The Role of Fraternal Organisation in Migration and Informal Labour Organisations in Mining Communities: Cornwall, the Keweenaw, and California Compared

During the second half of the nineteenth century fraternal and benevolent associations of numerous descriptions grew and prospered in mining communities everywhere. They played an important, but neglected role, in assisting transatlantic migration and movement between mining districts as well as building social capital within emerging mining communities. They helped to build bridges between different ethnic communities, provided conduits between labour and management, and networked miners into the non-mining community. Their influence spread beyond the adult males that made up most of their membership to their wives and families and provided levels of social and economic support otherwise unobtainable at that time. Of course, the influence of these organisations could also be divisive where certain groups or religions were excluded and they may have worked to exacerbate, as much as ameliorate, the problems of community development. This paper will examine some of these issues by looking particularly at the role of Freemasonry and Oddfellowry in Cornwall, Calumet, and Nevada City between 1860 and 1900. Work on fraternity in the Keweenaw was undertaken in Houghton some years ago with a grant from the Copper Country Archive and has since been continued by privately funded research in California and other Western mining states. Some British aspects of this research can be found in my article on mining industrial relations in Labour History Review April 2006

Factors influencing metal price selection in mining feasibility studies

The mineral price assigned in mining project design is critical to determining the economic feasibility of a project. Nevertheless, although it is not difficult to find literature about market metal prices, it is much more complicated to achieve a specific methodology for calculating the value or which justifications are appropriate to include. This study presents an analysis of various methods for selecting metal prices and investigates the mechanisms and motives underlying price selections. The results describe various attitudes adopted by the designers of mining investment projects, and how the price can be determined not just by means of forecasting but also by consideration of other relevant parameters.

A complete treatise on electricity, in theory and practice : with original experiments /

Mode of access: Internet.

A study of the household use of electricity in St. Catharines, Ontario.

Cover title.

Mining magazine; an international monthly review of current progress in mining and metallurgy.

Mode of access: Internet.

Electricity in theory and practice;

Mode of access: Internet.

Electricity in gases,

Bibliographical foot-notes.

Looking forward : the phenomenal progress of electricity in 1912 /

Frontispiece and plates facing p. 25, 106, 155, 210 and 310.

Occupational employment in mining, construction, finance, real estate, personal services, and business services, West Virginia, 1984 /

Bibliography: p. 89.

Extended workdays in mining and other industries : a review of the literature /

Includes bibliographical references.

Electricity in surgery.

Mode of access: Internet.