Videos and Supplements

Iron Country. Duluth, MN (year unknown) DVD

Iron Country is an epic 12-hour documentary series telling the story of Minnesota’s three Iron Ranges and the people who make this region their home. Hosted and written by well known Iron Range historian Marvin Lamppa of Babbitt, the series begins with the geological formation of the state’s three iron ranges and continues through the regions pre-history and history. Available as a set or individual episodes. Descriptions of the episodes are available here: http://wdse.org/ironshows.htm  12 hours.

 

Episodes include:

“It’s Geologic Past, Geography, and Prehistory”

“Depression, War, and Taconite”

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Official Website: http://www.historyoftheland.org/index.htm

 

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“For the Common Good: The History of the Työmies Newspaper” T. Selinski Productions, 2000.  VHS

Though not exclusively about the Iron Range, this documentary covers the history of the weekly Finnish-language paper from 1903 until the 1970s. Primarily a socialist paper, the Massachusetts paper Tyomies covered news stories across the country wherever there was a labor struggle. The paper was an outlet for the efforts of a large corps of vlunteeer local correspondents and, as such, served as a tie between widespread groups of progressive-minded Finnish-Americans. 90 min

 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

http://www.ihrc.umn.edu/research/vitrage/all/to/ihrc2630.html Photographs taken by Tyomies staff from 1900-1975. Each photograph has a brief description. Only a few are from Minnesota.

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“Spies in Steel: The Dollar-A-Day Man” T. Selinski Productions, 1999. VHS

Narrated by Ed Asner, this documentary is an expose of the United States Steel companies use of labor spies in the mining communities of northern Minnesota from 1900 to 1940. Based on Frank L. Palmer’s 1928 expose of the mining company spy system. Created in the 1800s by industrialists, the spy system existed to undermine and destroy the labor and union movement. The film includes interview with Professor Howard Zinn and Professor David Montgomery. 70min

 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Labor and Steel by Horace Bancroft Davis. New York: International Publishers, 1933. (free view)

A 300+ page book dedicated to every detail of the steel workers (those working in steel mills, not miners) and the conflicts with management. Pages 163-168 covers spies in steel – what they do, how they work and concluding that all major steel companies employ spies. 

“Spies in Steel: An Expose of Industrial War” by Frank L. Palmer. 1923. (click to purchase $$$$)

Frank L. Palmer’s 1928 Expose is a detailed report, with names, of the spy system of the Oliver Iron Mining Company, in the Mesaba Iron Range in Minnesota. Includes information on spies in the Finnish community. Out of print, extremely hard to find, extremely expensive. Try your nearest university library.

"Undercover and Underground: Labor Spies and Mine Management in the Early Twentieth Century” by Charles K Hyde in Business History Review (v60) 1986. p 1-27 (Click to purchase through JStor.com)

In this article Professor Hyde examines in detail the use of industrial spies at a large Michigan copper mine. Hyde finds in his case study of the Quincy Mining Company that spies were seldom useful in providing important labor intelligence.  Instead they inadvertently provided top management with valuable information about underground working conditions and the performance of foremen and petty bosses.

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