The United States Geological Survey and the Industrialization of Stone, 1890-1940

• In Event: Sedimentary Speculation: Valuing Dust, Mud, Sand, and Stone

Abstract

To successfully commodify a natural resource, it is necessary to understand it. Between 1890 and 1940 the United States Geological Survey (USGS) became deeply engaged with assisting the dimension stone industry learn about its product: stone for use in structures. The USGS and the National Bureau of Standards engaged in joint programs to test the chemical and physical properties of different stones to determine what properties made stone most useful for structures and to improve efforts to standardize and classify stone. Stones were grouped by their chemical composition and material performance determined through the results of tests of such properties as load-bearing capacity, tensile strength, permeability, and thermal expansion. These tests and resulting classifications performed an important role in the transformation of stone from a local resource into an industrial product, providing reliable data on material properties for consumers who could then better select stone for aesthetic effect.
Laboratory testing went hand in hand with the USGS’s work in the field. Specialists in the geology of what the USGS termed “nonmetalliferous deposits” mapped potential locations of commercially viable stone across the United States. Stone deposits were frequently evaluated at the behest of railroad speculators and quarry operators to determine the potential market value of the future “product.” Survey results reshaped local landscapes through their valuations. As laboratory testing helped separate the consumer from the stone source by making stones from different places comparable and interchangeable, the field investigations had local impacts, promoting expanded extractive activity at sites of valuable stone. The work of the USGS in the laboratory as well as the field was central in turning landscapes into commodities and illustrates how deeply scientific processes are entwined with extractivist industries.

Author

• Alicia Svenson, Northeastern University