Mine Safety, Occupational Health & Mineral Production Archive: 56 U.S. Bureau of Mines Studies of Western & Mexican Mining, 1930–1945

Bureau of Mines Archive

Archive

Federal mining safety and production archive from 1930 to 1945, documenting how the United States Bureau of Mines circulated technical knowledge about ventilation, occupational poisoning, accidents, explosives, mineral processing, and operating costs before comprehensive federal mine safety enforcement. The group spans the Bureau’s 1934 transfer from the Department of Commerce to the Department of the Interior and the 1941 authorization of federal coal mine inspections, which did not empower the agency to establish or enforce safety codes. Status of Safety in Mining reported accident frequency approximately three times, and accident severity approximately seven times, the averages for general American industry.

Archive comprising approximately 56 issues of the United States Bureau of Mines Information Circulars, Washington, D.C., 1930 to 1945. Original staple bound issues ranging from 7 to 60 pages, with most containing approximately 23 pages; illustrated with diagrams, tables, plans, and technical data. The principal occupational health reports include D. Harrington’s Mine Ventilation, Information Circular 7047, January 1939, which states that drilling, timbering, and shoveling filled underground workings with “fine dust (the most dangerous kind),” while blasting released smoke and poisonous gases into spaces that could reach 80 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit and 90 to 100 percent relative humidity. Sara J. Davenport and Harrington’s Mercury Poisoning as a Mining Hazard, Information Circular 7180, November 1941, ties renewed domestic mercury extraction to defense demand and wartime disruption of foreign supplies, conditions that returned otherwise unprofitable mines and their toxic vapor exposures to production. Harrington and Davenport’s Review of Literature on Conditioning Air for Advancement of Health and Safety in Mines, Information Circular 7182, September 1941, connects air movement, temperature, humidity, gases, and dust with miners’ health and working capacity, while Harrington’s Status of Safety in Mining, Information Circular 7181, December 1941, measures American mining’s accident record against general industry and foreign mining systems. Related reports address metal mine fires and asphyxiation, accident prevention at small metal mines, state regulations governing the hoisting of men, shaft signaling systems, explosives disposal, and communication with cages in motion. Production studies include Milling Methods and Costs at the Nacozari Concentrator of the Phelps Dodge Corporation, Nacozari, Sonora, Mexico, October 1930, and Milling Methods and Costs at the San Guillermo Concentrator of the Compañía Industrial “El Potosí,” S.A., San Guillermo, Chihuahua, Mexico, April 1933, placing American federal technical reporting inside foreign controlled mining operations in Mexico. Other circulars document Arizona copper properties, western gold dredging, Idaho and Michigan mines, and wartime investigations of chromium, vanadium, manganese, magnesium, monazite, graphite, strontium, and other industrial minerals.

The safety reports preserve federal recognition of dust, mercury vapor, heat, humidity, toxic gases, shaft failures, fire, and explosives as causes of occupational disease and death when the Bureau’s principal remedies remained research, engineering advice, and voluntary adoption by mine operators. Their emphasis on ventilation and airborne contaminants precedes the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, the extension of comprehensive federal protections to metal and nonmetal miners in 1977, and present regulation of respirable crystalline silica as a cause of silicosis, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and progressive massive fibrosis. The Mexican reports add a transnational labor history: Phelps Dodge closed Nacozari in 1931 and dismissed approximately 2,000 workers, while El Potosí operated amid Depression layoffs, union activity, and disputes over Mexican labor regulation. The exposed circulars do not discuss racial segregation expressly; their institutional language generally converts miners, hazards, and working time into components of production, efficiency, and cost. At least seventeen covers bear the ownership inscription “James D. Sell.” The Arizona Geological Survey records a James Doyle Sell who worked for ASARCO for 32 years, served as Southwest Exploration Manager, and left more than 1,800 folders of mining and exploration records, although the available provenance does not establish that these inscriptions are his. Stable staple bindings with extensive toning, edge tears, wrapper losses, punched filing holes, tape repairs, library stamps, and ownership inscriptions; texts remain legible and largely complete. Overall fair to good condition.

Item #23847

Price: $550.00