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Mining Childhood: Growing up in Butte, 1900-1960
Published
11 years agoon
By Anne Marie Mistretta Explorebigsky.com Contributor
While prospecting in Big Sky’s early days was a bust, copper mining thrived just 125 miles north on Butte’s “Richest Hill on Earth.”
The mines dominated Butte’s landscape, defined families and shaped children’s existence and memories. Mine expansion encroached upon and sometimes consumed neighborhoods. Children played on slag heaps, mine yards, gallows frames, and even the tunnels of the Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railways.
More than half a century later, memories are keen with raising animals for food in small backyards, crushing loads of grapes for wine and celebrating everything from Halloween to deaths.
In Mining Childhood: Growing up in Butte, 1900-1960, Janet Finn gives an ethnographic history of Butte in the first half of the 20th century. Writing from the perspective of local children, she uses the memories of those who grew up in Butte during the rise and decline of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company.
Those who survived the high infancy mortality rate and dangerous child’s play lived to tell tales of thrift, resilience, and friendship in ethnically separate neighborhoods. Yet Irish, Germans, Finns, Serbs, Croatians – many non-English speaking first generations – mixed their cultures, customs and wonderfully smelling food in this diverse city.
Working traditional jobs in newspaper delivery, boardinghouse cleaning and babysitting, children learned resourcefulness, particularly during the many strikes, the Great Depression, and wartime. They also learned to scavenge – some would say pirate – coal, wood, even sawdust, to supplement the mining paycheck and help their families eke out a subsistence level existence.
Bonds formed during childhood friendships were memorable and valuable. Like their parents, children helped each other when in the neighborhood, when on the ball fields or when venturing onto others’ turf. Adults fretted about cadres of neighborhood children, often called “gangs,” and their unsupervised play.
Charitable organizations, along with the city government, began to focus resources on the welfare of Butte’s children. Memories are rife with organized teams, movie theaters and “Copper King” William Clark’s amusement park, Columbia Gardens.
During this time, compulsory education was enforced. Public and Catholic schools alike meted out hefty discipline and structure along with reading, writing and arithmetic. School saved many Butte children from roaming the streets, and pride in the high school, particularly in the music and sports programs, reveals that education made the difference for many youngsters.
Butte families sustained each other, whether they experienced loss in the mines or heartache from within, such as family alcoholism and violence. Perhaps the cruelest hardship and memory that Finn mined from her interviews is that so many Butte residents can no longer point to their former neighborhood and say, “that’s where I grew up.”
While the City of Butte enacted progressive programs to assist families and youth through their challenging lives, it can’t put back the neighborhoods that had been consumed by the mines.
Megan Paulson is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Outlaw Partners.
Upcoming Events
april, 2024
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Saturday, March 23rd 6:00-8:00pm We will combine the heart-opening powers of cacao with the transcendental powers of breathwork and sound. Together, these practices will give us the opportunity for a deep
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Saturday, March 23rd 6:00-8:00pm
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March 23 (Saturday) 6:00 pm - April 23 (Tuesday) 8:00 pm
Location
Santosha Wellness Center
169 Snowy Mountain Circle
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We all are familiar with using a limited palette, but do you use one? Do you know how to use a
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We all are familiar with using a limited palette, but do you use one? Do you know how to use a limited palette to create different color combinations? Are you tired of carrying around 15-20 different tubes when you paint plein air? Have you ever wanted to create a certain “mood” in a painting but failed? Do you create a lot of mud? Do you struggle to achieve color harmony? All these problems are addressed in John’s workbook in clear and concise language!
Based on the bestselling “Limited Palatte, Unlimited Color” workbook written by John Pototschnik, the workshop is run by Maggie Shane and Annie McCoy, accomplished landscape (acrylic) and plein air (oil) artists,exhibitors at the Big Sky Artists’ Studio & Gallery and members of the Big Sky Artists Collective.
Each student will receive a copy of “Limited Palette, Unlimited Color” to keep and take home to continue your limited palette journey. We will show you how to use the color wheel and mix your own clean mixtures to successfully create a mood for your paintings.
Each day, we will create a different limited palette color chart and paint a version of a simple landscape using John’s directives. You will then be able to go home and paint more schemes using the book for guidance.
Workshop is open to painters (oil or acrylic) of any level although students must have some basic knowledge of the medium he or she uses. Students will be provided the book ($92 value), color wheel, value scale and canvas papers to complete the daily exercises.
Sundays, April 14, 21 and 28, 2024
Noon until 6PM.
$170.
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14 (Sunday) 12:00 pm - 28 (Sunday) 6:00 pm
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Trivia from 7 to 9 p.m. at The Waypoint in Town Center. Participation is free, food and beverages available.
Event Details
Trivia from 7 to 9 p.m. at The Waypoint in Town Center. Participation is free, food and beverages available.
Time
(Wednesday) 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Location
The Waypoint
50 Ousel Falls Rd