By 1912, it was impossible for an employee of a Lake Superior copper mine to find any semblance of true independence or freedom from his employer, particularly if he worked for a larger company like Calumet and Hecla, Quincy, or Champion.

The employee rented a company-owned home on company-owned land, visited the company-owned library, sent his children to a company-owned school, went to a church built on company-donated property, and was even treated by a company doctor at a company-owned and operated hospital. In many instances, the employee shopped in a privately owned store built on company property. When the village of Red Jacket built its Calumet Theatre in 1900, it was built on land leased from the Calumet and Hecla company. Employees and their families even bathed in company-owned bathhouses. Company-owned libraries were provided with books, publications and other materials approved by company officials. They provided materials and literature intended to shape and guide the minds of their immigrant workers and families and make them good, productive Americans.

At face value, companies provided goods and services like these to attract a “better class of worker,” reward hard work, and maintain quality communities with “strong, New England values” — at face value.

Arthur Thurner, in his book “Strangers and Sojourners,” summed it up when he wrote:

“Americans from northeastern states promoted an aggressive capitalism linked with a democratic republicanism led by Anglo-American Protestant elite.”

Corporate paternalism provided companies a means to maintaining strict control over communities and their residents, both financially and socially. Paternalism also enabled companies to establish and maintain a hierarchy among various ethnic groups. Mining companies, like Quincy, for example, established ethnically based neighborhoods strategically located. Clustered around the mine shafts were housing clusters with names like Limerick for Irish workers; Coburntown was intended for Cornish workers. But during the latter half of the 19th century when Quincy began hiring eastern European and Scandinavian immigrants, the company established Swedetown more than two miles from the mine location. Around the turn of the 20th century, Quincy built housing in what it called the First Hillside addition and the Second Hillside addition primarily for its Finnish workers. These houses were built in areas carved out of the hillside, on land that was basically unusable. In several areas of Hancock, the old footpaths used by the residents to walk to work and back are still visible.

The Champion mine conducted similar practices. Good, substantial housing was built near the mine shafts and in nearby Painesdale, complete with clapboard siding. At Seeberville, intended for Croatian workers, who were not skilled in mining, the houses were not even tar papered. Mining companies used their housing as a statement to their workers on where they stood in the eyes of the companies.

The Calumet and Hecla Semi-Centennial Edition of the Keweenaw Miner, 1866-1916, boasted of the great interest shown in the company’s employee welfare:

“In addition to the comfortable homes provided, there are many other evidences of the belief of those in charge of this great organization, that contented people are a valuable asset to a community, in the many fine churches, schools, hospital, bath house, libraries and other public buildings that have been built either wholly or in part by the Company.”

The boast continued, declaring that in Calumet “proper” there is no town nor village organization, the only local government being the Township Board, composed of the supervisor, the clerk and two justices of the peace. In 1916, when that was written, C&H General Manager James MacNaughton was the township supervisor.

When C&H built its library in 1896, it also built the Manual Training School, both of which were to be placed under the management of the Calumet Township School Board. The company also remodeled its hospital that year, and built 24 worker houses and four houses for company officers. The next year, the company built 35 additional worker houses and two more officer houses. The following year they built 60 more. These projects consumed a substantial amount of revenue; the mining companies paid a high price for its paternalism.

The Annual Report of the Baltic Mining Company for 1903 reported similar investments in residential developments. At its mine location, the company completed the construction of 24 houses, at a cost of $4,022; graded streets and cleared land for houses at a cost of $951; laid foundations for 14 single-family dwellings a cost of $2,400; another $1,250 for boarding house foundations, and $4,700 for additional dwellings, while at the stamp mill location, the company built an additional six houses at $7,061.

The following year, stone foundations for 16 duplex houses, while 14 single-family dwellings were constructed, complete with concrete floors, equipped with drains.

The mining locations at Baltic, Trimountain and Champion, were new ventures, opened by the Copper Range Railroad. There were no houses in the areas, which necessitated the companies constructing them. The Champion, begun in 1899, placed a heavy burden on its shareholders to build and develop the mine, housing areas and its stamp mill. Between 1899 and 1902, the Directors called for nearly $1.4 million.

Like the established companies in the copper region, those in the CR company, the Baltic, Trimountain and Champion, constructed their dwellings without hope of breaking even on their costs, let alone profiting from them. Because these were all turn-of-the-century companies, their homes had to be of standards that older companies had the luxury of gradually upgrading. The homes had to be built on good foundations with poured floors equipped with drains, with plumbing and running water and electricity.

Progressive improvements that raised the standard of living, such as electric lights, central heating, were items Copper Range’s residences must have if the companies expected to retain workers that could otherwise relocate to neighboring mines — except Quincy. The Quincy mine had long had the reputation among the region’s workers as being a company that did not place much value on its employees. Evidence of that can be found in Quincy’s annual report for 1910:

“An unusually large number of systematic repairs have been made to the dwellings about the several locations, a matter that has long needed attention,” the report admitted, “especially in the case of the old Franklin Mine dwellings that were in a very bad state, many being uninhabitable.”