The man given charge of Tennessee Copper from1919 onward was “J.N.” Houser. As General Manager of TCC until his death in 1949 Houser was also a member of the Tennessee Corporation’s board of directors. Houser administered the overhaul of the company’s product line building on the work accomplished by a clean-up managerial team sent to the Basin
immediately after the Lewisohns regained control of the firm. The team fired TCC’s acid plant superintendent and chief engineer. Houser took charge of TCC. Houser hired a new
management cohort that included a mine captain, mine foremen, carpenter foremen, time keepers and supply clerks, a civil engineer, master mechanics and mechanical engineers. This team in miniature represented the same kind of new, more finely focused rational management the best U.S. metals firms adopted during the Progressive era. Added later to this team was a trained manager who oversaw a new Personnel Department.119
The new GM understood the company’s challenge was as great in the late 1910s as it had been during the smoke crisis twenty years before. His answer to the challenge would be to
118
“Tennessee Copper Profits,” New York Times, 2 May,1918; “Tennessee Copper Dividend,” New York Times, 29 May, 1918 “Tennessee Copper earns $477,522” New York Times, 25 April, 1919; and, Barclay, The Copper Basin, 30 and 46.
119
expand the company’s production array through a comprehensive building and product development program. Known as the All-Milling Program and approved by the New York office, this “tremendous undertaking” would extend facilities to process the notorious low-grade ore in the Basin. One of the main goals of the project was the “eventual elimination of the blast furnace as the keystone in the recovery process” owing to inefficiencies. The immediate post- war slump of 1920-21 slowed progress on the project but by 1923 conditions had improved enough for the erection of a new acid production concentrator and the construction of a selective flotation plant near the company’s London Mine. Selective flotation “is based on the counter- intuitive phenomenon that occurs when heavy metallic substances cling to the bubbles of an oily froth and rise to the top, where they can easily be skimmed off.” The chemical reaction process removes about 94% of copper from ore and was thus perfect for use in the Copper Basin.
Adding to all this, by the end of 1924 Houser called for the “erection of [new] four roasters and a sintering plant [sat] at Copperhill.”120
These developments by 1930 gave TCC the ability to produce in addition to copper, commercial and textile acids, sodium hydro, ferric sulphate, copper sulphates (for use in fungicides and insecticides), iron sinter, zinc concentrate, sundry organic chemicals, and
granulated slag. Copper use in electrification and for conventional metals products for this era is known. Birmingham fabricators used TCC iron sinter just as scrap might be used. The balance of TCC’s products reflected the Lewisohns’ new interest in chemicals. The expanded array of products made possible by Houser’s All-Milling Program reinvigorated optimism among local businessmen.121
120
Barclay, ibid, 41-43, passim
121
Navin, Copper Mining and Management, 46; Barclay, ibid.; use of iron sinter explained in Tennessee Copper Company magazine, TC Topics, June 1952.
Houser maintains industrial peace
Houser accompanied this production overhaul with efforts to maintain industrial peace by way of welfare capitalism and rationalized personnel management. Keen on limiting the power of an independent union, but unwilling to make direct attacks it, Houser “loved the union to death” by recognizing it had a right to exist and then circumventing its mission by establishing a new chain of communications for employees. The GM’s efforts here rested on a de facto
company union or employee representative plan (EMP). Houser bolstered the legitimacy of the EMP by making sure around TCC mines and works that “the Manager’s door was always open.” The EMP was typical of those established by progressive firms during this era that wanted to dissuade workers from joining independent unions. Houser’s efforts built on those of his predecessor, H.T. Harper who had placed guards around new, more-dangerous pieces of machinery. Harper had also adopted uniform safety measures in all TCC mines. The upgraded system’s primary focus was to institute better safety habits among all men by crew. But it also instilled greater loyalty among workers once the system proved it could truly reduce accidents and death on the job. The EMP improved the company’s bottom line by reducing the expenses associated with misused machinery and lost “man-hours” owing to injuries or death.122
The EMP tamed arrogance among a certain set of workers who tended to hold onto procedural ignorance out of a misplaced sense of masculinity. Pride born out a the independent natures useful in the Southern Mountains frontier society often made it difficult to train men in safety and efficiency protocols. This is not to argue that the new EMP system was perfect. It apparently relied too much on an administrative hierarchy intimidating to some workers and
122
T.A. Mitchell, Tennessee Copper Company “Labor Relations,” Pinehurst Meeting, October 1946, 1-2; and, “Safety Work at Tennessee Copper Company,” The Explosives Engineer: Forerunner of Progress in Mining, Quarrying Construction, November 1934: 317-320, passim.
condescending to others as will be shown. But it had its good effects and was much better than the disinterested, bottom-line only approach TCC employed during the Lewisohn’s interregnum. Company officials also claimed the EMP provided workers a place where they could forum. TCC manager T.A. Mitchell recalled the twenties under Houser’s new system. “During that period of 10 years, it was the practice to hold frequent meetings with large groups of employees” to encourage more worker input in safety procedure effectiveness, disseminate policy change, and discuss production quotas. Workers could also discuss new wage schemes and were “encouraged to discuss with their supervisors and the Personnel Department any grievance or other matters about which they had concern.” In this manner, the EMP affected exactly what Houser’s boss and TCC owner Sam A. Lewisohn believed was necessary when Lewisohn argued that a modern manager had to be sensitive to the circumstances of his workers so as to
“humaniz[e] the management of industry.”123
So successful was the Houser EMP program that it made the pages of the national trade magazine, Explosives Engineer. Reflecting the associationalism common during the Republican controlled, pro-business administration of the twenties, the Hercules Power Company periodical joined the U.S. Bureau of Mines to assist Houser’s commencement of a “Sentinels of Safety” campaign at Tennessee Copper Company. Mining companies and men who demonstrated the safest work habits received an annual award from the magazine in a public ceremony addressed by representatives from the Mining Bureau. The trophy was an evocative sculpture of a woman holding a baby aloft designed to remind workers that it was their personal embrace of safety on the job that would allow them to return safely to their dependent, vulnerable families. The
123
Barclay, ibid, 67; and T.A. Mitchell, “Labor Relations,” ibid; and Sam A. Lewisohn, (then) Treasurer of Miami Copper Company, “Humanizing the Management of Industry,” an address given before the Academy of Political Science, New York City, 6 December, 1918. Contained within Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York, No. 2, War Labor Policies and Reconstruction, February, 1919: 85.
magazine’s own notoriety added even more legitimacy to the EMP’s mission to purge TCC of the old-fashioned every-man-for-himself mentality that formerly characterized a miner’s life.124
At a Ducktown presentation of the trophy that had been typical of such events, U.S. Mining Bureau official W.W. Adams gave each man on TCC’s recent winning crew “certificates of honor.” Men interviewed about the safety campaign approved of it. Blaster T.W. Davis, from the Burra Burra Mine, when asked, “expressed his appreciation to the management for what they had done to forward safety in mining and to the Explosives Engineer and Bureau of Mines for the trophy and certificates.” The Sentinels of Safety campaign highlighted the fact for workers that they did not operate alone in this world. A driller named I.H. Verner likely typified miners when he said that “looking at the trophy… he was reminded that he had a wife and youngsters at home confidently expecting him to return safely at the end of each day’s work.”125
Granted, as a for-profit venture for a blasting powder company, the Explosives Engineer
could have cherry-picked men’s reactions to the safety campaign and the whole event may have intimidated men dissatisfied with management nannying on the job. But these caveats aside, the establishment of Houser’s safety-focused EMP and the Sentinels of Safety program underscored certain facts about mining life and the mining industry in Tennessee not addressed prior to Houser’s tenure at TCC: Progressive Era legislation in Tennessee had simply not been enough to end the danger for Copper Basin industrial workers that lurked everywhere on the job. Too many injuries still occurred on jobsites in the early twenties. The state’s inspection system was too susceptible to corruption and full of holes even after a generation of reform. Laws sat on the books that stated that the state’s Chief Mine Inspector could shut down any mine deemed unsafe for non-compliance of state regulations, but actual implementation and enforcement depended on
124
The Explosives Engineer, ibid.
125
the personal prerogatives of too few inspectors. Houser and the Lewisohns understood the costs associated with injured or lost man-hours and that laws alone would not protect workers. Most important, TCC operators knew that not all accidents could be blamed on unsafe properties. Men made impulsive decisions that led to accidents more often than did substandard facilities. To institute a private safety program would also keep government officials, workers’ advocates, or sundry concerned citizens from establishing intrusive government regulation. Furthermore, the TCC program followed patterns embraced by much larger firms that also included functioning pumps, good lighting and adequate ventilation in underground systems.126
The situation at TCC before the installation of the EMP had not been pretty regarding safety. A sampling of injuries at TCC from 1914 gives us a good comparison. For the three months of October, November, and December thirty-two TCC men met injuries that ranged from strained backs and bruised ankles to neck dislocations lacerations of the hands, chest, and hip, amputations, fractures of arms and legs, crushed fingers and toes and myriad “contusions.”127 With regularity, men injured themselves or were victim to falls, being crushed by ore “muck,” rock falls, wrecked motors, and all the sundry rock-and-hard-place opportunities mining work allowed.128
In contrast to these figures, within ten years of the commencement of the EMP and Sentinels of Safety campaign crews at the Burra Burra mine and other TCC facilities had worked over 300K hours without any lost time for accidents. One measure of popularity among the men
126
Mine safety laws had been on the books in Tennessee since the early 1900s, but as Virginia Holmes Brown alluded in her mid-century assessment of the legislation, much of it was veneer to protect companies from law suites and satisfy a well-intentioned, but effectively ignorant middle-class. Virginia Holmes Brown, University of
Tennessee Record 48:6, 29-41, and 64. A summary of “progress in safety” for the era can be found in, United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, Work Projects Administration, National Research, Project Report No. E-12 by Y.S. Leong et al, Technology, Employment, and Output Per Man in Copper Mining (Washington:
Government Printing Office, February 1940), 15; and in, Navin, ibid, 34
127
“Record of Personal Injuries at Mines of Tennessee Copper Company, Copperhill Tenn. For months of October, November, and December 1914,” January 11, 1915, Ducktown Basin Museum Collection.
128
was the buy-in of workers to the program. At Ducktown there was considerable success; the village’s mining team became the company’s safest crew.129
Houser’s safety program, good as it was, did not vanquish all the hazards of mine and smelting work. Periodic reports from the interwar years in the Copperhill paper told of tragedies such as that which befell Clarence Crawford, a 42-year brakeman and popular vet among the TCC crews who, while riding on the back of one of the company’s train cars, was crushed between two of them. Four cars had snapped loose and rolled down a grade into an awaiting car. Crawford had been in between. That he survived for anytime time at all was astonishing. The rescue team worked feverishly to save popular “Horsefly” as he was known by his TCC pals using steel torches to cut him loose from the wreckage. Despite the efforts and his “iron nerve” Crawford succumbed to his multiple amputations and crushed chest. Horsefly Crawford left behind his widow, two daughters and a host of local kin spread from Copperhill to Blue Ridge.130
Such tragedies became more uncommon at the Basin’s mines and works in the thirties. The year 1923 saw 288 injuries at TCC per million man-hours worked. Following installation of the Houser EMP safety program that rate fell to 169 per million man-hours and by the middle thirties it had dropped to zero per million man-hours. Miner Samuel Sharp quoted himself on the subject. “Every man in the mining department is convinced that if everyone will think about safety, talk about safety, and try to work safely, we will continue to enjoy the great achievement of having few or no workmen maimed or crippled at their work.” Sharp acknowledged miners had once held great doubts about the program, but that it had been proven effective. No system could be could ever be fool proof. Scholar Thomas Navins argued that even the best systems
129
The Explosives Engineer, ibid.
130
could be compromised by all-too-human obstinate attitudes among workers. “Miners may be provided with health-protecting measure, but if they are reluctant to incur discomfort…health measures are difficult to enforce.”131
Houser’s employee representative plan co-opted a considerable amount of the energy that lay behind the Copper Basin’s union movement—a result no doubt that had been assumed in the general manager’s original calculus. Once shown successful for miners, Houser extended the program across the TCC works to electricians, railroad operators, smeltermen, leadburners, chemists—in short for all company crews. Their influence notwithstanding, the EMP’s
establishment cannot be given complete credit for union impotency in the Copper Basin during the twenties. Unions had plenty of interior challenges that led to dormancy: political infighting, fizzled membership rolls and shrunken treasuries. Additional clandestine efforts to erode union power by the general manager may not have been necessary since the EMP was used in
conjunction with other aspects of rationalized management: reasonable wages and ongoing
incentives for men to upgrade their skills before advancing mining and processing technology.132
The nature of the work in extraction, smelting, and chemical facilities
As for the men who manned the region’s copper company mines and processing plants, reports and interviews published by Tennessee Copper Company and interviews conducted
131
Ibid. Note the program continued for the next generation—see the note in the 4.1954 TC TOPICS wherein the
Explosives Engineer editor attended the awarding of the Sentinels of Safety Trophy to a Calloway-Mary Mine crew; Navin, ibid., 35.
132
Jensen, Heritage of Conflict, 452. For an example of records set by the expansion of the Houser-initiated safety program to other trades at TCC during the interwar years see “10,000 Safe Days by Our Lead Crew,” TC Topics, Tennessee Copper Company, April 1954.
during this study reveal much about the spectrum of skills and attitudes toward work embraced by some of the companies’ hundreds of men. Some of these men were the kind sought out by the unions; others had been in the union movement, but were later removed from official
membership rolls owing to their positions as foremen, chemists or supervisors; still others had no intention of ever joining a union or found unionism a hindrance to their personal ambitions. Consideration of the conditions under which these men worked and an acknowledgement of their ability to master the skills their jobs demanded of them provides a better understanding for how pride in work might combine with the necessity of work, emboldening these men to defend their industrial liberty. Copper company rolls represented an assortment of workers some of whom represented low-skilled, lesser wage day-laborers while other possessed many industrial skills. TCC chief clerk Robert E. Barclay summed up the top tier of Copper Basin workers among the several firms as being a collection of master mechanics, locomotive, civil, and mechanical engineers, copper mining and smelting experts, carpenters, time keepers, supply clerks, commissary management, even a surgeon.133
One of the most telling things about work in the Copper Basin was that it was not at all uncommon for a man to hold a dozen different jobs during his career. He might work for DSC & I or Pittsburgh Copper for a time and then later for Tennessee Copper Company. Upgrades in mining and production methods became regular features of working life which required men to retool their skills. As mentioned, dangerous circumstances were nearly omnipresent
underground. The extremely high temperatures and pressures exerted in the extraction, smelting, and chemicals production wore equipment down fast and required a vigilant maintenance and
133
Information about the working men in this section from Barclay, The Copper Basin, 32-33 and workers biographies recounted in TCC magazine articles “They Have Been Around,” T.C. Topics, 1950s, passim; see also, “Skill and Age Requirements,” Y.S. Leong et al, Technology, Employment, and Output per man in Copper Mining,
repair that only increased upon the adoption of new production methods. Any yet, even though men might change their jobs and take on new ones that required a different set of skills a