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Villegas (José) Collection on Mining
MSS 0758  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Preferred Citation
  • Acquisition Note
  • Biography
  • Scope and Content of Collection
  • Digital Content

  • Descriptive Summary

    Languages: Spanish; Castilian
    Contributing Institution: Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego
    9500 Gilman Drive
    La Jolla 92093-0175
    Title: José Villegas Collection on Mining
    Creator: Villegas, José A.
    Identifier/Call Number: MSS 0758
    Physical Description: 6.6 Linear feet (9 archives boxes, 2 flat boxes, and 1 map case folder)
    Date (inclusive): ca. 1825 - 1983
    Abstract: Papers of José A. Villegas, a scholar and lecturer specializing in technological development in Latin America. The collection includes Villegas's research materials on 18th and 19th century mining technologies; original and reproduced mine illustrations, sections, and maps; and original documents, primarily correspondence, related to the Mexican mining complexes Real del Monte, Bolaños, Fresnillo, and the Spanish mines of Almadén.

    Preferred Citation

    José Villegas Collection on Mining, MSS 758. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.

    Acquisition Note

    Acquired 2013.

    Biography

    José Alberto Villegas Mendoza (1924 - ) has held various academic and government positions during a career spanning more than 50 years of international teaching, research, consulting, and service. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Villegas moved to Argentina while still young and graduated from the Universidad del Salvador (Buenos Aires) in 1952. He soon published several articles in Estudios Centroamericanos and Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, moved to New York, and attended Columbia University and Fordham University. Villegas then worked on urban, housing, and environmental issues for the New York City Planning Commission, the LaGuardia Community Project, the Office of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the United Nations (international housing consultant in Mogadishu, Somalia), the Agency for International Development (Ciudad Techo project in Bogotá, Columbia), and Cornell University (holding a faculty position in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis during the late 1960s). His teaching work with urban simulation games at Cornell was profiled in Alvin Toffler's Future Shock (1970), and Toffler later acknowledged Villegas for help in the preparation of the Spanish edition of the same book. During this period Villegas served as a Ford Foundation consultant in Brazil, teaching a seminar course on "Science and Technological Development in Latin America and World Politics" at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, a class that he later hosted at Columbia University.
    Villegas worked during the early 1970s at the UNESCO Department of Social Sciences in Paris, and while in Europe the seeds of his 10-year research project on national competition, industrial innovation, technology transfer, and the Mexican mining industry were planted. He began in earnest with a one-year research residency in Spain, primarily at the Archives of the Indies (AGI) in Seville, acquiring copies of original texts and drawings relating to colonial-era mining in Spain, Mexico, and Peru. Villegas then enrolled in the graduate history program at the University of Pittsburgh and continued collecting original and published materials at archives and libraries in Mexico, England, Germany, France, and the United States for a proposed dissertation on "The technological transfer of the steam engine in the Mexican mining industry, 1750-1850" (under the direction of Robert Colodny). In the 1980s he moved to San Diego and was a frequent guest scholar on Latin American studies at UC San Diego.

    Scope and Content of Collection

    Papers of José A. Villegas, a scholar and lecturer specializing in technological development in Latin America. The collection includes Villegas's research materials on 18th and 19th century mining technologies; original and reproduced mine illustrations, sections, and maps; and original documents, primarily correspondence, related to the Mexican mining complexes Real del Monte, Bolaños, Fresnillo, and the Spanish mines of Almadén. Many of the reproductions are photographic copies of archival documents from the Archivos General de Indias (AGI), in Seville, Spain. The bulk of the collection is in Spanish, with some documents in English.
    Arranged in six series: 1) RESEARCH MATERIALS, 2) MINING ILLUSTRATIONS, 3) REAL DEL MONTE MINING COMPLEX, 4) BOLAÑOS MINING COMPLEX, 5) FRESNILLO MINE, and 6) ALMADÉN MINE.

    Digital Content

    A selection of manuscripts and images from this collection have been digitized. Content may be viewed by clicking on links in the container list, or on the Library's Digital Collections website.

    Subjects and Indexing Terms

    Mining engineering
    Mines and mineral resources -- Spain -- History
    Silver mines and mining -- Mexico
    Mineral industries -- Mexico -- History
    Mines and mineral resources -- Mexico -- History
    Mineral industries -- Spain -- History
    Compañía Real del Monte y Pachuca
    Company of Adventurers in the Mines of Real del Monte