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Re: (erielack) hospital
> Moses Taylor was still recognized by the Lackawanna Railroad. In one of
> the few LACKAWANNA magazines published there was a photograph of it as
> well as a story about it. I believe it's on the site where the employee
> magazines are.
Indeed so. But the reason that the DL&W **had** a hospital, while typically
railroads had "Company Surgeons" and/or "Company Doctors" listed was the
mining operation. Someday, someone will write the definitive book on the
subject of railroads and their medical services.
Moses Taylor hospital was a huge and progressive step forward (in the way we
look at things nowadays) for the DL&W leadership. According to Taber, the
LC&I interest went to the coal division when it moved to Buffalo; DL&W Coal
and later Glen Alden had a major interest. The railroad became far less
dangerous to life and limb as air brakes and automatic couplers replaced
running the boards and the link and pin -- a transformation mostly complete
within a dozen years of Moses Taylor's opening.
Keep in mind that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania also stepped into the
breach by establishing a bunch of state miners' hospitals around the same
time -- which probably discouraged other railroads from imitating the DL&W.
The PRR and others outfitted hospital cars, which offered physicals but were
also dispatched to wrecks -- anyone know of Erie/DL&W versions of this?
Finally, thanks to Pat McKnight for the Lackawanna Magazine with the Moses
Taylor article on the last nursing school class. Careful readers might take
note that the article (p13) claims that Taylor turned down an offer to
become Treasury Secretary made by Abraham Lincoln in 1866. Not to join the
rivet-counting brigade, but Lincoln was assasinated April 14, 1965 (as any
school child can tell you).
Paul mentions the Christmas/December covers of the Lackawanna magazine --
this was quite common back in the day. But it was a big step forward from
the 19th Century, when the Christ on the cover might be a very Protestant
version. ("The angels all arrayed in white/for they ride the Road of
Anthracite.")
In the bad old days, when life was cheap and two mineworkers were killed on
average **every** working day, the officers and supervisors of the DL&W were
not above concluding that their "Sclav" (any Eastern European) mineworkers
were somehow less than human and deaths were somehow "ok" because they were
Roman Catholic and did not observe the Sabbath in a suitably Calvinist mode;
heck, the RC's were known to **horrors!** play baseball and go to picnics
and <gasp> down a glass of beer on a Sunday!). The "sclavs" of Scranton made
out far better than the Irish of Schuykill County a generation earlier,
whose leaders were arrested and hanged to set an example. Today's broader,
pluralistic view is a great improvement -- here in NYC, the Ancient Order of
Hibernians (once known as the Mollies in anthracite country) get to run a
big parade every year.
Cheers,
Jim Guthrie
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