Interviews done in the 1970's with people who were there during the strikes against the Mining Companies in Copper Country.

Al Harvey. 18 June 1973.
http://www.kentsgenealogy.com/finnamericanoralhistories/Harvey1.mp3
Italian Hall Disaster eye-witness account.


William Parsons Todd. 19 March 1975.
http://www.kentsgenealogy.com/finnamericanoralhistories/WmTodd1.mp3
Air blasts. Stope height. “I don’t know if we ever lost a man from air blasts, directly.” Underground deaths. Miner dying from chasing pigeon. “[Deaths] underground very seldom really anything but men’s own fault.”

http://www.kentsgenealogy.com/finnamericanoralhistories/WmTodd2.mp3
“Q: How strong was the union at its peak?” One-man machine. The strikers were after “the easy life…” Meeting with Union leaders. Wages. Corporate paternalism (doctors, drug stores). Working conditions.

http://www.kentsgenealogy.com/finnamericanoralhistories/WmTodd3.mp3
Mining Companies stick together during strike. Condition of unemployed men. Correspondence with Michigan governor in 1913. National Guard and militia of Michigan. World War II Unions. State of workers after strike. Mobs at shaft houses, “most men had to have their wives take them to work.”

http://www.kentsgenealogy.com/finnamericanoralhistories/WmTodd4.mp3
Communism. The strike and World War I. Contracting agencies to hire strikebreakers (scabs). The problem of transporting and keeping strikebreakers.


Robert Olander. 30 June 1975. Interviewed by Peter Oikarinen

http://www.kentsgenealogy.com/finnamericanoralhistories/Olander1.mp3
Lived behind Italian Hall and brought a ladder to the Hall during the night of the 1913 disaster. Waddell Detective agency.


Henry Luokkanen. 6 August 1973. Interviewed by Wally Anderson in Eagle River

http://www.kentsgenealogy.com/finnamericanoralhistories/Luokkanen1.mp3
Did not attend the Italian Hall Christmas Party during the disaster. 1913 Copper Strike. National Guard, militia, and Waddell men. Violence directed at strikebreakers. Home remedies. Cupping.


Arthur Oinas. 3 August 1972. Interviewed by Arthur Puotinen

http://www.kentsgenealogy.com/finnamericanoralhistories/Oinas1.mp3
Mining company political pressure. The difficulty of voting if one was a miner. Serving as Justice of the Peace for Stanton Township. Farming in 1910’s through the Great Depression. Prices of farm products during the Depression.


Frank Walli. 26 June 1977 Union Organizer. Interviewed by Deborah Barnhart in Mesaba Park, Minn.

http://www.kentsgenealogy.com/finnamericanoralhistories/Walli1.mp3
Union Organizing. National Miner’s Union. Wagner Act. International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers. Steelworkers' Union. Työmies newspaper. Recruitment of Finns and Italians. Bruno Hall. Treatment of strikers. Unemployment Committees.


Alex Nelson. 28 July 1972.

http://www.kentsgenealogy.com/finnamericanoralhistories/Nelson1.mp3
The mine's immigration services. Norwegian language in Sunday School. 1913 Strike and the strikers' parades. Alexander Agassiz (President of Calumet-Hecla Mining Company) and corporate paternalism. Calumet-Hecla Library and the Librarian, Mrs. Grearson.

These Photos are the parades that were going on during the strikes or also known as protests going on in Copper Country.

1913 Song

this is a song that was written by Woody Guthrie i thought this was interesting and it tells the story of what happened during the Christmas party on Christmas Eve in Italian Hall in 1913.this is the link going to the page where you can listen to Woody Guthrie Sing the song, http://www.angelfire.com/mi2/1913/1913S.html
Below is the words of the song.
Take a trip with me in 1913
To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.
I'll take you to a place called Italian Hall
Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball.

I'll take you indoor, and up a high stair.
There's singin' and dancin', it's heard everywhere,
I'll let you shake hands with the people you see
And watch the kids dance round the big Christmas tree.

There's singin' and dancin' and songs in the air,
An' the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere,
Before you know, you're friends with us all
And you're dancin' around and around in the hall.

You ask about work and you ask about pay;
They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day,
Just workin' the copper claims, riskin' their lives,
So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.

A little girl sits by the Christmas tree lights
To play piano, she gotta keep quiet.
To hear all this fun you would not realize
That the copper-boss thug-men are millin' outside.

The copper-thugs thugs [sic] stuck their heads through the door
One of them yelled and he screamed, "There's a fire!"
A lady, she hollered, "There's no such a thing!
Keep on with your party, there's no such thing."

A few people rushed, and it's only a few.
"It's just the scabs and the thugs foolin' you."
A man grabbed his daughter and he carried her down,
But the thugs held the door and he could not get out.

And then others followed, a hundred or more,
But most everybody remained on the floor.
The scabs and the thugs they still laughed at their joke,
And the children were smothered on the stairs by the door.

Such a terrible sight I never did see,
We carried our children back up to their tree.
The scabs and the thugs they still laughed at their spree,
And the children that died there were seventy-three.

The piano played a slow funeral tune,
But the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon,
The parents they weep and the miners they moan,
"See what your greed for money has done."

gunna get paper back

so in an hour i am going to get my paper back kinda nervous actually really nervous. i know i have a lot to do to my paper so i cant wait to get it back with some great advice coming my way.

hey all

i had just been going through my things, i know i haven't done my blogs in a long time. it been a crazy month. i did my book review on The Story of REO Joe. i loved the book and how it is a part of the area where MSU and Lansing is. its a part of history i never really knew about.

quincy mine tour video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrv5Y6UaLoo&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za5kApEFOps&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXFWcRdvo9M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QM2_0wSuvo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGZKq-2X-LI&feature=related

quick facts

An underground copper mine that began in 1846 and organized in 1848. Began operations working a fissure vein of copper until 1856 when the Pewabic amygdaloid lode was discovered crossing the property. Operated continuosly from 1848 to 1931. it then closed from 1931 to 1937, then re-opened from 1937 to 1945. 9 shafts were driven; 2 of these shafts, #2 and #6, reached 9,280 ft. deep on the incline. No. 7 shaft is unique in that is was driven on a catenary curve. In 99 years of operation, Quincy produced 424,000 tons of copper from the underground workings. A large amount of silver was also recovered from the mine. Starting in 1947 and continuing through 1968, another 50,000 tons of copper was recovered from reclamation activities in Torch Lake. Small pieces of copper, silver, and datolite can be found in the parking lots around the #2 shafthouse and the hoist building. Today the mine is owned by the Quincy Mine Hoist Association, which gives surface and underground tours of the mine during the summer months.