A choir and musicians perform on stage, with a large historic black-and-white photo of children in hats and coats projected behind them.

Prep School: Anthracite Fields

Julia Wolfe‘s “Anthracite Fields” combines artistry and research for a moving portrait of American life.

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Recommended readings to get you in gear for the show.

  • Sean P. Adams, editor, The American Coal Industry, 1790-1902. Volume 3, King Coal’s Uneasy Throne in America (2016). 
  • Walter T. Howard, Forgotten Radicals: Communists in the Pennsylvania Anthracite, 1919-1950 (2005).Elizabeth Kryder-Reid and Sarah May, editors, Toxic Heritage: Legacies, Futures, and Environmental Justice (2024).
  • Janet MacGaffey, Coal Dust on Your Feet: The Rise, Decline, and Restoration of an Anthracite Mining Town (2013).
  • P. W. Sheafer, The Anthracite Coal Fields of Pennsylvania, and Their Exhaustion (1879).

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