Industrial Landscapes: Culture-Nature-Memory
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Industrial landscapes

BLOGGING AT THE INTERSECTION OF
INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE 
AND  ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY

Mapping Mines, Water and Waste

4/3/2016

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I thought I would share a poster that I created for the 2016 American Society for Environmental History Conference. It was a challenging and fun experience putting my research into a 36'' x 43'' visual display.
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If you would like a high resolution copy, feel free to email me or comment below. 
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Erie/LTV/PolyMet Tailings Basin - Hoyt Lakes, MN

3/12/2016

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The Erie/LTV/PolyMet ore processing facility - (http://www.polymetmining.com/northmet-project/overview/)
Three of the largest human-caused environmental disasters in recent memory were the result of technological failures within mining systems: the Mount Polley disaster in British Columbia; the Gold King mine disaster in Colorado; and the Bento Rodrigues mine disaster in Brazil.
​Mining systems are composed of three main elements: human, material and environmental. Within mining systems, human actors rely on knowledge, expertise, and  material technologies to interact with ore bodies - and  in order for mining systems to successfully function, the human and material elements need to be adaptable to environmental changes. In the three environmental disasters listed above the mining systems failed, due to a mixture of negligence, technological malfunction, and environmental change.  

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Seeing the Mine for its Trees

2/13/2016

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"A picture is worth a thousand words", or in the case of this image - thousands of trees.     
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The picture that inspired the post, the timber yard of the Oliver Iron Mining Co. within its Leonidas open-pit mine, Eveleth, MN - circa 1915 (James Steel Collection, State Archives of Minnesota)
It has been over a month since my last blog post - I've been busy working on my dissertation proposal, and recently returned from a really fruitful trip to a handful of archives in Minnesota. I'm still processing much of what I gathered at the archives - (and will be doing so for a number of months) - but I have been dwelling on the image above and what it says about the mining industry: What cultural and environmental impacts of past mining have we forgotten? and What other hidden impacts of mining might we begin to reconsider? 

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John Longyear

2/8/2016

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This morning I came across this great collection of historical sketches of some prominent Michigan individuals at the turn of the 20th century. There are roughly 60 illustrations of folks from the U.P., including this image of the John Longyear - a Michigan native who was influential in shaping the landscapes of the Lake Superior Iron District.
   
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From, "A Gallery of Pen Sketches in Black and White of our Michigan Friends "as we see 'em." By: The Newspaper Cartoonists' Association - August 26, 1905.

You can easily scan the images by clicking on the second link from the top of the page that I've linked above. Enjoy!
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​Does anyone know of anything similar for Minnesota or Wisconsin?
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Old Hibbing and the move to Alice

1/28/2016

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I just found this neat little documentary about the forced abandonment of old Hibbing to allow for the expansion of Oliver Iron Mining Co.'s  Hull-Rust Mahoning open pit iron mine - circa 1920. I'm in the process of digging a little deeper into the region's past, and have just returned from the fantastic archives at the Minnesota Historical Society where I was able to locate many of the original affidavits. 
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Visualizing Mine-Accident Statistics 100 Years Later 

1/14/2016

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"Graphic Methods of Representing Mine-Accident Statistics" (Engineering & Mining Journal, Nov. 30, 1918)
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An Ode to Ore Dressing

11/29/2015

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The Bonita Flurospar Mine -  Grants, New Mexico

11/25/2015

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"Because the Bonita Mine was a Very Excellent Mine"
​-From Jones Vs. People, 118 Colo. 271, 272 (Colo. 1948)
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Looking from the footprint of the engine house towards the collapsed head frame and shaft of the Bonita Mine.
I recently had the opportunity to visit an abandoned fluorspar (or fluorite) mine in New Mexico.  The Bonita Mine is located in the Zuni Mountains, about 1.5 hours west of Albuquerque.  This area has been home to both extensive logging activity, as well as mining of both copper deposits and the aforementioned fluorspar.  

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Metallurgists and Chemists: Ghost Actors in Mining Heritage

10/11/2015

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As an archaeologist by trade, my labor is often focused on searching for things that we did not know existed.  Sometimes this investigative work produces the identification of isolated artifacts and complex sites, but more often than not these surveys produce negative results – meaning despite our best efforts, nothing was found.
Trying to uncover missing narratives of our past is one of the more enjoyable aspects of conducting historic research.  Similar to archaeology, an objective of conducting research is hoping to uncover a narrative that may have been forgotten, or in some cases intentionally hidden from the public.  However, like archaeology, this research, too, often fails to produce any smoking guns.

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Concerns Regarding the Abandoned Bell Island Iron Mine - Conception Bay, Newfoundland 

10/5/2015

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Inside the abandoned Bell Island Mine. Photo taken by Crystal Schiebel (https://flic.kr/p/7xiCRE)
A mine remains active long after it stops producing.  Scary stuff from Nova Scotia.  Really interesting write up from the CBC here.  
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    Author

    John Baeten is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Spatial Analysis of Environmental Change in the Department of Geography at Indiana University. He holds a PhD in Industrial Heritage and Archaeology from Michigan Technological University. His research aims to connect historical process to current environmental challenges, and to contextualize the environmental legacies of industrialization as meaningful cultural heritage.

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  • Draining the Swamp: A Story Map
  • Story Map: The Lake Superior Iron District
  • Mining Landscapes
  • Ghost Plants
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