SCRANTON, a city of north-eastern Pennsylvania, U.S.A., the county seat of Lackawanna county; 534 m. W.N.W. of New York city, on the Lackawanna river and Federal highways 6, II and 611. It is served by the Central of New Jersey, the Dela ware and Hudson, the Erie, the Lackawanna, and the New York, Ontario and Western railways, two inter-urban electric lines, and several motor-bus lines. Pop. (1920) 137,783 (21% foreign-born white, over half from Russia, Lithuania, Poland, Austria, Italy and Ireland) ; 1930 Federal census 143,433. More than half a million people live within a radius of 15 mi.
Scranton is the metropolis of the great anthracite region of north-eastern Pennsylvania, which contains nearly all the anthra cite deposits of the United States and produces in a normal year over 75,000,00o gross tons. It occupies 20.5 sq.m. in the Lacka wanna valley, at an elevation ranging from Boo to 1,800 ft. above sea-level, and is surrounded by a region of great natural beauty (mountains, lakes and streams). There are several pleasure re sorts and sanatoria in the immediate vicinity. The business sec tion of the city is compactly built up with substantial structures, largely of modern type. The 12 public parks cover 160 ac. In Nay Aug park are the picturesque falls of Roaring brook (which crosses the city to empty into the Lackawanna river), a zoological garden, the Everhart museum of natural history (which includes the Hollister collection of Indian relics) and a model mine.
The educational institutions of the city include 5o public and 12 parochial schools, several private schools and business colleges, a conservatory of music, St. Thomas college for men (Roman Catholic ; 1888), Marywood College for Women (Roman Catho lic; 1917), extension centres of the University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania State college, and the International Correspondence Schools and Woman's institute. In the adjoining borough of Dunmore is the Pennsylvania State Oral School for the Deaf (1882). The International Correspondence Schools now occupy two of the largest and finest buildings in the city.
There are about 140 churches in the city, representing 28 or 3o denominations, including Greek Catholic, Reformed Polish and Russian Orthodox.
Scranton has a large retail, wholesale and jobbing trade, and its manufacturing industries have increased in importance and diversity until the wage-earners in factories outnumber the coal miners. Anthracite-mining is still, however, the dominating in
dustry, engaging a fifth of all the persons employed in gainful occupations in 192o. Much of the city's area is undermined. In some sections, surface subsidence and occasionally a cave-in give visible evidence of the work in progress underground, and when ever a long suspension or strike occurs (as in 1902, 1912, 1922 and 1925) the economic fabric of the city is seriously affected. Silk manufacturing ranks next to the anthracite industry in im portance, with two score mills in Scranton and Dunmore, em ploying 4,500 persons and using about a third of all the raw silk imported into the country. Building permits for the ten years 1918-27 represented values aggregating $40,369,406. The output of the city's factories in 1927 was valued at Permanent settlement on the site of Scranton dates from 1788. A grist-mill, a sawmill and a charcoal iron-furnace were built in the next few years, but there was little further development until 1840, when the Lackawanna Iron Company bought a large tract (the greater part of the city's present territory) for $8,000, and began the manufacture of iron, getting ore from the deposits in the near-by hills, and using for the first time the anthracite hot blast. Initial difficulties were overcome largely through the per sistent efforts of George Whitefield Scranton (1811-61), aided by his brother Selden and their cousin, Joseph Hand Scranton. By 1850 a rolling mill, a nail factory and a steel-rail works were in operation, and transportation facilities had been provided. Scran ton was incorporated as a borough in 1853, as a city in 1866. Be fore the iron ore was exhausted, the anthracite industry was well established. Skilled miners were attracted from England, Wales and Germany, whose descendants are an important element in the present population, though Poles and Russians now predominate among the foreign-born miners. The development of the silk in dustry and other manufactures has taken place largely since 1900. The population of the city was 9,223 in 1860; 45,850 in 188o ; and 102,026 in 1900. In the decade following the World War bank deposits, postal receipts, and the number of telephones in use (indices in a general way of the volume of business) all increased about i00%.