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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, map, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95.)
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In the annals of labor history the Coeur d'Alene district of Northern Idaho and its Bunker Hill Company are synonymous with labor warfare. In the 1890s, the company and the Western Federation of Miners battled it out in a legendary fashion. Aiken's new book discusses the labor relations of the company, but her study is much broader than that. The theme that runs through the book is the interplay of corporate organization, technological development, labor relations, and community involvement. Aiken deftly maintains this theme through each of the phases of the company's development. |
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The early history of the company was dominated by labor strife and by the complicated litigation to settle apex mining claims. As Bunker Hill gained dominance in the Coeur d'Alene district, technological developments began to take center stage as the company worked to integrate its operation. By the late 1910s, Bunker Hill was able to control its product from the mine, through processing, to distribution. |
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Throughout most of its history, the company's rigidly anti-union philosophy, born during the labor wars of the 1890s, was combined with a pro-community philosophy of support for local schools, hospitals, and charities. The company believed a key factor in its success was developing a loyal work force. During the post-World War II years, as the metal market weakened, the technology fell further behind foreign competitors, and environmental and employee health concerns deepened, the company found it increasingly difficult to maintain balance among its philosophies. With the hostile takeover of Bunker Hill by Gulf Resources in 1968, Bunker Hill was operated for the first time by officials with no loyalty to the community of Kellogg. |
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Nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century western mining companies often had their head offices far from the mines. Local superintendents and corporate officials maintained lengthy correspondence about every detail of the day-to-day operations of the mines. Bunker Hill is a prime example of this pattern. Aiken has relied extensively on the correspondence between company president Frederick Bradley in San Francisco and manager Stanly Easton in Kellogg, as well as their successors, throughout the book. This gives the narrative a greater immediacy and "inside view" than a reliance on secondary sources ever could have. I applaud this excellent example of the skillful use of corporate records in the writing of a corporate history. |
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| Ellie Arguimbau
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| Montana Historical Society |
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ISSN 1939-8603
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