Miners, Loggers, Farmers, and Hunters: Investigating Labor in North American History

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karla J. Jageman.

The Johnson Lake Mine was an early twentieth century tungsten mine. It is located above 10,000 feet on the eastern slope of the South Snake Range in east-central Nevada in what is now Great Basin National Park. The mine was in operation from 1908 – 1950. It was owned and operated by Alfred "Timberline" Johnson, Thomas Dearden, Sr. and Joseph Dearden. This presentation will discuss the recorded historic features and artifacts with a brief synopsis of the capitalism of tungsten mining as it...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bruce O. Schneider.

In 1877 and 1878, Signal, Arizona boomed as the site of stamp mills along the Big Sandy River, processing silver ore from the nearby McCrackin Lode. While many proclaimed the McCrackin Lode would be Arizona’s Comstock, the boom quickly turned to bust. Signal was a remnant of its previous self during the 1880s, with its mills operating sporadically, and had truly become a ghost town by the 1890s. A challenge to understanding a settlement like Signal, and many ghost towns like it, is the complete...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tamara Holman.

Industrial landscapes can present a rather impersonal perspective due to their immense scale and emphasis upon technical processes.  Anthropological perspectives on technology nevertheless emphasize that all technological systems are socially constructed, drawing attention to the political and cultural considerations behind decision-making.  This paper utilizes a sociotechnical systems approach to investigate depression-era gold mining near Fairbanks, Alaska.  Attention is given to the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carrie A. Christman. Alex H. Mattana.

In 2013, Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group, Inc. (CCRG) investigated Minnesota's Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) camps as archaeological properties through funding from the Minnesota Historical Society and the Oversight Board of the Statewide Survey of Historical and Archaeological Sites (Board). The project included developing a comprehensive CCC camp database and documenting 10 Minnesota CCC camps to develop a methodology where Minnesota CCC camps could be evaluated and determined...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aaron Howe.

  Questions of labor and everyday life have been commonplace in archaeology.  At Coalwood, a cordwood camp that operated from 1901-1912 in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, these issues become especially important since labor experienced a dramatic transformation when the camp shifted from housing a large number of male laborers to being organized by individual households.  In this paper I use archaeological evidence to examine the social relations these laborers were engaged in that produced and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Victor.

Frontiers spaces are zones of meeting, interaction, dynamism, and change. Current research has sought to fight the image of frontier spaces as locations needing westward-moving civilization. Instead, examining frontier locales comparatively has proved to be a more effective approach. My doctoral research intends to contribute to the comparative approach in frontier archaeology by examining the way that the actions of frontier inhabitants (including negotiation, conflict, and cohesion) combined...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David R Carlson.

This paper will propose research to address the formation of ethnic identity and class consciousness as manifested in the material remains of workers and administrators in Washington State working camps. From the mid-1800s to the Great Depression, logging and mining camps and company towns formed a critical part of Washington’s and the Pacific Northwest’s economies. The archaeology of labor-related sites in this region and period has been historically under-researched, and the relationship...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dennis G. Griffin.

St. Matthew and Hall islands are located in the Bering Sea, far from the Alaskan mainland. First discovered by the Russians between 1764 and 1766, little attempt was made to occupy or utilize these islands until 1809 when a fur hunting expedition was sent to St. Matthew to over-winter. In 2012, the USF&WS sent an archaeologist to attempt to locate the site of this earlier Russian hunting camp with archaeological investigations focused on the testing of an earlier identified cabin site on St....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Chidester. Colene E. Knaub.

During Fall 2013 and Spring/Summer 2014, The Mannik & Smith Group conducted a Phase I archaeological survey of approximately 4,700 acres at the Camp Ravenna Joint Military Training Center in Portage County, Ohio. A total of 83 loci of historic activity predating the establishment of the military base in 1940 were recorded during the survey. Among these were three sites, all located along Sand Creek near the center of the modern base, that have been identified as early 20th-century maple sugar...