Photo source from the cover of the book, provided by the Lackawanna Historical Society

Are you a Scranton local? Have you ever wondered if your great-great grandparents got up to some trouble? Try your luck and see if a family member’s mugshot is hidden within the pages of Nicholas E. Petula’s book, “Faces of the Accused, A History of Scranton Mugshots and Criminal Activity 1898-1920”.  

Rescued from fading police ledgers and antique flea markets, these mugshots have been compiled into a book that weaves the rich history of diverse crime in Scranton. Such crimes your Pop-Pop or Mee-Maw may have committed could have been, “suspicion”, “insulting people”, or the most common, “drunk and disorderly”. A whopping 1,915 cases collected over these 22 years have been drunk and disorderly conduct, with 264 cases of fighting.  

The mugshots themselves were strikingly high in quality, with two images of the suspect on the front and their crime listed on the back, all contained on a slip of paper. Facial measurements, fingerprints, height and weight were also on the back, with the suspect's birthplace and address listed.  

These mugshots provide a window into the melting pot of cultures that was Scranton at the height of its coal mining and city life, with a mix of Italian, Polish and Lithuanian communities. If you happened to be of Italian descent, you had a high chance of running into the Black Hand, the local mafia known to send threatening letters with a hand stamped in black ink. If you were unlucky enough to cross them, they would extort you for thousands of dollars at the threat of arson, kidnapping or murder. So common were such extortionists, that many mugshots simply read “Black Hander” for their crime. Other fascinating crimes included “horse thievery” and “illegally practicing medicine.”

If you would like to find out what the relatives of your family and friends may have been up to more than 120 years ago, you can pick up a copy of the book through the Lackawanna Historical Society. Bonus points if you can read 1900s police handwriting.

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