IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB209706890

Comstock Capitalism: The Law, the Lode, and the Science (2018)

Osiris: A Research Journal Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 33
Issue: 1
Pages: 210-231

URI: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/699702

DOI: 10.1086/699702

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Business and commerce Engineering Geology Science and industry Mines and mining Capitalism 19th century United States

The term “Comstock capitalism” describes new commercial, legal, and scientific conditions emergent in the silver mining industry of the early 1860s in western Nevada. On the Comstock, the first joint-stock mining companies in the American West were incorporated, and stockholders, “the speculative interest,” underwrote exceptional investments in large labor forces, powerful machines, cutting-edge engineering, and, most importantly, incessant litigation. In high-stakes court cases over mining rights, men of science, as expert witnesses, played central roles in the takeover of silver mining by big, well-financed companies. The development of Comstock capitalism essentially rested on the consolidation of scientific theory. Where once there had been numerous silver veins, geologists found a new object of nature—an immense single deposit called the Comstock Lode.

...More

Included in

Article Lukas Rieppel; Eugenia Lean; William Deringer (2018) Introduction: The Entangled Histories of Science and Capitalism. Osiris: A Research Journal Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 1-24). unapi

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB209706890/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Tuffnell, Stephen; (2015)
Engineering Inter-Imperialism: American Miners and the Transformation of Global Mining, 1871--1910 (/isis/citation/CBB001422658/)

Book Lucier, Paul; (2008)
Scientists and Swindlers: Consulting on Coal and Oil in America, 1820--1890 (/isis/citation/CBB000951111/)

Book Fabio D'Angelo; (2022)
La scienza itinerante. Formazione delle competenze e impiego delle risorse minerario-metallurgiche tra il Regno di Napoli e l'Europa (secoli XVIII-XIX) (/isis/citation/CBB161563605/)

Book Sean Daly; Georgius Agricola; (2018)
From the Erzgebirge to Potosi: A History of Geology and Mining Since the 1500's (/isis/citation/CBB607938157/)

Article Grettler, David; (2001)
The Nature of Capitalism: Environmental Change and Conflict over Commercial Fishing in Nineteenth-Century Delaware (/isis/citation/CBB000101037/)

Book (2019)
Manufacturing Advantage: war, the state, and the origins of American industry, 1776-1848 (/isis/citation/CBB928342588/)

Article Garland E. Allen; (2017)
Mendelism and the Promise of A New Agriculture, 1900-1945 (/isis/citation/CBB500275953/)

Book Carlson, W. Bernard; (2013)
Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age (/isis/citation/CBB001201095/)

Essay Review Weldon, Stephen P.; (2014)
Monkey Business (/isis/citation/CBB001566934/)

Book Nystrom, Eric Charles; (2014)
Seeing Underground: Maps, Models, and Mining Engineering in America (/isis/citation/CBB001551707/)

Article Lee Vinsel; (2018)
“Safe Driving Depends on the Man at the Wheel”: Psychologists and the Subject of Auto Safety, 1920–55 (/isis/citation/CBB018375006/)

Thesis Nystrom, Eric Charles; (2008)
Learning to See: Visual Tools in American Mining Engineering, 1860--1920 (/isis/citation/CBB001560707/)

Article K. R. Aalto; (2017)
Philip Tyson's 1849 Study of California Gold Prospects (/isis/citation/CBB904353285/)

Book Morse, Kathryn; (2003)
The Nature of Gold: An Environmental History of the Klondike Gold Rush (/isis/citation/CBB000471212/)

Book Curtis, Kent A; (2013)
Gambling on Ore: The Nature of Metal Mining in the United States, 1860--1910 (/isis/citation/CBB001420380/)

Thesis Chambers, Mark Milton; (2012)
River of Gray Gold: Cultural and Material Changes in the Land of Ores, Country of Minerals, 1719--1839 (/isis/citation/CBB001560771/)

Book David K. Johnson; (2019)
Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement (/isis/citation/CBB593459051/)

Book Ameringer, Carl F.; (2008)
The Health Care Revolution: From Medical Monopoly to Market Competition (/isis/citation/CBB000831078/)

Article Good, Greg; (2010)
A Federation of History-Minded Scientists and Science-Minded Historians and Archivists (/isis/citation/CBB001320779/)

Book Josh Lauer; Kenneth Lipartito; (2021)
Surveillance Capitalism in America (/isis/citation/CBB401959068/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}