Seeing Underground: Maps, Models, and Mining Engineering in America

Preface

ix I hadn’t planned to study mining history, but the first time I saw an underground map, I was thunderstruck. The vivid colors, the tangle of angular lines, and the lack of background decoration suggested free jazz or abstract art, not an engineering document. I couldn’t figure out what it was really for—what question could this thing possibly be the answer to? The disconnect between the map’s weird beauty and its inscrutable utility captivated me as I searched for explanations, but few were forthcoming. A breakthrough occurred when I realized, after a long day of examining maps from a coal mine, that my hands weren’t dirty enough. The maps carried ordinary archival grime, but were too clean to have ever been underground . But if they weren’t used underground, I reasoned, they couldn’t have been used by the miners to find their way around down below. Instead, I realized, the maps must have lived in an office—in the engineer’s office. Why would engineers make maps that weren’t used in the places they represented? Inspired, I continued my search for answers, with new attention to the makers of these maps—mining engineers. I realized in time that there was a bigger story here, a story about the emergence of a technical profession and the tools those professionals used to conduct their work. Experienced miners in the nineteenth century had little use for underground maps. The proliferation of maps was closely associated with the mining engineers who made and used them. In fact, underground maps (and their three-dimensional equivalent models ), together with the practices, discourses, and material objects that were associated with their creation and use, formed a distinctive visual culture of mining engineering. Making and using maps and models to understand and attempt to control underground mines became a key part of what it meant to be a mining engineer, and set these engineers apart from experienced miners. Their professional training involved gaining facility with the visual culture of mining; as the profession rapidly evolved, so too did the maps and models. Indeed, the ability to wield the visual culture of preface x  Preface mining helped make the case for why mining engineers, and not experienced miners, should be preferred for the management of complex underground mines, a struggle that was all but won by the early decades of the twentieth century. Perhaps ironically, underground mines are difficult places in which to see, and visibility has long been a key ingredient of authority and control. Mines are profoundly dark, and a visitor’s lamp appears as only a suggestion of light against the blackness. These mines cannot be seen from the surface either, except for their hoisting and processing works, which give little sense of the vast tunnels and shafts radiating below. Only the visual culture of mining engineering can make them visible at a glance—a powerful trick indeed. An enormous number of people had a hand in shaping this project, from initial idea to the book in your hand. Bill Leslie and the late Hal Rothman were extraordinary advisers, challenging and encouraging me, helping open doors, and serving as role models , and I am enormously grateful to them. Peter Liebhold and Steve Lubar were instrumental in shaping my thinking about material culture in particular , as well as the history of technology, and that fresh way of looking at the sources had an important impact on the shape of my scholarship. My colleagues and administrators at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) have provided a supportive environment and, on several occasions , additional resources. The Paul A. and Francena Miller Fellowship, awarded by the College of Liberal Arts at RIT, supported final revisions, image permissions, and indexing. Historians who are interested in mining have helped me wrestle with these concepts and encouraged my work, especially Roger Burt, Richard Francaviglia, Chris Huggard, Ron James, Brian Leech, Catherine Mills, Jeremy Mouat, Fred Quivik, Terry Reynolds, Duane Smith, Bob Spude, and David Wolff. So many members of the Mining History Association have been terrific—generous with their knowledge and quick to share examples of maps and models—that the book is much richer as a result. Thank you to the late James Bohning, and to Eric Clements, Terry Humble, Johnny Johnsson, Mike Kaas, Peter Maciulaitis, Patrick Shea, Lee Swent, Karen Vendl, Mark Vendl, Bill Wahl, and numerous others. And how can I begin to thank the hardworking archivists! Michigan Technological University’s (MTU) Copper...