volume 8 in the Studies in Welsh History Series.