Mining Camps

Examples of Mining Camps in the following topics:

• Mining on the Comstock Lode

  • Mining camps soon thrived in the vicinity, which became bustling centers of wealth.
  • The mines declined after 1874, and eventually ceased in 1922.
  • After arriving much too early to cross the Sierra, they camped on the Carson river in the vicinity of Dayton to wait for the mountain snow to melt.
  • Other emigrants followed, camped on the canyon and went to work at mining.
  • The miners who discovered the mines and the investors who bought their claims did not know the size of the strike.

• Gold Fever in the West

  • Without courts or law officers in the mining communities to enforce claims and justice, miners developed their own ad hoc legal system, based on the "mining codes" used in other mining communities abroad.
  • Camps spread out north and south of the American River and eastward into the Sierras.
  • In a few years, nearly all of the independent miners were displaced as mines were purchased and run by mining companies, who then hired low-paid miners.
  • Bigger mines, however, caused greater environmental damage.
  • Temporary mining camps sprang up overnight; most became ghost towns when the ores were depleted.

• Pioneer Women

  • The most famous were the houses of prostitution found in mining camps.
  • Chinese women, for example, were frequently sold by their families and taken to the camps as prostitutes; they had to send their earnings back to their families in China.
  • After a decade or so, the mining towns attracted respectable women who ran boarding houses, organized church societies, worked as laundresses and seamstresses, and strove for independent status.

• Attack on Pearl Harbor

  • The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one mine layer.
  • One of the most controversial consequences of the attack was the creation of internment camps for Japanese American residents and citizens.
  • Within hours of the attack, hundreds of Japanese American leaders were rounded up and brought to high-security camps such as Sand Island at the mouth of Honolulu harbor and Kilauea Military Camp on the island of Hawaii. 
  • Over 110,000 Japanese Americans, including United States citizens, were removed from their homes and transferred to internment camps in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Texas.

• Frontier Revivals

  • In the newly settled frontier regions, the revivals of the Second Great Awakening took the form of camp meetings.
  • The camp meeting was a religious service of several days' length involving multiple preachers.
  • Settlers in thinly populated areas would gather at the camp meeting for fellowship.
  • One of the early camp meetings took place in July 1800 at Gasper River Church in southwestern Kentucky.
  • Camp meetings were multi-day affairs with multiple preachers, often attracting thousands of worshippers.

• Women in the West

  • Many Chinese women, for example, came to the western camps as prostitutes to make money to send back home.
  • Even fewer arrived to support their husbands or operate stores in the mining towns.

• The Transcontinental Railroads

  • Initially, Central Pacific had a hard time hiring and keeping unskilled workers on its line, as many would leave for the prospect of far more lucrative gold or silver mining options elsewhere.
  • Usually the workers lived in camps built near their work site.

• Herbert Hoover: The Great Engineer

  • Originally, Hoover was a professional mining engineer and author.
  • In 1897, he went to Australia as an employee of Bewick, Moreing & Co., a London-based mining company.
  • After being appointed as mine manager at the age of 23, he led a major program of expansion for the Sons of Gwalia gold mine at Gwalia, Western Australia.
  • Hoover worked at gold mines in Big Bell, Cue, Leonora, Menzies and Coolgardie, Western Australia.
  • Hoover worked as chief engineer for the Chinese Bureau of Mines and as general manager for the Chinese Engineering and Mining Corporation.

• The Holocaust

  • Holocaust scholars draw a distinction between extermination camps and concentration camps.
  • Instead, the ghettos' inhabitants were sent to extermination camps.
  • The use of extermination camps (also called "death camps") equipped with gas chambers for the systematic mass extermination of peoples was an unprecedented feature of the Holocaust.
  • At this time, as the Soviet armed forces approached, the camps in eastern Poland were closed down, any surviving inmates being shipped west to camps closer to Germany.
  • Local commanders continued to kill Jews, and to shuttle them from camp to camp by forced "death marches" until the last weeks of the war.

• The Camp David Accords

  • The Camp David Accords were part of the Middle East peace process through comprehensive, multi-lateral negotiations.
  • The Camp David Accords were the result of 18 months of intense diplomatic efforts by Egypt, Israel, and the United States that began after Jimmy Carter became President.
  • The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978, following thirteen days of secret negotiations at Camp David.
  • There were two 1978 Camp David agreements: A Framework for Peace in the Middle East and A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel, the second leading towards the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty signed in March 1979.
  • Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat with U.S. president Jimmy Carter at Camp David in 1978.