[3][page needed] The massacre was a turning point in the history of the United Mine Workers (UMW).

[5][page needed] These were the factors that drove most of the mass immigration to the US, where the economy was booming and many industrial jobs were available requiring little English.

[6] But, worsening working conditions and a UMW call for a 15 percent wage increase attracted many Slavic miners into the union.

After Sheriff Martin telephoned for help, the Pennsylvania National Guard was dispatched to the county to restore order.

[10][19] Late on the evening of September 10, 1897, more than 2,500 troops of the Third Brigade (partly stationed in Luzerne County) had been deployed.

[19][page needed] Local Slavic community leaders held a rally on September 11 to try to calm the workers, raise money for the support of families of the dead and wounded, and seek the prosecution of Sheriff Martin and his deputies.

[10] Outraged miners searched in vain on September 12 for Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre Coal Company mine superintendent Gomer Jones, and destroyed his home when they could not find him.

[10] On September 20, a group of Slavic women armed with fireplace pokers and rolling pins led some 150 men and boys to shut down the McAdoo coal works, but were turned back by the quick arrival of National Guard troops.

[9][10] At trial, the defendants claimed that the marchers had refused to obey an order to disperse and were charging toward the sheriff and his deputies.

[18][page needed] Witness John Pusti gave a different account in formal testimony: I was with the strikers when the shooting occurred.

[4] After having struggled to establish itself in Pennsylvania's coal mines, the massacre resulted in a dramatic entry of more than 10,000 new members.

[22][page needed] Three years later, the union was strong enough to win large wage increases and safety improvements for miners throughout the region.

In 1972, the United Labor Council of Lower Luzerne and Carbon counties and the UMW erected a small memorial on the site.

[24][page needed] According to a contemporary report in the New York Herald,[25] 21 men were killed in the Lattimer massacre: