The Birth of the State Police traces the roots of the creation of America’s first modern state police agency in the United States, the Pennsylvania State Police. Born out of the strife centered on the Pennsylvania’s coalmines and the late 19th century struggles between labor and capital, the state of Pennsylvania led the way with its adoption of a state constabulary after decades of bloodshed and violence. The issue became pressing not long after the end of America’s Civil War, as workers fought for the right to unionize. Strikes themselves often turned violent, and members of the Molly Maguires made violence their first response.

The coalmining industry soon looked to the state for protection, and the initial response was to create the Coal and Iron Police. Authorized by the state of Pennsylvania’s government and given state powers of arrest, the new police force was administratively controlled by the coalmining industry. This led to an extensive abuse of powers resulting in worsening relations between labor and capital.

The situation came to a climax during the Great Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902 when Americans feared entering a winter without the benefit of heating coal and demanded a resolution to the situation. President Theodore Roosevelt, breaking with tradition of federal non-interference in state matters, intervened and mediated the dispute. A resolution was eventually reached that returned the coal miners to work with the promise of a federal investigation into the matter. In the end, the final report of the president’s commission recommended, among other things, the creation of a state police agency that could respond faster than the state militia to prevent labor/capital conflicts from shutting down the production of coal. The idea, hotly debated, gained traction with Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker’s election to the governorship, and so began the political struggle to create what was popularly known at the time as the Pennsylvania State Constabulary, the first state police agency in America.