Historical Metallurgy Committee

Legacy Project

In January 2015, CIM (Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum), MetSoc (Metallurgy and Materials Society of CIM) & the Canada Science and Technology Museum spearheaded a legacy project promoting the History of ‪‎Metallurgy‬ & ‎Mining‬ in Canada. The Legacy Project will document and preserve contributions of Canadian metallurgy and mining sector to science and technology, and to the development of Canadian society.

Our projects that have been accomplished so far include:

The Economic Benefits of Research and Development in the Canadian Mining and Metallurgy Sector by Dr. Peter Warrian
The Development of Metallurgy in Canada since 1900 by Dr. Erich Weidenhammer
Developments in Canadian Hydrometallurgy since 1950 by Dr. Erich Weidenhammer

The work of these projects is free to download. The project includes a variety of videos as well to share and learn. Visit: Legacy Project Metallurgy & Mining

History of the committee:

The Historical Metallurgy Committee was founded in 1978 during the mandate of the then President Peter Tarassoff and on his initiative, to provide a forum for the Metallurgical Society members interested in the history of metallurgy and to promote the recording of Canadian achievement. At that time Tarassoff was Director of Noranda Technology Center at Pointe Claire, Quebec.

One of the first initiatives of the Committee was to sponsor a section in the CIM Bulletin entitled Historical Metallurgy Notes. In this section original research on the history of Canadian metallurgical installation, anniversaries of certain metallurgical events, history of chemistry and metallurgy in the great empires, biographies and obituaries of distinguished metallurgists and mining engineers, and book reviews, have been published. In 1989 a compilation of selected articles from the first ten years was published as a book under the title All That Glitters: Readings in Historical Metallurgy. The volume of 200 pages contained 26 articles directly related to Canadian metallurgical history and 17 articles of general interest.

The Historical Metallurgy Committee holds its meeting during the Annual Conference of Metallurgy with a luncheon and an invited speaker. Contacts have been established with many organizations involved in the history of technology and metallurgy. For example:

The Historical Metallurgy Society, London, England.
Chemical Heritage Foundation in the United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association, Kingston, Ontario.
The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society -AIME in Warrendale, Pennsylvania
Canadian Institute of Chemistry, Ottawa
The Canadian Industrial Archeology Society, Ottawa
The Engineering Institute of Canada, Ottawa
History of Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C.
Das Deutsche Museum, Munich, Germany
Institute for the History of Arabic Science, Aleppo, Syria
The Museum Library, Miskolc, Hungary
International Union of History and Philosophy of Science, Liege, Belgium
Académie Internationale de l’Histoire des Sciences, Paris
Institut pour l’histoire de l’aluminium, Paris

References

F. Habashi, “The Historical Metallurgy Committee of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum“, Working Paper 4/1997, pp. 18-28, Engineering Institute of Canada, Ottawa 1997.
F. Habashi, “Twenty Years Historical Metallurgy Committee“, CIM Bulletin January 1999
F. Habashi, Annual Reports of the Historical Metallurgy Committee.
F. Habashi and F. Ballard, Compendium of Articles, Historical Metallurgy Committee.
M.L. Wayman, ed. All that Glitters: Readings in Historical Metallurgy, The Metallurgical Society of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Montreal 1989.

Your contribution to the Historical Metallurgy Notes is welcome!

Current Chair