I'm in the process of writing a story about two sisters, Blaire and Vanessa, who work as youth laborers in a silver mine. The story involves Vanessa perishing in a rock slide and Blaire losing her hands trying to save her. I know some basics about the conditions of silver mining in the late 1800's, but I need help researching the type of machinery that was used, the tools that were used, methods of mining the ore, the structure of the mines, etc. Can anyone help?
"Often, the best way to improve is swallowing your ego and realizing you're a terrible writer in all aspects of writing, then working to improve it." -R.U.
This was a really hard one to research. I didn't realise how much of a specialised area it was and had to wade through a lot of information to find stuff.
The thing with the 1800's is that it's on the peak of the industrial revolution, so whether or not you had an internal-combustion engine or not probably depended on what kind of companies you were working for.
Method and structure
On one hand you have the old methods. Pre-1800's there was no shaft mining until people learned to stabilise the mines with wood. Most of it was surface mining, which ranged from stripping the earth to digging forwards into a mountain. To get deeper you'd have to find a natural tunnel or cavern and work your way down from there, which I imagine would have been the method for those without heavy machinery.
That doesn't mean people didn't just dig straight down, if you had slaves (it still happened, even if it was illegal,) or an abundance of cheap labour then you could have done it.
Minerals
Things like copper, zinc and lead would have also been there and these would be mined as well, and in the rocks would have been other materials, toxic and none, that inevitably would have been inhaled. The quicker the miners learned to recognise the different types of rock and mineral they found the more chance they would have had for survival.
Machines and Tools
Mine carts would have been readily available to carry people and minerals, but heavy machinery was still in its early stages and would have only been used by the larger companies. Even then things like scanners and precise measuring wasn't yet available so it was still a matter of digging a giant hole in the ground and hoping you strike lucky. The machine would have dug a tunnel but the workers would be the ones to mine out any ore they came across.
Fire and small fans would have been used to regulate the air, which as you can imagine wouldn't have done much good, and if anyone struck gas then you've got a flash fire and a tunnel full of dead people.
Most people would still have been using shovels and pick axes, and handheld machinery didn't appear until much later.
Women Young men would have been ideal candidates for mining since they could climb through and into places that larger men couldn't. Women, however, would never have been sent to the mines. In the 1800's it was rare for a woman to have any kind of job, and if she had to work the most likely career would be in a brothel of sorts.
[Edit] Some parts of the net say that women would have been used as mine workers if they were really, really poor, but only until the Mines Act 1842, when it became prohibited for women and children to work in mines.
Further Research This is hard XD Since things were changing so much in the 1800s it'll help to look up the 1700's and figure out, depending on who these girls are working for, how many of the modern methods would have been implemented.
What information I got came from looking up some general geology, but most of it from researching the history of specific mines, areas of the world, e.c.t. If you need more research then I'd recommend doing the same. It won't make you an expert but it will give you something you can use to create a similar environment within your story.
Wow! Oh my gosh, Ten. Thank you so much! I've found a few valuable sources myself, but this is wonderfully helpful.
Would it be a cliche to have the girls pretend to be boys to work in the mine? Or maybe have their employer force them to dress as boys so he can use them as cheap labor?
You're welcome =] I'm a total history nerd, so this was quite fun! Truth, most of the geological information I found went straight over my head, but the industry itself is really interesting when you look at the social and economic issues surrounding it.
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