By the turn of the century technological innovation underground was beginning to match the rapid developments above ground. The key to this change was the use of electrical power underground. The mechanical cutting of coal was the most dramatic advance for it compromised the individual miner's control over the mining process, thereby seriously challenging his independence. Instead of controlling the whole process, individual miners increasingly became specialized workers, performing only certain functions. Combined with a number of other technological innovations, especially the telephone and electricity, mechanical cutting revolutionized the miners' relationship with the coal companies. The coal cutter, operated from electrically driven compressed air pumps, was used to undercut the coal while the miners worked at blasting and loading the coal. It also made possible twenty-four hour operation of the mines, with some shifts being given over to maintenance and preparation of the coal for the miners.
This coal cutter, called the Ingersoll-Sergeant, was distributed by the James Cooper Company of MontrÄal and is typical of the sort used in Nova Scotia's coal fields. Mining equipment and journals, as well as the trading of mining stocks on central Canadian stock exchanges, reflected the degree to which the industry had become Americanized by this period. The Canadian Mining, Iron and Steel Manual, where this advertisement appeared in 1897, was one of a number of journals which illustrate this transformation. More militant miners were convinced that technological innovations had unalterably transformed the industry and that a new kind of unionism was necessary.
Courtesy: Library, Canada Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology
