Jeffrey T. Manuel
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694297
- eISBN:
- 9781452952482
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694297.003.0005
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Business History
Chapter five describes how historical memory became a battleground on the postwar Iron Range. Amid conflict over the future direction of the Iron Range's economy, the region turned to heritage ...
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Chapter five describes how historical memory became a battleground on the postwar Iron Range. Amid conflict over the future direction of the Iron Range's economy, the region turned to heritage tourism. The centerpiece of heritage tourism on the Iron Range was a museum and entertainment complex known as Ironworld. Ironworld was a microcosm of the larger problems of historical memory on the Iron Range and in other declining industrial regions, where residents were torn between a desire to honor the industrial past and the challenge of moving into a post-industrial future.Less
Chapter five describes how historical memory became a battleground on the postwar Iron Range. Amid conflict over the future direction of the Iron Range's economy, the region turned to heritage tourism. The centerpiece of heritage tourism on the Iron Range was a museum and entertainment complex known as Ironworld. Ironworld was a microcosm of the larger problems of historical memory on the Iron Range and in other declining industrial regions, where residents were torn between a desire to honor the industrial past and the challenge of moving into a post-industrial future.
Jeffrey T. Manuel
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694297
- eISBN:
- 9781452952482
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694297.003.0002
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Business History
Chapter two continues taconite's story into the mid-1960s when Minnesota added a taconite amendment to the state constitution. The amendment prevented taconite taxes from rising disproportionately to ...
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Chapter two continues taconite's story into the mid-1960s when Minnesota added a taconite amendment to the state constitution. The amendment prevented taconite taxes from rising disproportionately to other business taxes. The amendment dispute cleaved Minnesota's DFL Party throughout the first half of the 1960s. Eventually, the forces in favor of the amendment won, but it set the stage for future arguments against corporate taxation that continue today. Also woven throughout this chapter are examples of decline on the Iron Range during the late 1950s and early 1960s.Less
Chapter two continues taconite's story into the mid-1960s when Minnesota added a taconite amendment to the state constitution. The amendment prevented taconite taxes from rising disproportionately to other business taxes. The amendment dispute cleaved Minnesota's DFL Party throughout the first half of the 1960s. Eventually, the forces in favor of the amendment won, but it set the stage for future arguments against corporate taxation that continue today. Also woven throughout this chapter are examples of decline on the Iron Range during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Jeffrey T. Manuel
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694297
- eISBN:
- 9781452952482
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694297.003.0003
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Business History
Chapter three describes the major pollution lawsuit that affected the mining region, Reserve Mining Company v. USA. I argue that the trial must be understood within the context of taconite's ...
More
Chapter three describes the major pollution lawsuit that affected the mining region, Reserve Mining Company v. USA. I argue that the trial must be understood within the context of taconite's development as a technological fix for decline on the Iron Range. Taconite's technological and engineering feats were only possible because they shifted costs onto the environment. When those costs could no longer be ignored—as when spreading taconite tailings began discoloring Lake Superior—people reassessed industrial development. For many miners, the case was also their first glimpse of the new environmental movement that would challenge their livelihood.Less
Chapter three describes the major pollution lawsuit that affected the mining region, Reserve Mining Company v. USA. I argue that the trial must be understood within the context of taconite's development as a technological fix for decline on the Iron Range. Taconite's technological and engineering feats were only possible because they shifted costs onto the environment. When those costs could no longer be ignored—as when spreading taconite tailings began discoloring Lake Superior—people reassessed industrial development. For many miners, the case was also their first glimpse of the new environmental movement that would challenge their livelihood.
Jeffrey T. Manuel
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694297
- eISBN:
- 9781452952482
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694297.001.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Business History
Taconite Dreams describes a century-long struggle to preserve the iron ore mining in Minnesota's Iron Range region. Once among the world's richest iron ore mining districts, the Iron Range propelled ...
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Taconite Dreams describes a century-long struggle to preserve the iron ore mining in Minnesota's Iron Range region. Once among the world's richest iron ore mining districts, the Iron Range propelled the U. S. steel industry in the late nineteenth century. Yet in the twentieth century the Iron Range struggled in the face of deeply entrenched challenges from globalization, automation, and depletion. Taconite Dreams describes the key moments in the Iron Range's modern history, including the development of taconite mining as a technological fix for declining hematite mines, the 1964 taconite amendment to Minnesota's constitution, the bruising federal pollution lawsuit that closed a taconite plant, the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board's economic development policy, and battles over mining's memory and legacy. Taconite Dreams offers the first critical history of this important yet largely overlooked mining region during the twentieth century.Less
Taconite Dreams describes a century-long struggle to preserve the iron ore mining in Minnesota's Iron Range region. Once among the world's richest iron ore mining districts, the Iron Range propelled the U. S. steel industry in the late nineteenth century. Yet in the twentieth century the Iron Range struggled in the face of deeply entrenched challenges from globalization, automation, and depletion. Taconite Dreams describes the key moments in the Iron Range's modern history, including the development of taconite mining as a technological fix for declining hematite mines, the 1964 taconite amendment to Minnesota's constitution, the bruising federal pollution lawsuit that closed a taconite plant, the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board's economic development policy, and battles over mining's memory and legacy. Taconite Dreams offers the first critical history of this important yet largely overlooked mining region during the twentieth century.
Jeffrey T. Manuel
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694297
- eISBN:
- 9781452952482
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694297.003.0006
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Business History
The conclusion offers a brief overview of the Iron Range in the years since 2000. The region's mines are now tied to a volatile global commodities market and uncertainty is perhaps the only ...
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The conclusion offers a brief overview of the Iron Range in the years since 2000. The region's mines are now tied to a volatile global commodities market and uncertainty is perhaps the only reasonable prediction for the region's future. New forms of mining, including copper-nickel deposits, have the potential to create lucrative new mining ventures but also may lead to more extensive environmental harm. New mining has also resurrected old debates about the balance between mining jobs, the north woods environment, and the region's industrial culture.Less
The conclusion offers a brief overview of the Iron Range in the years since 2000. The region's mines are now tied to a volatile global commodities market and uncertainty is perhaps the only reasonable prediction for the region's future. New forms of mining, including copper-nickel deposits, have the potential to create lucrative new mining ventures but also may lead to more extensive environmental harm. New mining has also resurrected old debates about the balance between mining jobs, the north woods environment, and the region's industrial culture.
Jeffrey T. Manuel
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694297
- eISBN:
- 9781452952482
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694297.003.0004
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Business History
Chapter four describes the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board and economic development policy on the Iron Range. The IRRRB was formed in the 1940s to diversify the Iron Range's economy and ...
More
Chapter four describes the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board and economic development policy on the Iron Range. The IRRRB was formed in the 1940s to diversify the Iron Range's economy and ensure that tax money from mining was spent on long-term investments. Yet the IRRRB was enmeshed in controversy from its birth. In the late 1950s and 1960s it became a model for a short-lived national agency designed to support declining regions: the Area Redevelopment Administration (ARA). This brief federal program was soon abandoned. The IRRRB has also struggled to develop new industries on the Iron Range, often coming under fire for well-publicized boondoggles.Less
Chapter four describes the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board and economic development policy on the Iron Range. The IRRRB was formed in the 1940s to diversify the Iron Range's economy and ensure that tax money from mining was spent on long-term investments. Yet the IRRRB was enmeshed in controversy from its birth. In the late 1950s and 1960s it became a model for a short-lived national agency designed to support declining regions: the Area Redevelopment Administration (ARA). This brief federal program was soon abandoned. The IRRRB has also struggled to develop new industries on the Iron Range, often coming under fire for well-publicized boondoggles.
Jeffrey T. Manuel
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694297
- eISBN:
- 9781452952482
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694297.003.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Business History
Chapter one describes how taconite technology was offered as a painless fix for the declining region in the mid-twentieth century. Focusing on engineer Edward W. Davis, known as “Mr. Taconite,” this ...
More
Chapter one describes how taconite technology was offered as a painless fix for the declining region in the mid-twentieth century. Focusing on engineer Edward W. Davis, known as “Mr. Taconite,” this chapter describes the decades of work required to perfect low-grade taconite ore milling and shift the iron ore industry from older hematite mines to new taconite mines, which required work in politics and marketing as well as engineering.Less
Chapter one describes how taconite technology was offered as a painless fix for the declining region in the mid-twentieth century. Focusing on engineer Edward W. Davis, known as “Mr. Taconite,” this chapter describes the decades of work required to perfect low-grade taconite ore milling and shift the iron ore industry from older hematite mines to new taconite mines, which required work in politics and marketing as well as engineering.
Hjalmar Fors
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226194998
- eISBN:
- 9780226195049
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226195049.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This is a book about how the modern notion of materiality was established during the period c. 1680-1760. It studies what natural philosophers engaged in chemistry and mineralogy said about phenomena ...
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This is a book about how the modern notion of materiality was established during the period c. 1680-1760. It studies what natural philosophers engaged in chemistry and mineralogy said about phenomena such as witchcraft, trolls and subtle matters, and relates this discourse to their innovations in matter theory. In this way it takes the debate about Enlightenment, which has mostly been confined to fields such as the history of philosophy, theology and physics, into a new arena. It shows how alchemists, chemists, mineralogists, assayers and mining officials contributed to enlightenment discourse about matter by defining some objects as natural and others as out of the ordinary and probably non-existant. It pins an important epistemological change in European culture to the emerging notion that metals should be considered elemental substances, or basic building blocks of matter. It also shows the importance of circulation between different regions and social groups for the production of knowledge about nature. Finally, it introduces one of the most productive contact zones with regards to chymistry, mineralogy and mining knowledge in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe: the Bureau of Mines (Bergskollegium) of the Swedish state. Its focus on the Bureau’s role in transnational knowledge exchanges opens up new perspectives on the relationship between science and the central philosophical debates of the late seventeenth- and eighteenth century.Less
This is a book about how the modern notion of materiality was established during the period c. 1680-1760. It studies what natural philosophers engaged in chemistry and mineralogy said about phenomena such as witchcraft, trolls and subtle matters, and relates this discourse to their innovations in matter theory. In this way it takes the debate about Enlightenment, which has mostly been confined to fields such as the history of philosophy, theology and physics, into a new arena. It shows how alchemists, chemists, mineralogists, assayers and mining officials contributed to enlightenment discourse about matter by defining some objects as natural and others as out of the ordinary and probably non-existant. It pins an important epistemological change in European culture to the emerging notion that metals should be considered elemental substances, or basic building blocks of matter. It also shows the importance of circulation between different regions and social groups for the production of knowledge about nature. Finally, it introduces one of the most productive contact zones with regards to chymistry, mineralogy and mining knowledge in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe: the Bureau of Mines (Bergskollegium) of the Swedish state. Its focus on the Bureau’s role in transnational knowledge exchanges opens up new perspectives on the relationship between science and the central philosophical debates of the late seventeenth- and eighteenth century.