Author: Otis E. Young, Jr.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806113524
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Get Book
Book Description
Here, for the first time, is a clear account in words and pictures of the methods by which gold and silver were extracted and processed in the Old West. The author describes the early days of Spanish and Indian mining and the wild era inaugurated by the American prospector who rushed west to get rich quick, ending with the year 1893, when repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act virtually closed the mining frontier. The account gives in laymen’s language the techniques employed in prospecting, placering, lode mining, and milling, particularly those employed by the Spaniards, Indians, and Cornishmen, and shows how the ever-practical Americans adapted and improved them. Special attention is given to the methods employed in the California and Montana gold fields, Colorado and the Comstock Lode, the Black Hills, and Tombstone, Arizona. In these pages the reader also meets some of the unforgettable personalities whose lives enriched (and sometimes impoverished) the mining camps.
Author: Lowell Presnell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781933251059
Category : Mines and mineral resources
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book
Book Description
Mining in Western North Carolina played an important economic role in the state's history, but little has been recorded about the industry. The history books are filled with articles about frontier life, trade with Native Americans, railroad and road construction, the Civil War, and large mining operations, but history has taken individual mines for granted, and most records that still exist are found in land records. This book tells the story of how North Carolina miners and mines have arrived at where they are today.
Author: Mark Wyman
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520340876
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 343
Get Book
Book Description
"The most comprehensive and interpretive study of the mining industry available to historians. . . . It is a book that will stand the test of time." -W. Turrentine Jackson, Technology and Culture "Mark Wyman's sympathetic account of the Western metal miners includes graphic details of their bitter struggle for unpaid wages, for industrial safety legislation, for corporate liability in the event of mine accidents and for workmen's compensation. . . . Throughout the book one finds the compassion and understanding that mark works in the best tradition of historical scholarship." -Milton Cantor, The Nation "Wyman has looked at miners in the larger context of American industrialization during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In doing so, he has produced a stimulating, informative account of how this group of workingmen responded to changes in the work place brought on by changes in technology, corporate capitalism, and the shifting labor forces of the day." -James E. Fell, Jr., Pacific Northwest Quarterly "Wyman's compassionate and thoughtful study is an important contribution to the social history of western mining. Hard Rock Epic is also a significant addition to the literature on the process of industrialization. It amply demonstrates that no group in the American West was so deeply affected by the Industrial Revolution as the hard rock miners." -Jeffrey K. Stine, The Midwest Review "Hard Rock Epic is both a descriptive and analytical study of the impact of technology on the life of metalliferous miners of the West. It is thoroughly researched, drawing heavily upon primary sources and the most relevant recent scholarship concerning the hardrock men. The study is judicious and balanced. . . . [and] fits well into the growing body of scholarship on Western metal mining. Historians of labor and the American West will find this volume instructive and definite contribution to their fields of study." -George C. Suggs, Jr., The American Historical Review
Author:
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1572337737
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 366
Get Book
Book Description
Author: Otis E. Young
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806155639
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 213
Get Book
Book Description
Mining in the western United States entered its great era after 1860 through use of the double-jack, black powder, hand steel, Bickford fuse, wire rope, and the steam engine. Those were the years of bonanza strikes: Henry Wickenburg’s Vulture Mine in Arizona Territory; the main hard-rock gold strike in the desert Southwest; Ed Schieffelin’s discovery of vast silver deposits in Tombstone, Arizona; and the Tonopah-Goldfield strike in Nevada, which netted over one hundred million dollars. Black Powder and Hand Steel describes the miners and the machinery they used. Otis E. Young, Jr., gives an account of the miners, particularly the Cornish and Irish, their origins, character, social life, pleasures, and, most important, their labors. The miner’s lot depended on the tools he used, and the author traces the evolution of the miner’s most important tools: from hoisting bucket to mine elevator, cold mining to dynamite, ore car to skip, hemp to wire rope, and slow match to Bickford fuse. Young reveals the difficulties of prospecting and mining two of the West’s most valuable ores, gold and silver, and gives readers a firsthand look at the challenges of working even the most successful strikes. A companion volume to Young’s Western Mining, Black Powder and Hand Steel is written in the same lively style—informative and entertaining for general readers and scholars. It is also well illustrated, with drawings by Buck O’Donnell.
Author: Rodman Wilson Paul
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Frontier and pioneer life
Languages : en
Pages : 398
Get Book
Book Description
"Long out of print, this study of western mining is now available with three new chapters by Elliott West. When originally published in 1963, Professor Paul's book offered the first comprehensive view of western mining as an integral part of the settlement process. In his supplemental chapters, Professor West presents a social history of mining camps - encompassing discussions of gender, class, race, labor, and the environment. The combined scholarship of Paul and West makes a strong case for the transforming effects of the mining frontier on western society in particular and American society in general. This revised, expanded edition continues to offer a distinctively vivid voice and an unusually keen eye for telling detail."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Author: Ronald C. Brown
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Get Book
Book Description
When the colorful western prospectors had made their strikes and moved on, they left behind them another, lesser known breed of men, the hard-rock miners. For six decades these men followed mining opportunities into the boom towns of the intermountain West and gouged from the depths of other men's wealth. In mines ranging from prospect holes to underground extractories, they picked and blasted, sometimes in shifts of twelve hours, and found not only ore and minerals but also lung-destroying dust. Working by candlelight in ill-ventilated, narrow, and often sweltering depths, they courted dangers from fire, gas, subterranean water, and cave-ins. Management's interest in high productivity and profits often jeopardized miners' needs for a living wage and job security. Above ground they lived in communities like Cripple Creek, Goldfield, Bisbee, and Leadville, communities that were western yet urban. There they faced the rigors of a rugged climate, frontier scarcities, and ramshackle housing. But they relieved their hardships with their own brand of entertainment: rock-drilling contests that were to the miner what rodeos were to the cowboys, practical jokes, traveling show troupes, and social gatherings.
Author: Donald L. Hardesty
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Get Book
Book Description
Mining played a prominent role in the shaping and settling of the American West in the nineteenth century. Following the discovery of the famous Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, mining became increasingly industrialized, changing mining technology, society, and culture throughout the world. In the wake of these changes Nevada became an important mining region, with new people and technologies further altering the ways mining was pursued and miners interacted. Historical archaeology offers a research strategy for understanding mining and miners that integrates three independent sources of information about the past: physical remains, documents, and oral testimony. Mining Archaeology in the American West explores mining culture and practices through the microcosm of Nevada’s mining frontier. The history of mining technology, the social and cultural history of miners and mining societies, and the landscapes and environments of mining are topics examined in this multifocus research. In this updated and expanded edition of the seminal work on mining in Nevada, Donald Hardesty brings scholarship up to the present with important new research and insights into how people, technology, culture, architecture, and landscape changed during this period of mining history.
Author: Vardis Fisher
Publisher: Caxton Press
ISBN: 9780870040436
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 492
Get Book
Book Description
Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press Vardis Fisher and Opal Laurel Holmes bring together the stories of all of the remarkable men and women and all of the violent contrasts that made up one of the most entrhalling chapters in American history. Fisher, a respected scholar and versatile creative writer, devoted three years to the writing of this book.
Author: Michael Davis
Publisher: Enthusiast Books
ISBN: 9781583882825
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book
Book Description
Western Kentucky represented, in the time period covered by this book from the 1950s-80s, the bulk of coal mining in North America. Attributed to in John Prine’s famous song “Paradise,” Muhlenberg County is home to Kentucky's first commercial coal mine named the McLean Drift Bank. At one point, Muhlenberg County produced more coal than any county, state, or country as the largest producer of coal in the world. The massive mining machines documented herein show how this was possible through vintage and colorful photography. Production statistics are detailed for each piece of equipment, laced with historical facts and stories about the mines and mining companies that operated them. Includes a rare look at some of the old draglines that have been re-started and are digging in Western Kentucky once again thanks to new technology.
