Mining Women Gender in the Development of a Global Industry, 1670 to the Present

Mining Womenpresents eighteen new essays that illuminate how gender identities and inequality have been constructed historically and sustained in what could be hailed as the first truly global enterprise and arguably the most "masculine" of industries--mining. These essays explore gender relations and women's work and activism in different parts of the world and from multiple perspectives. They investigate not only gender's role in the domestic and cultural aspects of mining communities, but also its impact on the emerging industrial and capitalist system from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. Each essay is important for understanding the ways in which gender is imagined, lived, inscribed, and contested in specific historical and material contexts. As a whole, the volume reveals that despite the tremendous variation between industries, cultures, and national experiences, women have challenged the constraints of gender definitions on their lives and work.

 Jaclyn Gier is Director of European Studies and Associate Professor of History in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Laurie Mercier is Associate Professor of History at Washington State University.

Introduction--Laurie Mercier & Jaclyn Gier * Part I: The Indigenous, Colonial, and Imperial Legacy* 1.Mining Women, Royal Slaves: Copper Mining in Colonial Cuba, 1670-1780 --Maria Elena Diaz2.Making a Dfference in Colonial Interventionism in Gold Mining in Wassa Fiase, Gold Coast (Ghana): The Activism of Two Women, 1874-1893 --Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry3. Lifting the Layers of the Mountain's Petticoats: Mining and Gender in Potosi's Pachamama --Pascale Absi4. Kamins Building the Empire: Class, Caste, and Gender Interface in Indian Collieries --Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt* Part II: Engendering Bodies and the Masculinization of the Mining Industry: Separate Spheres and the Role of Women in Mining, the Mining Household, and Community, 1800-1940*5. Sociability, Solidarity, and Social Exclusion: Women's Activism in the south Wales Coalfield, ca. 1830-1939--Rosemary Jones 6. Gender Relations in Iron Mining Communities in Sweden, 1900-1940 --Eva Blomberg7. Invisible Labor: A Comparative Oral History of Women in Coal Mining Communities of Hokkaido, Japan, and Montana, USA, 1890-1940  --Kayoko Yoshida and Reiko Miyauchi8.Coal Mining Women Speak Out: Economic Change and Women Miners of Chikuho, Japan --Sachiko Sone* Part III: Gender, Mining Communities, and Labor Protests * 9. "I'm a Johnny Mitchell Man": Gender and Labor Protests in the Pennsylvania Hard Coal Uprising, 1900-1902  --Bonnie Stepenoff10. Violence and the Colorado National Guard: Masculinity, Race, Class, and Identity in the 1913-1914 Southern Colorado Coal Strike  --Anthony DeStefanis11. "I Hate to Be Calling Her a Wife Now": Women and Men in the Salt of the Earth Strike, 1950-1952  --Ellen Baker12.  Godless Communists and Faithful Wives, Gender Relations and the Cold War: Mine Mill and the 1958 Strike against the International Nickel Company --Mercedes Steedman* Part IV: The Division of Mining Labor Revisited: State Cultures of Solidarity, Deindustrialization, and the Globalized Economy, 1945-2005 * 13. Just a Housewife? Miners' Wives between Household and Work in Postwar Germany  --Yong-Sook Jung14. Women into Mining Jobs at Inco: Challenging the Gender Division of Labor  --Jennifer Keck and mary Powell15. From Ludlow to Camp Solidarity: Women, Men, and Cultures of Solidarity in U.S. Coal Communities, 1912-1990  --Camille Guerin-GonzalesEpilogue  Mining Women Find a Voice: Working Class and Environmental Feminism in the Twenty-First Century  --Jaclyn J. Gier * Selected Bibliography * Contributor Notes * Index