Frederick Roeser Papers: Finding Aid mssRoeser
Processed by The Huntington Library staff in May 1987; supplementary encoding and revision supplied by Xiuzhi Zhou, Diann
Benti, and Gina C Giang.
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Note
Last updated by Brooke M. Black in January 2024.
Contributing Institution:
The Huntington Library
Title: Frederick Roeser papers
Creator:
Roeser, Frederick, active 1880-1919.
Identifier/Call Number: mssRoeser
Physical Description:
1.2 Linear Feet
(1 box)
Date (inclusive): 1880-1919
Date (bulk): 1911-1919
Abstract: This collection chiefly contains reports from various American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) plants, dating from
1911 to 1919, presumably accumulated by Frederick Roeser while superintending company smelters in Colorado. Subjects include
metallurgy, metallurgical plant construction and design, and mining engineering.
Language of Material: English.
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[Identification of item]. Frederick Roeser Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Gift of Mrs. Frederick Roeser, February 3, 1969, and July 9, 1973.
The set of 76 photographs were transferred to the Photo Archive in 1985 but never cataloged. In 2019, they were transferred
back to be reunited with the Roeser papers and were added to the collection by Gina C Giang.
On April 4, 1899, the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) was chartered in the state of New Jersey. ASARCO, frequently
referred to as the smelting trust, had consolidated a number of American smelting concerns with production plants east and
west of the Mississippi. At its inception, ASARCO controlled 2/3 of America's smelting and refining capacity, although several
major firms remained independent of its ownership. Two years later, a second merger took place which brought M. Guggenheim's
Sons into the company, absorbing a principal competitor. In turn, Meyer Guggenheim's sons took control of ASARCO after the
merger and directed the company's continued expansion. ASARCO's plants dominated much of the Rocky Mountain smelting industry
in the early twentieth century, although the severe decline in silver, lead and copper prices which followed the Panic of
1907 and persisted until American entry into World War I forced it to curtail many operations.
Biographical Note on Frederick Roeser
Frederick Roeser was the superintendent of several Colorado smelting plants owned by the American Smelting and Refining Company
(ASARCO). He served at different times as superintendent of ASARCO's Arkansas Valley and Globe smelting plants in Colorado
(the latter near the city of Denver). During the 1890s, he may have lived in Revelstoke, British Columbia; he certainly invested
in British Columbian land and mining stock during that decade.
75 photographs of a trip to Africa and the Middle East have been transferred to the Photo Archive. See photCL 277.
The collection consists of scientific, engineering, and administrative reports; photographs from trips to Africa; and personal
papers related to Frederick Roeser. The reports, from various ASARCO plants, which span the period 1911-1919, discuss technical
procedures for reducing different metals, ASARCO efforts to improve the efficiency of metallurgical processes, design and
construction of metallurgical plants, and wages and productivity at ASARCO plants. There are also notebooks in the collection
which contain information about developments in the fields of metallurgy, metals refining, industrial design, mining engineering,
mining machinery, and mining geology. A set of 76 photographs chiefly of a trip to East and South Africa, including Egypt
and Mozambique, date to approximately 1897. There are a few views of a mining camp and many of indigenous peoples, posed for
portraits, performing dances, and in everyday scenes in villages. Other photographs show unidentified people (possibly Roeser)
at a house in Europe or the United States, and scenery of the Rhine River and Monte Carlo. There is one carte-de-visite portrait
of a man, made in Stuttgart, Germany, that is inscribed to Fred Roeser (in German), and signed by [Ferd.?] Keppler.
Notable items include: Reports on the metallurgy of arsenic and arsenic poisoning, 1917-1919, Box 1(1), review of inspection
trip to ASARCO smelting plants in February 1916, Box 1(3), report on labor productivity at various ASARCO plants for the period
1908 to 1917, Box 1(6), reports on the design and construction of metallurgical plants between 1916 and 1919, Box 1(8), report
on the wages at the Globe (Colorado) plant between 1915 and 1917, Box 1(16).
All items are housed in a single box. The various technical reports are gathered together by subject in separate folders,
organized alphabetically. Reports are followed by folders which contain a few pieces of Roeser's personal correspondence,
business papers and ephemera, in that order. Last are five notebooks, filled with technical data about mining machinery, engineering,
metallurgy and geology. The notebooks are numbered in chronological order.
Fell, James E., Ores to metals: the Rocky Mountain smelting industry (Lincoln, Neb.: 1979)
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Metallurgical plants -- Colorado.
Metallurgical research.
Metallurgy -- United States -- History -- Sources
Mining engineering -- Colorado.
Mining geology.
Mining machinery.
Smelting.
Wages -- Metal-workers.
Business records -- Colorado
Letters (correspondence) -- Colorado
Notebooks -- Colorado
Photographs -- Africa
Photographs -- Middle East
Technical reports -- Colorado
American Smelting and Refining Company
Box 1
1880-1919