Cradle to Grave

Abstract

© 1991 by Larry Lankton. All rights reserved. Concentrating on technology, economics, labor, and social history, this book documents the full life cycle of one of America's great mineral ranges from the 1840s to the 1960s. The book examines the workers' world underground, but is equally concerned with the mining communities on the surface. For the first fifty years of development, these mining communities remained remarkably harmonious, even while new, large companies obliterated traditional forms of organization and work within the industry. By 1890, however, the Lake Superior copper industry of upper Michigan started facing many challenges, including strong economic competition and a declining profit margin; growing worker dissatisfaction with both living and working conditions; and erosion of the companies' hegemony in a district they once controlled. The book traces technological changes within the mines and provides a thorough investigation of mine accidents and safety. It then focuses on social and labor history, dealing especially with the issue of how company paternalism exerted social control over the work force.

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