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51-433: The laboratory space was converted from an office or storage closet, and was sandwiched between other invertebrate storage rooms. This small space was poorly-lit and often cramped, as this was the only space Radcliffe women technically had access to. In 1908, in response to pressure from Radcliffe administrators to construct a women's restroom, Alexander Agassiz launched an inquiry about which spaces women were occupying within

102-426: A PhD degree in the department of Zoology, without receiving the title. Margaret Lewis Nickelson studied the nervous system of marine invertebrates, publishing three papers in well-regarded journals. Florence Mayo, Annie Henchman, and Julia B. Platt also conducted original research on topics varying from canine teeth of sheep to the nervous systems of slugs. While zoology courses became standard for Radcliffe students by

153-699: A Radcliffe PhD in Zoology in 1910. Alexander Agassiz Alexander Emmanuel Rodolphe Agassiz (December 17, 1835 – March 27, 1910), son of Louis Agassiz and stepson of Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz , was an American scientist and engineer. Agassiz was born in Neuchâtel , Switzerland, and immigrated to the United States with his parents, Louis and Cecile (Braun) Agassiz, in 1846. He graduated from Harvard University in 1855, subsequently studying engineering and chemistry , and taking

204-584: A friend of Agassiz's brother-in-law, Quincy Adams Shaw , had discovered a rich copper lode known as the Calumet conglomerate on the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan . Hulbert persuaded them, along with a group of friends, to purchase a controlling interest in the mines, which later became known as the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company based in Calumet, Michigan . That summer, he took a trip to see

255-463: A large ore treatment facility at Lake Linden, Michigan . The first smelter was built at Hancock, Michigan , but in 1887, the company moved its smelting to the new smelter at Lake Linden. The company later built a second smelter in Buffalo, New York , which took advantage of the cheap electricity generated from Niagara Falls to electrolytically refine copper. The Buffalo Smelting Works was listed on

306-486: A much smaller proportion of them joined the federation." Fewer Calumet and Hecla employees joined the strike than employees of other mines, and more employees of Calumet and Hecla returned to work than employees of other companies after the Michigan National Guard arrived to protect strikebreakers. The mines reopened under National Guard protection, and many went back to work. The companies instituted

357-500: A position he held until his death. Until the turn of the century, this company was by far the largest copper producer in the United States, many years producing over half of the total. Agassiz was a major factor in the mine's continued success and visited the mines twice a year. He innovated by installing a giant engine, known as the Superior, which was able to lift 24 tons of rock from a depth of 1,200 metres (3,900 feet). He also built

408-547: A railroad and dredged a channel to navigable waters. However, after a time the mines did not require his full-time, year-round, attention and he returned to his interests in natural history at Harvard. Out of his copper fortune, he gave some US$ 500,000 to Harvard for the museum of comparative zoology and other purposes. Shortly after the death of his father in 1873, Agassiz acquired a small peninsula in Newport, Rhode Island , which features views of Narragansett Bay. Here he built

459-551: A substantial house and a laboratory for use as his summer residence. The house was completed in 1875 and today is known as the Inn at Castle Hill. He was a member of the scientific-expedition to South America in 1875, where he inspected the copper mines of Peru and Chile , and made extended surveys of Lake Titicaca , besides collecting invaluable Peruvian antiquities, which he gave to the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ), of which he

510-535: Is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of lizard, Anolis agassizi , and a fish, Leptochilichthys agassizii . A statue of Alexander Agassiz erected in 1923 is located in Calumet, Michigan, next to his summer home where he stayed while fulfilling his duties as the President of the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company. The Company Headquarters, Agassiz' statue, and many other buildings and landmarks from

561-541: The Copper Country Strike of 1913–1914 , although the workers were said to be sharply divided on the strike question. The union demanded an 8-hour day, a minimum wage of $ 3 per day, an end to use of the one-man pneumatic drill , and that the companies recognize it as the employees' representative. Although Calumet and Hecla paid high wages by Copper Country standards, at the time of the 1913 strike, their wages were lower, and labor hours longer, than those at

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612-574: The Great Barrier Reef , publishing a paper on the subject in 1898. Of Agassiz's other writings on marine zoology, most are contained in the bulletins and memoirs of the museum of comparative zoology. However, in 1865, he published with Elizabeth Cary Agassiz , his stepmother, Seaside Studies in Natural History , a work at once exact and stimulating. They also published, in 1871, Marine Animals of Massachusetts Bay . He received

663-542: The Great Depression , copper prices dropped, and as a result most copper mines in the Copper Country closed, including Calumet and Hecla. Many mines reopened during World War II , when wartime demand raised the price of copper. After the war copper prices plummeted, and most copper mines closed almost immediately. However, Calumet and Hecla was able to stay afloat due to their practice of acquiring many of

714-501: The National Register of Historic Places in 2011. Electrolytic refining had the advantage that it separated out the silver from the copper. By 1897, the Calumet and Hecla's Red Jacket shaft had reached a vertical depth of 4,900 ft (1,500 m), making it the deepest mine in the world. The neighboring Tamarack mine became the world's deepest mine for some years; it was bought by Calumet and Hecla, and became part of

765-562: The 8-hour day, but refused to set a $ 3 per day minimum wage, refused to abandon the one-man drill, and also refused to employ Western Federation of Miners members. On Christmas Eve 1913, the Western Federation of Miners organized a party for strikers and their families at the Italian Benevolent Society hall in Calumet. The hall was packed with between 400 and 500 people when someone shouted "fire". There

816-693: The Calumet Company have no reason to fear strikes among any portion of their force." In 1898, the Michigan Commissioner of Mineral Statistics enthused that "no mining company in the world treats its employees better than Calumet and Hecla." In 1916, the Arizona Bureau of Mines wrote of Calumet and Hecla, which had no operations in Arizona: "Probably no mining company in the country has paid more attention to welfare work than has

867-473: The Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, and its subsidiaries, in the upper Michigan peninsula." The Arizona Bureau of Mines followed with more than a page detailing the employee benefits at Calumet and Hecla in Michigan. However, Calumet and Hecla's labor policy, like that the other mining companies in the Copper Country, was rife with paternalism . The charge of paternalism was not disputed by those in favor of

918-415: The Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, with Quincy Adams Shaw as its first president. In August of that year, Shaw retired to the board of directors and Agassiz became president, a position he held until his death. The town of Red Jacket (now named Calumet ) formed next to the mine. Calumet and Hecla built itself into a copper mining colossus. From 1868 through 1886, it was the leading copper producer in

969-529: The Calumet and Hecla mine, opened in 1949. Calumet and Hecla sold the mine to the Eagle-Picher Company in 1954. The company also diversified into copper-based products, including a copper tube manufacturing business and fertilizers. Calumet and Hecla opened the Kingston mine in 1965, the first new native copper mine opened in more than 30 years. By 1967, the company was operating six mines in

1020-650: The Calumet and Hecla system. The Tamarack/Calumet and Hecla remained the world's deepest mine until about 1915, when its vertical depth of 5,500 ft (1,700 m) was exceeded by the 5,824 ft (1,775 m) depth of the Morro Velho gold mine in Brazil. Annual copper production from the mines peaked in 1906 at 100 million pounds (45,000 metric tons), then declined to 67 million pounds (30,000 metric tons) by 1912 in response to lower prices. Output dropped to 46 million pounds (21,000 metric tons) of refined copper in

1071-534: The Calumet conglomerate in April 1921. Copper production rebounded in 1922, and rose steadily through the 1920s. Calumet and Hecla grew in the 1920s by buying and merging with neighboring copper mines. In 1923, Calumet and Hecla merged with the Ahmeek, Allouez, and Centennial mining companies. The combined entity was renamed the Calumet and Hecla Consolidated Copper Company . The merged company essentially controlled all

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1122-831: The German Order Pour le Mérite for Science and Arts in August 1902. Agassiz served as a president of the National Academy of Sciences , which since 1913 has awarded the Alexander Agassiz Medal in his memory. He died in 1910 on board the RMS Adriatic en route to New York from Southampton . He and his wife Anna Russell (1840–1873) were the parents of three sons – George Russell Agassiz (1861–1951), Maximilian Agassiz (1866–1943) and Rodolphe Louis Agassiz (1871–1933). Alexander Agassiz

1173-415: The United States, and from 1869 through 1876, the leading copper producer in the world. From 1871 through 1880, Calumet and Hecla turned out more than half the copper produced in the United States. In each year save one between 1870 and 1901, Calumet and Hecla made the majority of the copper produced in the Michigan copper district. By 1901, the underground mining complex had 16 shafts. The company operated

1224-675: The building. Agassiz rejected the construction of this restroom because it would obstruct light from hallway windows, despite the fact that the closest women's restrooms to the Radcliffe Zoological Laboratory were within the Natural History Museum galleries, two floors below. Agassiz found that, while Harvard men occupied 14 rooms, Radcliffe women were spilling over from their single designated laboratory space into 3 other rooms. Herbert Spencer Jennings highlighted that segregating instruction by gender

1275-447: The community. When the company supplied consumer goods to employees, it used its buying power to provide coal, firewood, and electricity for its tenants at wholesale prices. Its treatment of employees brought praise from outside the Copper Country. A writer for Harper's Magazine visited a number of iron and copper mines of upper Michigan in 1882, but singled out Calumet and Hecla's labor policies for particular praise. He wrote: "But

1326-411: The company could force them to vacate their houses on short notice. Whether in rented company housing, or their own houses located on rented company land, the employees and their families were dependent on the continued good will of the company for housing. The provision of housing to favored employees also fostered jealousies among those not so favored. Although continued employment with Calumet and Hecla

1377-690: The company paid out more than $ 72 million in shareholder dividends, more than any other mining company in the United States during that period. In 1864, Edwin J. Hulbert discovered a copper-bearing section of what became known as the Calumet Conglomerate dating back to the Precambrian age. The find was in Houghton County, Michigan , between the rich Cliff mine to the northeast, and the copper mines of Portage Lake to

1428-419: The company, who even embraced the term, and saw it as the policy of enlightened capitalism. Company paternalism was most evident in company housing. Calumet and Hecla built hundreds of company houses, and provided them to married employees at low rents that left no room for any company profit. The company also allowed employees to build about 1,000 houses on rented Calumet and Hecla land, but under terms by which

1479-696: The degree of Bachelor of Science at the Lawrence Scientific School of the same institution in 1857; in 1859 became an assistant in the United States Coast Survey . Thenceforward he became a specialist in marine ichthyology . Agassiz was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1862. Up until the summer of 1866, Agassiz worked as assistant curator in the museum of natural history that his father founded at Harvard. E. J. Hulbert,

1530-473: The district’s leading company, allegedly setting the pattern of improved living conditions followed by other mining operations. In 1868, Calumet and Hecla built the first industrial hospital in the United States. In 1877, Calumet and Hecla started an employee aid fund for ill and injured employees. Participation was voluntary. Each participating worker contributed 50 cents per week, which the company matched. Some writers credit Calumet and Hecla with being one of

1581-521: The early 20th century, the refusal to grant doctoral degrees resulted in very little funding or institutional support for long-term research projects for women. This lack of funding led students such as Fanny Langdon to pursue long daily commutes after she moved in with relatives in Jamaica Plain, five miles away from the laboratory in Cambridge. Edith Nason Buckingham was the first to receive

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1632-515: The first, or even the first, American company to set up an employee health benefits fund. Other Michigan copper companies ran employee aid funds, but Calumet and Hecla was the only Michigan copper mining company to match contributions. By 1908, the company provided a staff of physicians and a hospital for employees and their families, worker clubhouses with bowling alleys; and employee libraries with reading material in 20 languages. The company also contributed to construction of schools and churches in

1683-582: The formerly great mines in the Keweenaw during and before the Depression, and as a result outlasted nearly all other mining companies. The company branched into other minerals after World War II. Calumet and Hecla geologists drilled into a major lead-zinc ore body in Lafayette County in southern Wisconsin in 1947. Ore minerals were galena, sphalerite, calcite, and marcasite. The mine, named

1734-498: The hope that pleasant living conditions would help the company maintain a loyal and productive workforce. Historian Lankton wrote that in an era and an industry known for hard working conditions, the Michigan copper companies treated their employees better than most: "… they remained known for being among the most enlightened, fair, humane, and paternalistic employers in the American mining industry." Some credited Calumet and Hecla, as

1785-492: The mines for himself and he afterwards became treasurer of the enterprise. Over the winter of 1866 and early 1867, mining operations began to falter, due to the difficulty of extracting copper from the conglomerate. Hulbert had sold his interests in the mines and had moved on to other ventures. But Agassiz refused to give up hope for the mines. He returned to the mines in March 1867, with his wife and young son. At that time, Calumet

1836-461: The mining operations, such that he was able to leave the mines under the control of a general manager and return to Boston in 1868 before winter closed navigation. The mines continued to prosper and in May 1871, several mines were consolidated to form the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company with Shaw as its first president. In August 1871, Shaw "retired" to the board of directors and Agassiz became president,

1887-573: The now defunct company are today administered and maintained by the Keweenaw National Historical Park , whose headquarters overlook the statue of Agassiz. A major building of the Hopkins Marine Station is named after him. Calumet and Hecla Mining Company The Calumet and Hecla Mining Company was a major copper -mining company based within Michigan's Copper Country . In the 19th century,

1938-407: The operating copper mines north of Hancock, Michigan . The company had always disposed of the mill tailings (locally called stamp sands ) in lakes adjacent to the mills, but about 1900 began investigating methods to recover the copper remaining in the waste tailings. Beginning in 1915, Calumet and Hecla began reprocessing the stamp sands at Lake Linden, using a finer grind and ammonia leaching. Once

1989-667: The process proved profitable, the Tamarack mill also began reprocessing tailings. Through 1949, the company had recovered 535 million pounds (243,000 metric tons) of copper by reprocessing tailings. One of the dredges used, Calumet and Hecla Dredge Number One , is currently sunk in shallow water in Torch Lake . By 1902, Calumet and Hecla had 5,000 employees, and the towns of Calumet (then named Red Jacket), Laurium , and Lake Linden were virtual company towns . The mining superintendents (called "captains") were traditionally Cornishmen ;

2040-667: The region. However, the company by this point was not even able to produce enough copper for its internal uses. Universal Oil Products ( U.O.P. ) bought Calumet and Hecla in April 1968. In August of that same year, the more than 1,000 Calumet and Hecla employees went on strike. In the wake of this strike, the last of Calumet and Hecla's copper mines shut down, and the company shut down the dewatering pumps in 1970. The mines have remained idle ever since, and most are permanently capped. Today, many Calumet and Hecla company mines and buildings are part of Keweenaw National Historical Park . Folksinger Woody Guthrie wrote and sang " 1913 Massacre ",

2091-616: The reports. Between 1877 and 1880, he took part in the three dredging expeditions of the steamer Blake of the Coast Survey (renamed the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1878), and presented a full account of them in two volumes (1888). Also in 1875, he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1896, Agassiz visited Fiji and Queensland and inspected

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2142-512: The rich ore, Hulbert did not have the practical knowledge to dig out the ore, crush it, and concentrate it. Frustrated with Hulbert's lack of success, the company sent Alexander Agassiz , son of famous geologist Louis Agassiz , to Michigan to run the mine. Under Agassiz' expert management, the Hecla company paid its first dividend in 1868, and the Calumet company began paying significant dividends in 1869. The two companies merged in May 1871 to form

2193-635: The southwest, but a long way from either. Hulbert formed the Hulbert Mining Company in 1864 to acquire the land rights, before creating the Calumet Company in 1865, with investment capital from Boston. The company spun off the Hecla Company the following year, and assigned shares in the new company to Calumet shareholders. Hulbert was a major shareholder in both companies, and was in charge of mine operations. But despite

2244-569: The strike year of 1913, but rebounded due to high copper prices during World War I to 77 million pounds (35,000 metric tons) in 1917. The boost in production was attained partly by purchase of the Tamarack Mining Company in 1917. Copper prices fell drastically after the war, and in 1921 copper production fell to 15 million pounds (6,800 metric tons) as the company shut the Osceola (amygdaloid) mine in 1920, and shut down mining on

2295-465: The unionized copper mines of Butte, Montana . After the strike started, the mining companies maintained that it had already been considering a reduction of the work day to eight hours. The company claimed that lower wages were more than made up by the lower cost of living compared to Butte. The US Department of Labor report on the strike noted: "The employees of the Calumet and Hecla Co. were better satisfied than those of any other company, and therefore

2346-597: The workers were often Finns, Poles, Italians, Irish, Slovenes, and other immigrant nationalities. Historian Larry Lankton wrote that Calumet and Hecla's success resulted in increased benefits that "trickled down" to workers. This made the company a preferred employer, and it generally had its pick of the best workers. Lankton also noted that the company was willing, when necessary, to "control labor management relations", to use "coercion, covert manipulation, armed deputy sheriffs, or mass firings". Calumet and Hecla strived to create ideal communities around its mines and mills, in

2397-540: Was a remote settlement, virtually inaccessible during the winter and very far removed from civilization even during the summer. With insufficient supplies at the mines, Agassiz struggled to maintain order, while back in Boston, Shaw was saddled with debt and the collapse of their interests. Shaw obtained financial assistance from John Simpkins, the selling agent for the enterprise to continue operations. Agassiz continued to live at Calumet, making gradual progress in stabilizing

2448-665: Was challenging due to the limitation of space, noting that Sometimes no room is vacant for the Radcliffe lecture, and [Professor George Howard] Parker takes one of his classes of girls into a room where there are a number of men doing laboratory work, and gives the lectures there." Agassiz felt that the resources within the Museum of Comparative Zoology should not be ceded to Radcliffe, stating that 'it cannot expect us to sacrifice M.C.Z. for its needs in anyway'. Radcliffe did not grant PhDs until 1902. Between 1894 and 1902, multiple students completed all course and thesis requirements for

2499-554: Was first curator from 1874 to 1885 and then director until his death in 1910, his personal secretary Elizabeth Hodges Clark running the day-to-day management of the MCZ when his work took him abroad. He assisted Charles Wyville Thomson in the examination and classification of the collections of the 1872 Challenger Expedition , and wrote the Review of the Echini (2 vols., 1872–1874) in

2550-539: Was no fire, but 73 people, the vast majority of them children, were crushed to death trying to escape. This became known as the Italian Hall Disaster . The strikers held out until April 1914, but then gave up the strike. Calumet and Hecla employees were not again unionized until 1943, when the company signed an agreement with the CIO -affiliated International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers. During

2601-639: Was required for occupancy of company housing, Calumet and Hecla, unlike the Quincy and Copper Range companies, did not evict strikers during the 1913-1914 strike. In July 1913, the Western Federation of Miners called a general strike against all mines in the Michigan Copper Country. Hundreds of strikers surrounded the Calumet and Hecla mine shafts to prevent others from reporting to work. All Calumet and Hecla mines shut down during

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