GOOD EARTH Exploring Missouri’s Old Lead Belt by Benjamin Hoste SPRING 2014 COMMITTEE David Rees, Chair Joe Johnson Earnest Perry, Ph.D. ! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost I would like to thank my committee chair and academic advisor David Rees for his guidance and support throughout this project as well as during my time at the University of Missouri, committee member Joe Johnson for his unwavering support of my work, insightful feedback, and technical assistance, and committee member Dr. Earnest Perry for his invaluable assistance in formulating my proposal and completing the research component of this project. Furthermore, I would like to thank the following Missouri faculty and staff for sharing their knowledge and experience with me as well as their support and guidance over the past couple years: Jackie Bell, Jim Curley, Dr. Keith Greenwood, Brian Kratzer, Daryl Moen, Martha Pickens, Julia Robinson, Rick Shaw, Scott Swafford, and Edson Tandoc. Many thanks to fellow photographers and graduate students Naveen Mahadevan, Stuart Palley, and Matthew Rahner for their feedback and friendship and to Marysa Greenawalt for her love and support. Most of all I would like to thank my mother, Mary Gauvain, for her invaluable guidance when it came to the research component of this project and my father, Jim Hoste, for his support and continued inspiration on how to see the world. ! ii! GOOD EARTH: EXPLORING MISSOURI’S OLD LEAD BELT Benjamin Hoste David Rees, Committee Chair ABSTRACT Unstructured in-depth interviews were used to explore the lasting influences the lead mining industry and its legacy have had on community perceptions and identity within Missouri’s Old Lead Belt. The Old Lead Belt is a mining subdistrict within the Southeast Missouri Lead District containing the cities of Bonne Terre, Desloge, Leadington, Leadwood, and Park Hills in which large scale, industrial lead mining occurred between 1864 and 1972. Bourdieu’s theory of habitus, as outlined by Silviu Serban (2011) and others, was used as a theoretical foundation to guide the main research questions as well as the project’s methodology. SUMMARY OF PROFESSIONAL SKILLS COMPONENT A portfolio of photographs exploring the landscape and communities of the Old Lead Belt, forever altered by the 108-year history of lead mining in the area. ! ! iii! TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................... ii ABSTRACT ............................................. iii CHAPTER 1. CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...................... 1 2. CHAPTER TWO: FIELD NOTES ........................ 7 3. CHAPTER THREE: EVALUATION ...................... 44 4. CHAPTER FOUR: PHYSICAL EVIDENCE ................. 49 5. CHAPTER FIVE: ANALYSIS .......................... 50 APPENDIX 1. PROJECT PROPOSAL ............................... 105 2. MODIFICATIONS TO PROPOSAL ...................... 138 3. IRB APPLICATION a. Interview Guide .................................. 139 b. Participant Solicitation Letter ......................... 141 c. Participant Consent Form ........................... 143 d. IRB Application ................................. 144 e. IRB Application Follow Up Questions ................... 151 f. IRB Approval ................................... 152 4. META-DATA FOR PHOTOGRAPHS ..................... 153 ! iv Chapter One: Introduction Photography is a way for me to explore and learn about the world. I am most intrigued by documentary, nonfiction images–photographs that transport me to distant lands and foreign situations, and expose me to unique perspectives that lead me to reflect on my life and our world. Similarly, as a photographer I am most interested in producing documentary, nonfiction work that is driven more by a curiosity about the world than a desire to have a photograph as an end result. In other words, I see photography as a medium for exploring the world and communicating that exploration to others. In fact, the physical act of photographing enables me to seek out the world in unique ways. “The camera is my entrance-ticket. It is also my way of clarifying (for myself) what is going on. Finally, it is a way of passing on this new-found experience to others.”1 To be photographed is an experience, to make a photograph is an experience, and to see a photograph is an experience. Photographs are powerful–they can communicate truths, moments, ideas, emotions, and feelings. In many ways my experience at the Missouri Photo Workshop, a weeklong professional photojournalism workshop founded by Clif and Vi Edom in 1949 and run by the Missouri School of Journalism, epitomizes this perspective on photography. As a young photographer with little to no story telling experience, I was completely taken aback in the fall of 2010 in Macon, Mo. Somehow, through a recommendation and some luck, I had found my way into the 62nd Missouri Photo Workshop, and I knew instantly that I was in way over my head. Although I had prior experience as a photographer, I had not produced anything like what I was expected to produce at the workshop. As the week !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1!Hurn, D., Jay, B. (2007). On being a photographer: A practical guide. Anacortes, WA: Lenswork. p 62. ! 1 progressed my excitement turned into worry, that then became a concern, and finally I experienced fear. What was I doing here? I nearly lost all hope midway through the week. But then, with the guidance of the workshop’s amazing faculty and directors, it all came together. I think the turning point was when I took a step back and started thinking less about the pictures I was going to have at the end of the workshop and started thinking more about the act of photographing a story itself. The key, it seems, was to use the camera as a tool to explore a story, to investigate a story in a way that both satisfied my curiosity and communicated some truth about it, and trust that good pictures would follow. My experience at the workshop was so powerful that I decided to come to Missouri for graduate school. And, in a way, my experience in graduate school has mirrored my experience at the workshop. At first I was completely focused on the coursework, which is important but not the whole story. Over time, I realized that I needed to take that step back and learn to revel in the act of photography and what it means to me. In searching for a master’s project I decided to focus on Missouri, a place I had never been to before coming to the workshop and which I am still learning about. I wanted to do work that explored an area or aspect of my home for the past two years. In looking into events and topics that have defined the region, I stumbled across Missouri’s nearly 300-year history of lead mining. As I learned more about this heritage, I could not help but draw parallels between the Southeast Missouri Lead District and other communities that have been defined by practices that involve extracting resources from ! 2 the earth, such as coal mining in Appalachia, the lumber industry in the Pacific Northwest, and fracking for oil in North Dakota and elsewhere. I wondered how three hundred years of lead mining in Missouri has shaped the communities and individuals who live in the Southeast Missouri Lead District. How do generations of families with either direct or indirect ties to lead mining feel about lead today? And what do these communities and people look like? My goal is to understand this slice of Missouri and the various things it has to tell us about the place and the people who live there and their future. In settling on the scope of this project I chose to focus on the subdistrict of the Southeast Missouri Lead District known as the Old Lead Belt. Lead mining occurred in this area from 1864 through 1972 and it was the first lead mining in Missouri to incorporate modern day industrial mining practices that have come to set the standard for all future lead mining. The decision to focus on this subdistrict and the five small towns within it–Bonne Terre, Desloge, Lead Wood, Leadington, and Park Hills–was one of both interest and necessity. Through my preliminary research it seemed unlikely that the Doe Run Company, the present day corporation that owns and operates the entire lead mining industry in Missouri, would grant access to their ongoing operations given the current political climate and ongoing litigation regarding lead mining in Missouri. In contacting Doe Run, as well as speaking with related parties, this suspicion was actualized early in my fieldwork. Furthermore, the early surface level lead mining that occurred in Missouri prior to the formation of the United States in areas such as Ste. Genevieve and Potosi is simply too distant in the past and too small in scale to offer viable photographic and research opportunities. Mining in the Old Lead Belt, on the other hand, was industrial in ! 3 scale and ended only a few decades ago, offering the unique opportunity to explore how a community once solely defined by a single industry changes in the wake of that industry’s natural decline and disappearance from the community. In setting the scope of this project in this way I was afforded the opportunity to engage with primary source materials, individuals that once worked in the mines in the Old Lead Belt, and the present day community shaped by the legacy of mining and populated by the descendants of lead miners along with new residents that have moved to the area in recent decades. Professional Skills Component For the professional skills component of my master’s project I spent thirteen weeks from September 1 through December 1 photographically documenting both the communities and environment within the area of the Southeast Missouri Lead District known as the Old Lead Belt. This photographic project includes all aspects of the community today including the remains of the lead mining industry, the surrounding environment, and the people that form these communities whose lives have been inextricably influenced by the 108-year history of lead mining in the area.