Mr. Timothy LeCain, under the direction of Drs. David Hounshell and Reed Geiger, is probing the complex relationships among society, technology and the environment. The dangers of environmental degradation have become all too apparent in recent years. Yet for a society that is highly industrialized and reliant on advanced technology, the precise role of technological change in environmental destruction is poorly understood. At the turn of the century, copper mining in the western United States entered a new era of corporate domination. Large corporations like Anaconda Company and Kennecott used an array of new technologies to dig immense amounts of ore from the earth and process it. Mr. LeCain raises these questions: What were the environmental consequences of this copper mining? How was it changed by the evolution of mining technology and management? Was technology a causal factor of the change or simply a tool? How did technology relate tot he wider process of rationalizing the human and natural world during the 20th century? What role did the methods and beliefs of engineers and scientists play in the development of mining and how were these experts trained? What was the source of technological innovation of mining machinery and how important were machinery manufacturers in this process? In order to address these questions, Mr. LeCain is examining archives in the West (Colorado, Montana, Utah, California and Arizona) as well as university and government archives in the East. This study promises a significant contribution to debates within the history of technology, environmental history, western history, and business history.
