The Black Rock That Built America

About the Book

The Black Rock That Built America explains how, on the backs of thousands of European immigrants, America was transformed from a mostly rural nation into the world’s greatest industrial power. As the nation expanded in the nineteenth century, anthracite coal fueled the making of steel, the building of railroads, the operation of factories, and the heating of homes. This book tells of the struggles these immigrant miners endured while performing the grueling and dangerous work of extracting anthracite coal from the earth in order to earn their place in America.

About the Author

Gerald McKerns was born in a company owned house in a coal mining “patch” named St. Nicholas located in the heart of the Pennsylvania’s anthracite “coal region”. Upon completing High School Gerald migrated to Reading, Pennsylvania were he spent nearly thirty years working in a steel mill. Although living out of the area for many years Gerald never forgot his roots. You can take the coal cracker out of the “coal region” but you can’t take the “coal region” out of a coal cracker.