Majewski Research Fellow Talk with Juan Manuel Rubio “American Incaism: Nature, Labor, and Race in Peru’s Copper-Mining Circuit, 1902 – 1912

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History Building Room 155

Cerro de Pasco, high in the Andean Mountains of Peru, was rich in copper and other metals, bringing in early twentieth-century Americans who formed the Cerro de Pasco Company. Juan, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Irvine, describes the history of the investors, managers, and employees working for the company while relating the personal trajectories of its founding investors and examining the visions and assumptions that led them to invest and develop a mining enterprise in Peru. American executives and employees who traveled to Peru were transformed by the space of the copper circuit. Juan will analyze how these individuals developed innovative ways to manage the difficult Andean environment and control the CPC’s labor force. His talk will also draw from illustrated publications and photographs to show how the copper circuit, as constructed nature and a racialized place, informed how these American employees conceived of class, race, and gender.

Free and open to the public