Hard Rock Epic

"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

The first complete authoritative guide to this controversial genre - a book sure to be the prime source of information for all fans of hard rock and heavy metal. It offers a remarkably wide range of facts and lore, with nearly 1500 entries on hard rock and heavy metal groups throughout the world.

First published in 2000. More than any other occupation, the long history of mining raises issues of class and dependency, of men, women, and children bound to permanent wage work or forced labor underground with small hope of securing an independent living. Like all popular images, perceptions of workers reveal as much about the nature of the dominant culture as about the complex experiences of workers themselves. The main purpose of this study is to document and analyze the development of working-class culture in the mining camps of the American West.

Centering on race and empire, this book revolutionizes the history of management. From slave management to U.S. managers functioning as transnational experts on managing diversity, it shows how "modern management" was made at the margins. Even in "scientific" management, playing races against each other remained a hallmark of managerial strategy.

Shows how the people of Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo pushed their cities to the top of the new urban hierarchy following the discovery of gold, marginalizing the indigenous peoples.

This comprehensive history of copper mining tells the full story of the industry that produces one of America's most important metals. The first inclusive account of U.S. copper in one volume, Copper for America relates the discovery and development of America's major copper-producing areas—the eastern United States, Tennessee, Michigan, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Alaska—from colonial times to the present. Starting with the predominance of New England and the Middle Atlantic states in the early nineteenth century, Copper for America traces the industry's migration to Michigan in mid-century and to Montana, Arizona, and other western states in the late nineteenth century. The book also examines the U.S. copper industry's decline in the twentieth century, studying the effects of strong competition from foreign copper industries and unforeseen changes in the national and global copper markets. An extensively documented chronicle of the rise and fall of individual mines, companies, and regions, Copper for America will prove an essential resource for economic and business historians, historians of technology and mining, and western historians.

The most dangerous work in North America at the turn of the century may have been extracting metal-bearing ore from mountains of hard rock. Beginning in the 1890s miners in the West worked through local unions both to prevent occupational hazards and to assure themselves of adequate health care. Among other projects, they planned, built, and governed more than twenty general hospitals throughout the Western United States and Canada. Workers' Health, Workers' Democracy is an engaging and richly documented account of this first attempt to create a democratically controlled health care system in North America. Focusing on the efforts of local unions, Derickson illuminates the broader history of the Western labor movement, the self-help traditions of rank-and-file workers, and the evolution of health care on the industrial frontier.

Over the past five hundred years, North Americans have increasingly turned to mining to produce many of their basic social and cultural objects. From cell phones to cars and roadways, metal pots to wall tile and even talcum powder, mineral-intensive products have become central to modern North American life. As this process has unfolded, mining has also indelibly shaped the natural world and North Americans’ relationship with it. Mountains have been honeycombed, rivers poisoned, and forests leveled. The effects of these environmental transformations have fallen unevenly across North American societies. Mining North America examines these developments. Drawing on the work of scholars from Mexico, the United States, and Canada, this book explores how mining has shaped North America over the last half millennium. It covers an array of minerals and geographies while seeking to draw mining into the core debates that animate North American environmental history generally. Taken together, the authors' contributions make a powerful case for the centrality of mining in forging North American environments and societies.