Mining

Mining has played a central role in American economic development.Coal, petroleum, natural gas, and uranium helped fuel industrialization. Iron, cement, copper, and other mine products were transformed into manufactured goods and buildings. Gold and silver have at times served as monetary metals. Mining and drilling contributed to the accumulation of numerous family fortunes, including those of the Guggenheims, Rockefellers, Hearsts, and Mellons. Historically, the growth of mining and the growth of the economy were strongly intertwined. Between 1880 and 1970, mining output was cyclical and the trend rate of growth for mining and real gross domestic product were similar. After 1970, however, mining output remained flat.

Iron, copper, and coal were originally mined from outcroppings at or near the earth's surface, and gold was panned in streams. As the demand for mine products increased, miners searched farther afield, dug deeper, and drilled in the ocean. The increased difficulty of tapping these resources led to increased capital investment and dramatic changes in mine technologies. Through the early 1920s, many mines depended on workers using hand tools and rule‐of‐thumb techniques, while mules and steam‐run hoists or pumps moved the materials to the surface. Increases in mine output required more mine workers, although technological improvements in blasting and machinery based on steam, compressed air, and then electricity contributed to steady growth in output per miner. After the 1920s the pace of technological change increased dramatically. New machinery dug, drilled, pumped, and clawed underground, and many mines began using large‐scale earth movers to strip the hillsides above the mine seams. Consequently, mine output rose nearly eight‐fold from the mid‐1920s to the 1970s despite a 40 percent reduction in the number of miners. The improvements in mining technology also cut accident rates in half. Mining remained dangerous, however, as evidenced by a series of mining disasters, including those in Mather, Pennsylvania (1928, 195 dead); Centralia, Illinois (1947, 111 dead); and West Frankfort, Illinois (1951, 119 dead).

Mining was often the leading edge of development in isolated areas. Gold rushes and silver rushes opened up California, Nevada, Arizona, and the Black Hills. When coal and copper mines opened in unpopulated and undeveloped areas, employers attracted workers from outside the region by establishing company towns with housing, stores, and schools. As the number of mines increased or other industries developed, company towns gave way to independent towns and cities. In some isolated regions, however, the population dwindled when the resource was depleted, leaving ghost towns behind.

During the employment booms in the early 1900s, mine owners competed fiercely for labor. Consequently, miners were often highly mobile; they earned high hourly wages to compensate for the dangers of mining, and employers hired an ethnically diverse workforce. Competition among numerous mines in combination with the miners’ use of collective action limited the employers’ abilities to exploit their monopoly power in company towns. Miners went on strike more frequently than other workers, and several violent episodes erupted in the mine fields. Mine workers often were leaders in the major union movements. The hardrock miner William D. (“Big Bill”) Haywood led the radical Industrial Workers of the World. The United Mine Workers of America, led by John L. Lewis, played a leading role in the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
See also Carnegie, Andrew; Hearst, William Randolph; Iron and Steel Industry; Labor Markets; Petroleum Industry; Rockefeller, John D.; Strikes and Industrial Conflict.

Bibliography

John Laslett, ed., The United Mine Workers of America: A Model of Industrial Solidarity?, 1996.
David Pearson , This Was Mining in the West, 1996.

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