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The history of black labour at the South African gold mines has conventionally been punctuated by three great African strikes, in 1920 (often obscured by the great white mine-worker strike of 1922), 1946 and 1987. The strikes of 1920, 1946 and 1987 (as well as the great white strikes of 1913 and 1922) have all attracted considerable scholarly attention. Yet a more limited black strike in 1913 has seldom, if ever, been recalled, despite its crucial importance for formulating racial policy at the gold mines, buried as it was in the violent defeat of white miners and their cohorts. This paper takes up the challenge of understanding management and state responses to collective (black and white) mine-worker struggles during the decade from 1913 to the early 1920s and assessing outcomes for worker participants, white and black alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the limits and pressures imposed on South African deep-level mining technology by changing economic and socio-political constraints that have obliged mining engineers to adapt their practices of "getting gold out of the ground." Initially employing straight-forward arguments about the importance of means for achieving ends, the paper eventually raises questions that complicate our understanding of practices that underlie simple conceptions of mining technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]