The Ethnic Composition of Underground Labor in a Michigan Copper Township: A Quantitative Portrait, 1870-1920 By Stephen D. LeDuc Between 1870 and 1920, the U.S. copper workforce of Calumet Township, located industty underwent a tremendous expansion in the heart of Michigan's copper district. ~ in production. In 1871 the U.S. produced Through a systematic sampling of these cen­ 10 percent of the world's copper, by 1920 suses, this study tracks the changes of each it produced almost 60 percent. 1 A number major position-captain, foreman, boss, min­ of factors precipitated this rapid growth: in­ er, laborer, timberman, and trammer-within creased demand for copper by the nascent the underground workforce. This article electrical industry, the connection of large does not attempt to replace the depiction western mines to eastern capital and markets of a labor force by contemporary and sec­ via the railroads, and new drilling and blast­ ondary accounts, but rather to complement ing technologies. Waves of European immi­ that representation with detailed quantitative grants provided the necessary labor for the data gathered from the censuses. mines. The rapid expansion of the copper industiy and of immigration radically altered The Michigan Copper District the fa ce of work in U.S. copper mines and substantially shifted the ethnic composition Michigan's nineteenth-century copper of underground labor. industry developed on the Keweenaw Pen­ The general portrait of the changing insula, which juts into Lake Superior at the underground labor force put forward by state's northernmost reaches. On 1 February the literature depicts early copper miners 1841, Douglass Houghton, Michigan's first as coming from western Europe, primarily state geologist, reported the results of his England, Ireland, and Germany. But by the survey of the Keweenaw's copper deposits. 1890s and into the twentieth centuty, many His findings set off a speculative craze, one of these western Europeans were replaced of the first mining rushes in U.S. history. The by immigrants from Scandinavia, central Keweenaw Peninsula remained the country's and southeastern Europe, and, in the case dominant copper producing district until the of many western mines, Mexico. 2 The most opening of the mines at Butte, Montana, recently arrived immigrants frequently filled in the 1880s. Despite their declining share menial positions in the mine hierarchy, of domestic production, Michigan compa­ while the western Europeans who were not nies continued to produce ever-increasing replaced stayed on as miners or in manage­ amounts of copper into the mid-1910s. 5 By ment. 1920, production and employment in the Although this broad narrative of a chang­ Michigan district began its slow decline. ing workforce is undoubtedly accurate, no Calumet Township was dominated by the study has quantitatively examined these largest, most financially successful copper large trends in detaiP The following article mining company in Michigan. In 1871 tvvo employs the U.S. manuscript censuses of companies merged to form the Calumet and 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, and 1920 to follow Hecla Mining Company. Between 1870 and the ethnic transformations of the mining 1900, C&H produced over 50 percent of the 82 2005 Jl!fi ning HistOJJl j ournal Lake Superior • Copper .,RaUs •Dana • •Centra l Ph oenix Clin- •Kearsarge Mohawf<. • Seneca Keweenaw County AI lou ~ • Ahmeek • Wolverine N • Centennial _ _/"f Osceol a .• Calumet & Hecla /" .. .•Larium • LaSalle • + 0 / Keweenaw Bay -,, \~ " . • / orchLak(J, .. ( ~ .aumcy .J/ , . \7 ,/ ~-==--..... , ?> j ( . _,.~ ~ : ~:~: ~:r··( .-.r -/ Baltic. • Superior i Porlage1ke • Ch ampion -{';;. 0 <-' l'"f~ .~ . •( \. 0 3S 14 M1lss ~·- ; ' Houghton County J~ J '-""'-----'--1---'--'---'- _.._ J Map of the Keweenaw Pennisula, produced by the author. total Michigan copper output.6 By the late supervised all of the trammers on three or nineteenth century C&H, like the district as more levels of the mine.9 The 1910 and 1920 a whole, faced increased competition from censuses listed "foreman" and "assistant fore­ western producers and declining copper man" as occupations. The exact position of content in its mines.7 To survive, C&H pur­ these men in the mine hierarchy is unclear, chased shares of other mines, and, by 1909, however it is likely that they fit between the owned controlling interests in all of the min­ position of captain and boss. 10 ing companies in Calumet Township except Of all the positions in the mine hierar­ for the \'\folverine Mining Company.8 chy, that of miner changed the most clue to The underground workforce of C&H and increases in work speed and mechanization. all of its subsidiaries had a distinct hierarchy. Prior to air-powered drills, miners typically A head mining captain, also called a branch worked in three-man teams: one held a drill mining captain, oversaw each section or steel while the other two alternated blows branch of the mine. Under him was a shaft with eight-pound sledge hammers.11 In the captain, one for each shaft for a specific shift, early 1880s, the fi rst air-powered drill to and these shaft captains were in charge of gain wide acceptance and use underground the shift bosses, timber bosses, and trammer was brought into the district. 12 This approxi­ bosses. Underneath all of the captains and mately three-hundred-pound drill required bosses were the miners, timbermen, general two men to set it up, and though officially laborers, trammers, pumpmen, trackmen, its name was the Rand drill, it was appro­ and drill boys. A trammer boss, for example, priately du bbed the "two-man drill."13 In the Tbe Etbnic Composition of Underp,round labor in Cf Micbip,c111 Copper Township 83 Drilling a drift in tbe Calumet and Hecla Co11glomerate Nfine, c. 1928. (Micbigctn Tecbnologica/ University (MTU) Arcbiues, Nfining Engineering Pbotograpb Collection.) early 1910s, the "one-man drill" appeared in the mines. The water Leyner was the most common one-man drill. Lt weighed 150 pounds, and pressurized water flowed through the hollow drill bit to dampen the dust it generated. 11 The one-man drill increased the output per miner-thus increasing his earnings as well-and by December 1913, C&II and its subsidiaries used approximately four hundred of these new drills. 15 The absolute numbers of workers in other positions in the mines fluctuated between 1870 and 1920, but their duties changed relatively little compared to those of the miner. Timbermen continued to erect timber props to support the mine's roof. Laborers moved equipment, set up compressed air lines, sorted rock, and cleaned out slopes, among other assign­ ments. 16 Tra mmers fi lied cars with blasted rock from the face of the lode, and pushed that the increased pace posed higher risks. the cars along the drifts to the mine shaft. For For example, some miners complained they mining companies like C&II, the cost of us­ were no longer given time to pull down the ing electric motors to haul tramcars remained loose rock above their work areas. In July prohibitive, thus trammers continued to be 1913, the grumbling became a district-wide employed in substantial numbers. 17 strike that lasted until 12 April 1914, at the The introduction of pneumatic drills and end of which the workers had gained few other means to boost productivity were not concessions for their srruggle. 18 always well received by workers. Despite the higher wages made using a one-man The Changing Face of Labor drill, miners complained that the drill was dangerous because a partner was not always As the mining industry changed, so too present ro help set it up or to go for aid in did the ethnic composition of its under­ case of an accident. Additionally, the copper ground workforce. Contemporary accounts companies raised the height of the tramcars, broadly describe the successive waves of increasing the tramtTler's load from three to immigrants and their place in the mine's almost four tons, and companies also in­ hierarchy. A 1911 Immigration Commission creased the number of underground bosses report stated: to spur production. This emphasis on pro­ duction and speed led workers to complain 84 2005 Mining Hist01JI journal Immigration to the Michigan copper captains were Cornish.20 range started in 1844 with the arrival of the Cornishmen, who preceded In general, contemporary accounts depict other foreign races in the successful the early arrival of the Cornish and the Irish. operations of Lake Superior copper If they stayed in the district, these immigrants mines. The Cornishmen, having held onto the better mining jobs or became been miners before their immigra­ captains in the mine. The literature also in­ tion, carried on their work success­ dicates that many Cornish and, in particular, fully and in many cases made large the Irish, left the district for western mines fortunes. Their descendants are now and were replaced by Finns, Croatians, Ital­ living in the region and are as thor­ ians, and Poles. Though Rice noted that oughly Americanized as the native "there is really no division of the labor ac­ American. The Cornishmen were fol­ cording to nationality," his report does seem lowed by the Finns, who also have to indicate that certain ethnicities predomi­ made great progress in the district. nantly occupied certain positions. 2 1 They for the most part occupy labor­ ing posiUons, however, and have not A Quantitative Portrait been so successful as were the early Cornishmen. The other races, the AJthough contemporary accounts do sug­ Magyars, Scandinavians, North Ital­ gest general trends, the manuscript censuses ians, and Poles, which have been in allow the ethnic makeup of the underground the community only a few years, are workforce to be examined in great detail.