No matter how you look at it, mining is a huge industry. It is able to provide us with rare earth metals that are essential to our society in this day and age. Some notable things that utilize rare earth metals are cell phones, computers, and certain medical equipment. You may have known this already, but what you probably didn’t know is that the Adirondacks used to have a large influx of people coming to the region to look for a career in mining.

The mining that was done in the Adirondacks did a great job of employing people while also introducing a very diverse group of people to the region. While this sounds good at the surface, there was actually a darker side to the story of mining in the Adirondacks. There were recruiters for the mines that would take immigrants directly from the docks of New York and give them an opportunity to work. While innocent at first, the jobs given to these immigrants were inherently dangerous and they weren’t treated well.

What was done in these small mining towns located in the Adirondacks was cold and calculated. Some towns were “ethnically segregated…exacerbating tensions between old and new immigrant groups – which served to reduce the chances of miners finding common cause and striking, or, worse, unionizing” (Mining in the Adirondacks). Unfortunately, the way that these mines were run, their only purpose was to increase profits and production by exploiting workers. A clear example of this exploitation is when Italian mine workers “had to pay for their own tools and…pew rents in the local parish that new immigrant workers could not afford”(Mining in the Adirondacks). It is a shame to see what was done to these people, but all of this grueling work didn’t go to waste.

New discoveries today show that some of the mining waste and tailings that were left over from the past work done in the area still have ample amounts of rare earth metals that can be valuable to us today. As mentioned before, these rare earth metals are essential to certain types of production, so if the effort is taken to extract these materials from the tailings and waste, what was once just pollution will become useful. It is truly unfortunate how these mines were run in the past, but there certainly have been good things to come of it. Not only was mining a great way of making money back during the Adirondacks’ early years of exploration, but benefits still might be seen today.

The immigrant mine workers surely don’t get enough recognition for what they had to go through and how poorly they were treated. Through time, both the mines and the people who put their lives into the work that they did have been forgotten. It is possible with the rising popularity of harvesting tailings and waste that their story will make a comeback and show people the true history of the land.

Works Cited

“Mine Waste in the Eastern Adirondacks May Be Untapped, Accessible Source of Rare Earth Element Minerals.” Mine Waste in the Eastern Adirondacks May Be Untapped, Accessible Source of Rare Earth Element Minerals, 22 Dec. 2020, https://www.usgs.gov/news/mine-waste-eastern-adirondacks-may-be-untapped-accessible-source-rare-earth-element-minerals. 

“Mining in the Adirondacks.” Adirondack Experience, 9 Apr. 2021, https://www.theadkx.org/mining-in-the-adirondacks/.