I have always assumed that the term arose during the goldrushes, and probably during the first great gold rush, California. Its early use seems in my reading to be confined to the USA, although it has now spread around the world.
Virtually all nineteenth century gold rushes began with the discovery of alluvial deposits (placer deposits in North America), and then progressed to the discovery of veins or other in situ deposits in rock. The fundamental difference between the two was that alluvial mining could be done by small groups of miners with hand tools, and the early gold rushes were populated by hordes of unskilled amateurs who could get rich by simply working hard.
However, the discovery of gold in hard rock created a new industry. Paul Thrush, Dictionary of Mining (1968) gives a number of meanings for "hard rock", but they all involve rock which has to be drilled and blasted. The transition to hard rock mining meant expenditure on drills, compressors, steam engines and explosives. That meant investment capital, mining companies, and shareholders. If the freelance alluvial miners wanted to join that industry, they had to became employees of a mining company.
Hence the expression "hard rock" means a lot more than a loose geological description of a type of ore deposit. It is a shorthand term implying the economic and cultural transition from one industry to another: from the early tent encampments of footloose alluvial diggers, to the world of underground mines, company towns and wage-earning employees.
If you want to press me further on this, you'll find I am very short on documentary references. However, it is an impression gained from a lot of reading about the nineteenth century mining industry.
Peter Bell
On 18/07/2013, at 6:07 AM, Peter Claughton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I've had the following query on the term 'hardrocker' as used to denote a miner working on hard rock mining and it's first use in North America - is it perhaps of European origin?
>
>> My name is King Adkins and I am a professor at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota. I'm doing research into our school nickname, "The Hardrockers." Located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, I know, of course, that the term relates to hard rock mining, but my interest is in tracking down the origins of this specific term. Was it for instance, a slang term invented by the miners themselves, or was it created by the industry to refer to such miners? Did it originate here in the Black Hills, or does it date back further in the history of mining?
>
> Peter
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