A could-have-been historian’s notes. And so forth.
Rickard examined the mining practices of most of the major mines on the range, with the significant exceptions of the Calumet and Tamarack mines, where non-employee mining engineers were not welcome. For the mines he did examine, he highlighted what they did best, the roots of their technical preferences, and any glaring weaknesses he identified in their processes. He then did the same for the associated mills (including, interestingly, the C&H mill on Torch Lake). There’s a wealth of technical detail, and enough economic detail that one could estimate the entire cost of production for many of the mines.
Filed under
Bookworm Alley
History Scrapbook
Mitten State
Posted on
December 14th 2011
Roughly fifty maps of towns and mining locations on the Keweenaw peninsula, with only a minimal amount of text. These are sort of idealized maps, actually, showing each town/mine’s main features but not tied to specific dates. So (according to the author/mapmaker) some of the maps include structures which not only are no longer there but which never coexisted on the specific site. The result is that each map locates both current (2009) buildings and construction which was dismantled 70 years ago.
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Bookworm Alley
History Scrapbook
Mitten State
Posted on
December 12th 2011
This is, I imagine, the sort of book Arcadia’s business model intends: A well thought out picture book whose captions actually tell a coherent story. Nicely done.
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Bookworm Alley
History Scrapbook
Mitten State
Posted on
October 29th 2011
The 11/29/1940 Dallas Evening News (my thanks to GenealogyBank) tells me that R.H. Johnson’s military career mostly occurred during WWI, as an enlisted man in Artillery, which was before his West Point stint. At the USMA he was quite active in sports, including baseball; he captained the basketball team. Johnson subsequently served for a few years as a ROTC instructor in the NYC area before resigning his commission to enter the banking business on Wall Street. In 1929 he founded R.H. Johnson & Company, and in 1947 began Franklin Investments.
Filed under
Baseball CrankSpace
History Scrapbook
Posted on
April 18th 2011
Covers pretty much the same territory as Gary Roberts’ book on Holliday, but not as well, and this book is nowhere near so balanced. Prose is, at best, workmanlike.
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Bookworm Alley
History Scrapbook
Posted on
September 12th 2010
I find from Google that the “last touches” wording is from the federal law establishing the (prospective) state’s boundary as a result of the Toledo War, and that it is repeated early in the 1850 State Constitution. (I also see that current Michigan AG Mike Cox quoted the phrase in a 2004 opinion.) It looks like Houghton didn’t expect a fully literal interpretation of the boundary to stand. He was right in that Michigan evidently doesn’t “own” the last few miles of Minnesota’s North Shore, nor the aforesaid rocky islands–but Isle Royale remains part of Michigan, regardless of its proximity to Minnesota. And Ontario.
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History Scrapbook
Mitten State
Posted on
September 7th 2010
An extremely well-researched and well-written book about the fur trading posts in the continental United States west of the Mississippi River. More or less incidental to that accomplishment, Robertson gives us a fine history of the firms headed by John Jacob Astor and generations of the Chouteau family, and of the folks who attempted to compete with them in the beaver and buffalo hide trades.
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Bookworm Alley
History Scrapbook
Posted on
July 9th 2010
This is an interesting book that mixes high-level overview, illustrative anecdotes, and technological detail surprisingly well. At heart this is a high-level survey of the development and decline of the North American iron industry from its Virginia origins through its eclipse by Big Steel as the twentieth century began. But there’s a concurrent technical essay about the development–and shortcomings–of the mastery of various technologies over the course of the period. Both stories are told with examples from the historical record which demonstrate the analytical points the author is making. One important point Gordon makes is that the charcoal iron industry’s survival into the steel era was not the result of ignorance, and that American ironworkers generally kept up to date on current technology.
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Bookworm Alley
History Scrapbook
Posted on
August 26th 2009
Nonetheless: This is an awful book. At the very least, it needed an editor; a better solution would have been a competent co-author. Much of the argument is poorly-sourced assertion. The author spends far too much time raving about conspiracies and coverups. And hiding your arguments in disorderly, rant-prone, and opaque prose is an unlikely strategy for convincing anyone of your righteousness.
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Bookworm Alley
History Scrapbook
Mitten State
Posted on
August 11th 2009
One chapter is devoted to the gunfight, its context, and its aftermath. Faulk basically wishes a plague on all the participants; all are, in his view, pretty bad characters and it’s best that they mostly abandoned the town after the shootout. Some of his facts differ from the currently accepted narrative–likely because four subsequent decades of research have clarified some specifics–but on the whole his portrayal of the event rings true.
Filed under
Bookworm Alley
History Scrapbook
Posted on
July 31st 2009
