(1839-1918)

"Every boy represents a human soul; a character forming for eternity. The life for the next few years will decide his future... Many a man who beats his life out behind prison bars is a victim of misdirected energy. Truly, the wealth of a nation is its children."
Ellen Webster Palmer, History of the B.I.A. of Wilkes-Barre, 1898
Anthracite coal fueled America's Industrial Revolution and developed the Wyoming Valley. It also helped create a working class living in ignorance and poverty, struggling to make ends meet with the assistance of their children's hard labor. Late-19th-century social reformers throughout the nation's industrial cities strived to improve the quality of life and provide education for the less fortunate, many of whom were foreign-speaking immigrants.
Ellen Webster Palmer championed the Wyoming Valley's less fortunate, the youth in particular. Born in Plattsburgh, New York, Palmer trained as a teacher. She later married prominent Wilkes-Barre attorney and one-time Pennsylvania Attorney General Henry Palmer. Despite her privileged life, she devoted her energy to the children of the coal mines. In 1891 she founded the Boys' Industrial Association (BIA), raising funds and developing programs to educate, entertain and prepare the child laborers for a better future.
Peers
of Palmer contributed to her noble cause. Mary L. Trescott, Luzerne County's first female lawyer, served as BIA treasurer and secretary. Bradley W. Palmer, the founder's son, endowed a scholarship to enable boys — who would otherwise be cast into the workforce — to continue their studies. Though the BIA faded soon after Ellen Webster Palmer's death, her 27 years of work lifted the spirits of thousands.
[Photo captions, from top to bottom, read]
· Statue of Ellen Webster Palmer, "The Friend of the Working Boy," located on the Wilkes-Barre River Common near the Luzerne County Courthouse.
· Ellen Webster Palmer reading to several members of the Boys' Industrial Association, circa 1900.
· Ellen Webster Palmer, founder of the Boys' Industrial Association.

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Parents Corner

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