|
|
|
Book Review
| Idaho's Bunker Hill: The Rise and Fall of A Great Mining Company, 1885–1981. By Katherine G. Aiken. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005. xix + 284 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth $29.95.
|
| In Idaho's Bunker Hill, Katherine Aiken provides a thorough, yet concise history of one of the United States' most productive silver and lead mining operations, the Bunker Hill Company of Kellogg, Idaho. Premised on the argument that mining is central to the history of the American West, Aiken presents Bunker Hill as "the prototype for the natural resource exploitation and complex capital expansion" that characterized the region (p. xv). Unlike other studies of western mining that focus on the nineteenth century, Aiken's takes place primarily in the twentieth, when environmental conditions became a major source of tension between locals and federal agencies and between workers and owners. As Aiken makes clear, Bunker Hill's miners, managers, and markets were intimately tied to the landscape and resources of northern Idaho, but also had important connections to the region, the nation, and the world. |
1
|
|
Aiken divides Bunker Hill's history into six distinct periods and devotes a chapter to each. Chapter 1 begins with the mine's discovery and covers nearly twenty years of violent disputes between labor and management. Chapter 2 describes management's victory over labor and the integration of Bunker Hill's mining, smelting, and refining operations, a key moment in making the company a national player. Chapters 3 and 4 trace Bunker Hill's success during the pro-business 1920s, its resiliency during the Depression, and its resurgence during World War II. Chapter 5 describes the uncertainty of the 1950s and 1960s because of fluctuating markets and renewed labor activities. Chapter 6 examines the company's hostile takeover and the effects of increased environmental regulations on the company and the town. Aiken's book is based on extensive primary and secondary research, including oral interviews, government documents, and industry journals. Her style is brisk and her analysis is compelling. A description of the landscape would have been helpful, but the numerous maps, illustrations, and pictures help in that regard. |
2
|
|
Aiken's book is an important study that will appeal to mining and labor historians especially, as well as to those interested in the history of Idaho and the West (though Aiken could have tied Bunker Hill to regional trends more explicitly throughout). Environmental historians will also find it useful, but to a limited extent. Aiken's main focus is on the company's labor and business developments, which she covers exceedingly well. The environment doesn't really surface until chapter 6. This is not a major failing of the book, however. Indeed, careful readers can find hints and references throughout that foreshadow the intense debates that would arise late in the twentieth century over the role of the company and of the federal government in providing a clean working and living environment for industrial workers. Labor is Aiken's focus, and she remains true to her subject by not projecting environmentalist agendas on those who did not espouse them prior to the rise of the modern environmental movement. When such concerns arose, Aiken gives them due consideration and does an excellent job of presenting all sides and providing a balanced assessment. |
3
|
|
Lisa M. Brady is assistant professor of history at Boise State University. She is author of "The Wilderness of War: Nature and Strategy in the American Civil War" (Environmental History, July 2005). Her research focuses on the connections between war and environment with attention to military strategy and engineering. |
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|