George M. Bretz (1842–1895) was an American photographer who is best known for his photographs of the

Northeastern Pennsylvania Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) is a geographic region of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania that includes the Pocono Mountains, the Endless Mountains, and the industrial cities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Hazleton, Nanticoke, and Car ...

Coal Region The Coal Region is a region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is known for being home to the largest known deposits of anthracite coal in the world with an estimated reserve of seven billion short tons. The region is typically defined as compri ...

and its coal miners. A collection of Bretz's original glass plate negatives from the Kohinoor Mine at the Shenandoah

Colliery Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

were recently rediscovered at the National Museum of American History. Taken circa 1884, this was one of the earliest fully illuminated photo shoots in an underground mine. These photographs were displayed at the 1884

World Cotton Centennial The World Cotton Centennial (also known as the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition) was a World's Fair held in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States in 1884. At a time when nearly one third of all cotton produced in the United Sta ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, and again at the 1893

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...

in Chicago. Bretz is also known for his photos of alleged

Molly Maguires The Molly Maguires were an Irish 19th-century secret society active in Ireland, Liverpool and parts of the Eastern United States, best known for their activism among Irish-American and Irish immigrant coal miners in Pennsylvania. After a seri ...

, radical coal miners who fought against unfair labor practices in the coal fields. For the rest of his life, Bretz was considered an authority on coal mining, and articles about his photography were widely published.George Bretz Collection
at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

References

External links

George Bretz Collection
at the

, Baltimore County Digital Collections. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bretz, George American photographers History of mining in the United States Coal mining in the United States 1842 births 1895 deaths Industrial photographers

References

Further reading

External links