The Copper Strike of 1968-1969

In May of 1968, workers at the Kingston mine, a branch of the Calumet Division of Universal Oil Products walked off the site in protest of a safety issue involving a man-car. Knowing their contracts were due for negotiation in just a few months, the workers quickly returned, only to find themselves striking yet again just three months later, when negotiations failed. Requesting pay equal to that of the workers at the nearby White Pine mine was unacceptable to the heads of Universal Oil, the corporation which bought the long running Calumet & Hecla just a year earlier in 1968. The strike would last for nine months, ending in a total shutdown of all mining operations on the Keweenaw Peninsula, and bring an economic hardship to the area that would take decades to recover from. The Copper Strike of 1968-1969 is often forgotten, though extremely important to the story of the copper industry in Michigan, as well as to the United States. This paper has not yet been submitted.

A Balance Shifted: The Unionization of Michigan’s Lake Copper District, 1935-1955

Three decades after the unsuccessful 1913-1914 strike at the Lake District copper mines of Michigan, workers organized as Local 584 of the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (Mine Mill) signed a union contract with Calumet & Hecla Consolidated Copper Company. C & H was the last and most significant of the region’s three major copper mining companies to unionize during the three-year period from 1939 to 1942. This paper tells the untold history of the successful union drives in the Lake District’s copper mines, starting with Copper Range Company in 1939 and encompassing the subsequent unionizations of Quincy Mining Company and finally C & H. The paper develops thematic connections between the 1913-1914, including Mine Mill’s lineage to the Western Federation of Miners, parallel ethnic dimensions, and, most significantly, the contrasting role of state authority between the two time periods. The paper carries the Lake District’s labor history forward to 1955 to include United Steelworkers’ successful challenge to Mine Mill in 1950 and the strike of 1955. This history also incorporates source material from the papers of highly influential union organizer and representative Eugene Saari, material which to date has not been integrated into the labor history of the region. This paper has not yet been submitted.

STABILITY ANALYSIS AND HAZARD ASSESSMENT OF THE NORTHERN SLOPES OF SAN VICENTE VOLCANO IN CENTRAL EL SALVADOR

Geologic hazards affect the lives of millions of people worldwide every year. El Salvador is a country that is regularly affected by natural disasters, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tropical storms. Additionally, rainfall-induced landslides and debris flows are a major threat to the livelihood of thousands. The San Vicente Volcano in central El Salvador has a recurring and destructive pattern of landslides and debris flows occurring on the northern slopes of the volcano. In recent memory there have been at least seven major destructive debris flows on San Vicente volcano. Despite this problem, there has been no known attempt to study the inherent stability of these volcanic slopes and to determine the thresholds of rainfall that might lead to slope instability. This thesis explores this issue and outlines a suggested method for predicting the likelihood of slope instability during intense rainfall events. The material properties obtained from a field campaign and laboratory testing were used for a 2-D slope stability analysis on a recent landslide on San Vicente volcano. This analysis confirmed that the surface materials of the volcano are highly permeable and have very low shear strength and provided insight into the groundwater table behavior during a rainstorm. The biggest factors on the stability of the slopes were found to be slope geometry, rainfall totals and initial groundwater table location. Using the results from this analysis a stability chart was created that took into account these main factors and provided an estimate of the stability of a slope in various rainfall scenarios. This chart could be used by local authorities in the event of a known extreme rainfall event to help make decisions regarding possible evacuation. Recommendations are given to improve the methodology for future application in other areas as well as in central El Salvador.

HOG CHAINS AND MARK TWAINS: A STUDY OF LABOR HISTORY, ARCHAEOLOGY, AND INDUSTRIAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE STEAMBOAT ERA OF THE MONONGAHELA VALLEY 1811-1950

This dissertation examines a unique working class in the United States, the men and women who worked on the steamboats from the Industrial Revolution until the demise of steam-powered boats in the mid-20th century. The steamboat was the beginning of a technological system that was developed in America and used in such great numbers that it made the rapid population of the Trans-Appalachian West possible. The steamboat was forever romanticized by images of the antebellum South or the quick wit of Samuel Clemens and his sentimental book, Life on the Mississippi. The imagination swirls with thoughts of boats, bleach white, slowly churning the calm waters of some Spanish moss covered river. The reality of the boats and the experience of those who worked on them has been lost in this nostalgic vision. This research details the history of the western steamboat in the Monongahela Valley, the birthplace of the commercial steamboat industry. The first part of this dissertation examines the literature of authors in the field of labor history and Industrial Archaeology to place this work into the larger context of published literature. The second builds a framework for understanding the various eras that the steamboat went through both in terms of technological change, but also the change the workers experienced as their identity as a working class was being shaped. The third part details the excavations of two steamboat captains houses, those of Captain James Gormley and Captain Michael A. Cox. Both men represented a time in which the steamboat was in an era of transition. Excavations at their homes yield clues to their class status and how integrated they were in the local community. The fourth part of this study documents the oral histories of steamboat workers, both men and women, and their experience on the boats and on the river. Their rapidly declining population of those who lived and worked on the boats gives urgency for their lives to be documented. Finally, this study concludes with a synthesis of how worker identity solidified in the face of technological, socio-economic, and ideological change especially during their push for unionization and the introduction of the diesel towboat.