This study investigates the development of American economic geology from 1860 to 1920. During that period and within that cultural context, economic geology emerged as a large and important scientific field. Prior to 1860, studies of ore deposits were the specialty of a small group of European, mostly German, geologists. By the early twentieth century, Americans were at the forefront in research and in the creation of a new discipline. In 1905, they founded the leading journal Economic Geology, which by the Second World War had the largest circulation of any geological publication in the world. In 1920, they established the Society of Economic Geologists, whose several hundred members immediately made it the largest affiliate of the Geological Society of America (and it has remained so to the present day).
Intellectual Merits
Understanding how economic geology became such a prominent field within American science and the earth sciences in general is one objective of this study. Another objective is to examine the contributions economic geologists made totechnological change. Economic geologists identified their field as an applied science. As such, it combined theories of minerals with practices of mining. Economic geology thus presents a valuable example of an applied science different from previously studied engineering sciences in that the field drew upon and created new knowledge within the earth sciences (as opposed to physics or chemistry) and contributed to the expansion and extension of hard-rock mining, an industry not often treated as science-based (in contrast to the new chemical or electrical industries of the late nineteenth century).
Broader Impacts
This study also highlights the significant role scientists played in economic development and environmental change. Economic geologists received considerable support (financial, institutional, and political) from the federal government, and in turn, they advised politicians, law makers, and the public on such critical policy matters as the availability of natural resources, mining laws and regulations, land use and ownership. Economic geologists thus helped to create a vision for the integration of the American West (and other mining regions) into an industrial society. In sum, this study will contribute to an understanding of the relations among science, technology, government, industry, and the environment. Outcomes will include papers at professional historical meetings, refereed journal articles, and a book manuscript.
