Duncan Money
@mininghistory
Historian and consultant. I work on mining, labour, migration and Southern Africa. More on Contact: duncanmoneyhistory@proton.me
You now need to disclose whether you have been sanctioned by the US or EU before publishing an article about deep-level mining in an academic journal.
I’m quoted in this @globalwitness.org report on the Canadian mining company First Quantum Minerals and Zambia’s democracy published today: globalwitness.org/en/campaigns...
One thing research skills trainings never covers is the ability to carefully dismantle and re-assemble folders of tissue-thin paper bound together with rusty metal.
Northern Technical College, established by the mining industry in 1955, is still in business.
Research fees at the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) archives. This information is not available online or obtainable in advance of visiting so this might be helpful.
In the early 1970s academic institutions in the Netherlands used to request funding from state-owned companies in Zambia.
The South Wales NUM banner caught my eye as images of what progress, modernity and socialism meant to many people in the 20th century: Mines, power stations, electricity and new industrial machinery.
The Ex-Trade Unionists Association of Zambia, formed around 2000 during the economic crisis by people who were unemployed or whose unions had dissolved but who still wanted to be seen as trade unionists.
Sports at Kabwe Mine during one month in 1986. Kabwe Mine Darts Club off to a provincial competition, hockey club playing another mine team, basketball team in the national cup, chess player selected for the national side. Little wonder people remain nostalgic for that time.
The workforce split between direct employees and contractors at Gold Fields' operations is a good proxy for the historic and current strength of trade unions in mining in those countries.
I ran a workshop on jobs in history outside universities for PhD students at the University of Vienna earlier this year and got very good feedback from participants, so I'm looking to run it again later this year. Please get in touch if this would interest your students or department.
The occasion of Fourth of July gives me an opportunity to share my favourite reference from Britain's National Archives: CO 795/48/12, Misuse of US flag as clothing for natives
On a more contemporary note, I am personally glad that Congolese beer is now available in Zambia at bars near the Congo border.
Another one to add to this: alcohol consumption was about being modern in independent Zambia. Mine taverns, as the caption to this 1967 photo says, provided "drinking under pleasant, social conditions in contrast to the old-type squalid beerhalls"
It wasn't the most exciting place in the world back when I lived there but these repeat entries in the Rand Mines archive catalogue are a bit harsh.
I bought this newspaper passing through Bulawayo in 2010 and kept it, and it's now a revealing historical document. The main story was about ZANU-PF demanding that the president is limited to two five-year terms.
Flattened over 2,000km² of land, damaged a few buildings and killed maybe three people. Humanity was lucky.
Old maps from the 1990s (when the mine was still fully operational) match up with visible details from the image and help with locating the present-day site:
The level of detail in photos from this archive is extraordinary. This is Blyvoor Gold Mine around 1953. You can see the prison-like compound for African workers (centre), white tailings dams, uranium plant and Westdene mine housing, later swallowed by a sinkhole.
Productive visit to the Mining Industry Archives in Johannesburg last week to look at material on mine accidents.
Making Zambia's mines 'modern' at independence. Beerhalls with miners in hard-hats stand drinking from big mugs replaced with bars where men in suits and shades pour beer into a glass at a bar.
The incline shaft at Chibuluma Mine in Zambia looking something like a rollercoaster.
Research fees at the National Archives of Zambia. This information is not available online or obtainable in advance of visiting so I wanted to publicise it.
Next week I'll be giving a talk in Pretoria to the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy about the history of mining giant Anglo American.
It amazes me that people were still doing dangerous underground work dressed in short-sleeve shirts and shorts as late as the 1970s. These miners were trying to drain an underground aquifer 700 metres underground at Konkola Mine in Zambia.
Public holiday yesterday so I toured round a mineral processing plant at the Chambishi site of the China Nonferrous Metals Corporation.