Dr. Sebastian Haumann

June 26th
11:05 AM

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History Underground

Just got back from the conference History Underground, held at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich. It was the first time I presented my new project and some very preliminary results - the responses were quite encouraging. Besides, I got to know many people working in the field of an environmental history of mining and got an insight into the discussions going on in that community. Still, I discovered that most issues discussed there are not really what I am interested in doing in my own work - so yet again an indicator to clearly distinguish my project from mining history.

June 20th
7:19 AM

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Rheinkalk Archive

Completed four days of work in the archives. The lime mining company Rheinkalk has one of the most impressive collections of records on property evaluation and transactions dating back all the way to the 1850s. I am grateful to be allowed to use them.

June 17th
4:54 PM

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The lignite waste soil tip and power stations near Grevenbroich seen from about 40km away. The size of these human-made landscapes is truly impressive.

June 16th
7:01 AM

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Topographical Maps Online

I have been using the TIM-online website and especially the topographical maps drawn between 1891 and 1912 quite a bit lately to identify names of places that have meanwhile been dug away.

June 12th
10:51 AM

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Thyssen Stiftung

Applied for a one-year grant from the Thyssen Stiftung for my new project. If it goes through, I will have the opportunity to get ahead with the archival research quite a bit and will be able to produce a first article on the project. So hopefully my application will be accepted.

May 10th
3:09 PM

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Research on Lime Quarries in Wülfrath

After a long 6 months of getting my dissertation and several articles published, I had the time to really embark on some archival research for my next project. I like to start at the smaller more intimate archives where there’s a lot of local knowledge of the things I want to know. So today I spent the day in Wülfrath City Archives and found some news coverage of lime companies acquiring parcels of land to either excavate or build infrastructure. Two things that struck me - even though they are hardly surprising: The newspapers often praised the natural abundance of lime in the region, and the prices that the quarry companies were paying were considered to be “very high”. First pieces of a puzzle that I will hopefully be able to put together over the next years.

3:07 PM

4 notes

During lunch-break I visited one of the now disused lime quarries in Wülfrath, Schlupkothen, operated from 1898 to 1960.