"SOCIOLOGICAL" WORK
1900 - 1903
by Mary Boland
Much has been written about the fact that Osgood spent a great deal of time and money trying to make both Coalbasin and Redstone model, indeed almost Utopian, communities. Undoubtedly, his motive for doing this was largely related to the fact that he considered the Crystal Valley his home and spent as much time as possible there. But it was also true, and has been less often observed by local historians, that these efforts by Osgood to demonstrate what he considered to be the proper method to achieve social progress were undertaken in a larger context.
Not long after Osgood’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company had weathered the hard times following the 1893 silver panic and had achieved considerable reorganization and refinancing, the corporation embarked on a truly remarkable “sociological” program, a program that received much attention throughout the nation from other industrialists, journalists, sociologist, intellectuals and reformers. A Sociological Department, headed up by the company’s chief surgeon, one Dr. R W Corwin, was established in 1901 at corporation head quarters in Pueblo, and the department supervised an ambitious program of social uplift at all thirty-eight of the company’s coal camps, rolling mills and steel works in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico, which by this time together employed over 15,000 men.
Whether most of the ideas for this work originated with Osgood or Dr. Corwin, the fact is that Osgood controlled the corporation and obviously supported the sociological work strongly or he would not have allowed the company to spend considerable money and effort on it.
The Sociological Department promoted and helped with the establishment at all the camps of kindergartens, night schools, circulating and permanent libraries, cooking and sewing classes, hygiene classes, clubs and musical organizations for all age groups. To aid this work, the Department published and distributed throughout all the camps, including Coalbasin and Redstone, a newspaper called CAMP AND PLANT. The papers carried news of the doings, both industrial and personal, at the various camps and plants, some fiction, and a considerable amount of humor, both good and bad, along with advertisements for a variety of products, from corsets to correspondence courses. But the paper’s main purpose was education and social betterment, and the most space was devoted to long articles on health and hygiene, proper nutrition, child psychology and child rearing, the virtues of education and healthful recreation, etc.etc
The articles were far from superficial or a matter of “talk down” to the miners. They were clear and concisely written and easily understood, but were also thorough and detailed. The series on health and hygiene, for example, included exhaustive discussions and diagrams on human anatomy and the functions of the various organs and causes of disturbances in their functions, along with lengthy and intelligent discussions of the pathenogenic microorganisms and their role in transmitting disease. Similarly, the articles on child psychology contained thorough discussions of the more advanced ideas of the time. A good example is an article titled “The Education of Wayward Children,” which was a reprint of an address delivered by a Colorado College professor to the Colorado State Federation of Associated Charities. Particularly notable also were a number of quite sophisticated articles. most of them reprinted from the various sociological journals of the day, about happenings elsewhere. Examples of these included an article titled “Social and Industrial Betterment in Sweden” reprinted from the WEEKLY NEWS LETTER OF THE LEAGUE FOR SOCIAL SERVICE, and an article titled “Public School Gardens, a Russian Idea Worthy of General Adoption in America,” composed by CAMP AND PLANT staff from various sources.
It is in this larger context that one can best appreciate Osgood’s effort to turn both Coalbasin and Redstone into showplaces demonstrating his vision of a better life for everyone.
Company built housing was provided, both for the miners up at Coalbasin and for the coke oven and other employees down at Redstone. Indeed, it became policy under Osgood to replace the shacks typical of coal camps at that time with company build houses at all the corporation camps. For the one’s at Redstone, Osgood used his personal funds and went all out, employing architects to design the 84 cottages so that no two were alike but were in a Swiss chalet style. They were all brightly painted in various colors, served with electricity and running water, and laid out with proper yards along tree-shaded streets. Each cottage was from two to five rooms, lathed and plastered, and had matching outbuildings and sheds.
Also at Redstone, and with his own funds, Osgood had built for his bachelor employees a positively elegant frame and sandstone Inn in the style of a Dutch tavern. The Inn had forty rooms, electric lights, a barbershop, a laundry, telephones, reading rooms, and steam heat.
Both at Coalbasin and at Redstone, Osgood saw to it that modern bathouse facilities were provided all his miners and coke oven employees so that their homes and the public facilities were provided all his miners and coke oven employees so that their homes and the public facilities of the communities would not be grimy with coal dust. He even enforce the rule that employees were not to appear on the public streets after their shifts until they had bathed and changed clothes … to be continued
Author Mary Boland (1936-2017), moved to Carbondale in 1973. She was Glenwood Bureau Chief for the Grand Junction Sentinel, a Professor at Colorado Mountain College and prolific writer for many national and local publications. This is one article, reprinted with permission, from her publication THE HISTORY OF THE CRYSTAL VALLEY.
Editors Note: The policies of “Social Betterment,” also referred to as “Welfare Capitalism,” effectively incentivized Osgood’s CF&I employees and Colorado not to participate in the 1903 United Mine Workers of America ten month strike, effectively keeping the union out of Colorado. Research by Redstone Historian Darrell Munsell, author of FROM REDSTONE TO LUDLOW, clarifies that Osgood’s “Social Betterment” philosophy was rooted in his opposition to unions. Notably, Osgood totally abandoned this philosophy after he lost control of CF&I in 1903 and went on to develop his privately owned very anti-union Victor Coal Company in Colorado’s southern coalfields.