Beyond the Boundaries: Life and Landscape at the Lake Superior Copper Mines, 1840-1875

by Larry Lankton

Overview

Spanning the years 1840-1875, Beyond the Boundaries focuses on the settlement of Upper Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, telling the story of reluctant pioneers who attempted to establish a decent measure of comfort, control, and security in what was in many ways a hostile environment. Moving beyond the technological history of the period found in his previous book Cradle to the Grave: Life, Work, and Death at the Lake Superior Copper Mines (OUP 1991), Lankton here focuses on the people of this region and how the copper mining affected their daily lives.

A truly first-rate social history, Beyond the Boundaries will appeal to historians of the frontier and of Michigan and the Great Lakes region, as well as historians of technology, labor, and everyday life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195108040
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/26/1997
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.44(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.92(d)

About the Author

Larry Lankton is Professor of History at Michigan Technological University. His previous publications include Cradle to Grave: Life, Work, and Death at the Lake Superior Copper Mines (OUP 1991), winner of the 1992 Great Lakes History Prize.

Table of Contents

1. Water, Woods, and Winter: A Special Sense of Place2. Heaving Up Jonah: The Travail of Travel3. Settling In: Camps, Communities, Houses, and Hotels4. A Lapful of Apples: Foodways in the Far North5. Keeping House: All the Work of the Family6. Tasks at Hand: Making a Living: Men and Women, Boys and Girls7. Saints and Scholars: Village Churches and Schools8. The Sins of the Body: Maladies, Medicines, and Frontier Physicians9. Ice Carnivals, Camels, and Sunday Trombones: Pioneer Pastimes10. Shattered Hopes and Broken Prospects: Lunatics, Larcenists, and Lives of Woe11. Transformations: A Long-Lived Frontier

Editorial Reviews

Focusing on the settlement of the copper mining region along Upper Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula between 1840 and 1875, this social history examines everyday life on the mining frontier and explores how pioneers transformed a wilderness into an industrial landscape and society. B&w photographs. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

"The social history of the mining frontier should be written and researched as well as Larry Lankton's Beyond the Boundaries....The book is a treat to read and a worthy contribution to helping us understand frontier mining societies."—Mining History News

"To tell his story, the author has mined diaries, manuscripts, newspapers, and company records, as well as a wealth of other primary and secondary literature. What emerges is a richly textured story that Lankton recounts with authority and gusto. It is a book that will interest local historians and those whose focus is social or western history."—Labor History

"With clarity, precision, and sound scholarship, Lankton examines everyday life on the Keweenaw fronteir from 1840-1875, the years of growing pains for the infant copper industry...Lankton describes with vivid detail the tedious day of a hard rock miner...Beyond the Boundaries is local history at its best. Lankton has provided a scholarly look at early life on the copper range in Michigan amid the transformation of a wilderness. the net of topics is widely thrown, but Lankton articulates everyday life based on the facts and with eloquent interpretation...Beyond the Boundaries belongs on the shelf of every library in Michigan next to its copy of Cradle to Grave."—Michigan Historical Review

"[A]n outstanding case study."—Earth Sciences History

"This book is hard to put down. It is a well-written, fascinating story of people in a time and place that called upon the best of everybody just to survive."—Historian

"[A] richly-detailed study of the pioneer years on the Keweenaw Peninsula....[A]n engaging book...[I]t is a compelling social history of an important mining region in the mid-nineteenth century."—Technology and Culture

"Beyond the Boundaries is not only a major contribution to the social history of the Upper Peninsula but a model for those interested in the transformation of isolated settlements into organized communities."—Indiana Magazine of History

"Conducting two decades of research, assisted by student projects, [Lankton] has delved extensively into diaries, company personnel files, and local government records to profile the human aspects of this mining region....The large amount of new historical material is arranged by category and well indexed. This is no ordinary anecdotal history....As an academic work it is refreshingly unquantitative: the reader is not inundated....This broad-minded treatment of a major, now-dormant mining region should interest practicing economic geologists."—Economic Geology

"In this, his third book on the region, Larry Lankton examines the simultaneous development of Keweenaw mining and the attendant cultural and social institutions of the people who worked and lived there. What he describes is a world far removed from either civilization or the frontier....Lankton discusses a number of fascinating issues....By relying on primary sources and by covering a breadth of topics, the author demonstrates extensive knowledge of the history of the region, and uncovers a number interesting avenues of research for the Keweenaw district."—Journal of Economic History

"Larry Lankton's Beyond the Boundaries invites comparison with the best studies of 'everyday life' in similar settings, and with classics such as Rockdale and Amoskeag. It is an impressively researched and gracefully narrated companion-piece to his Cradle to Grave volume."—Robert C. Post, Past President of the Society for the History of Technology

"...Professor Lankton offers a highly readable narrative based on a wide variety of primary sources....The narrative is enhanced with appropriate quotations, making this a very human story....[R]eaders will enjoy this significant contribution to nineteenth-century mining history."—The Annals of Iowa

From the Publisher