Home Products 1907 photo postcard Miners' Strike - Cobalt Canada
1907 photo postcard Miners' Strike - Cobalt Canada
1907 photo postcard Miners' Strike - Cobalt Canada
1907 photo postcard Miners' Strike - Cobalt Canada
1907 photo postcard Miners' Strike - Cobalt Canada

1907 photo postcard Miners' Strike - Cobalt Canada

$80.00 CAD

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RARE!

Sent from Haileybury Ont to Fife Lake MI USA.

Postmarked ‘HAILEYBURY ONT AM AU 12-07’, second postmark ‘REC’D FIFE LAKE MICH’.

Text that places the photo:

“You can see this bunch every evening at Cobalt it is the striking miners hope you will get here in time to take a snapshot of some of them…”

Photo overexposed. Postmark stamping on back come through to front of photo.

(Red text is an electronic watermark that is not physically part of the photo for sale)

 

Companies were very powerful both in terms of establishing mining camps and
determining wages and living conditions, and in organizing the social and political life of
mines and mining communities. This latter activity extended to the organization of labour relations where, as Innis has noted, mining companies were vehemently antiunion: “In 1906, the Nipissing Company discharged a miner from Montana for attempting to organize a union and leading mine operators decided not to employ union men…” A major mine strike in 1907 was largely unsuccessful which, to Innis, indicated the growing importance of capital and a concomitant decrease in the influence of labour. Government legislation, however, did play a role in improving labour conditions. In February 1914, government legislation instituted the 8 hour work day and a Workmen’s Compensation Act came into effect in 1915.

 

Shifting Foundations in a Mature Staples Industry: a Political Economic History of Canadian Mineral Policy

Mary Louise McAllister (Waterloo)

 

The Cobalt silver rush started in 1903 when huge veins of silver were discovered by workers on the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway (T&NO) near the Mile 103 post. By 1905 a full-scale silver rush was underway, and the town of Cobalt, Ontario sprang up to serve as its hub. By 1908 Cobalt produced 9% of the world's silver, and in 1911 produced 31,507,791 ounces of silver. However, the good ore ran out fairly rapidly, and most of the mines were closed by the 1930s. There were several small revivals over the years, notably in World War II and again in the 1950s, but both petered out and today there is no active mining in the area. In total, the Cobalt area mines produced 460 million ounces of silver.

The Cobalt Rush was instrumental in opening northern Ontario for mineral exploration. Prospectors fanned out from Cobalt, and soon caused the nearby Porcupine Gold Rush in 1909, and the Kirkland Lake Gold Rush of 1912. Much of the settlement in northern Ontario outside the Clay Belt owes its existence indirectly to the Cobalt Rush.

WIKIPEDIA

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