[Annotated Vernacular Photograph Album Documenting Construction and Featuring Various Structures at the Most Productive Open Pit Copper Mine in World History]

[Chuquicamata, Chile, 1919. Very good.. [33] leaves, illustrated with 236 mounted photographs, most with neatly-written manuscript captions within the image or on the album leaves. Oblong folio. Contemporary limp black pebbled cloth. Spine perished, edges chipped, some dust-soiling to boards, cloth covers partially detached but holding along spine. Contents generally clean, with bright, sharp images. An informative collection of original photographs documenting various structures involved in the commercial mining activities of the Guggenheim Family's Chile Exploration Company just after World War I. The same structures are pictured at various time periods over the course of the album, which is arranged in chronological order, in many cases showing the progress of construction. The manuscript title on the inside front cover reads: "Chile Exploration Co. Construction Department. Progress Pictures Dec. 1, 1917 to [blank]," with the final photographs dated in the early months of 1919. The photographs open with four shots depicting "Leaching Vat Excavation," Sub-Station 'A' West," the "Dechloridizing Plant," and the "Tank House Extension" on December 1, 1917. Other notable structures among the remaining 230+ images include a "Native School" (featured in several pictures), a "Native Pulperio," "House for School Teacher New Camp," "Band Stand Native Camp," the "American Club," "New Solution Sump," "Mastic Shop," "House for Women," "Bakery," "Toilet House [of] Native School," "Monastery," and more. The images also feature a church, market, staff quarters, a foundry, leaching vats, a tank house, a smelter, and numerous other structures. with a series of photographs picturing a "Concrete Test."

The Chile Exploration Company (Chilex) was formed in 1912 by the Guggenheim family in order to operate a mine in and around Chuquicamata, Chile. The Guggenheim family operated the mine very successfully for over a decade before selling their interest in 1923. Evidenced by the present album, the Guggenheims practiced what they called "welfare work" at their Chuquicamata mine, building schools for both foreign and indigenous populations (who would both work at the remote mine), as well as housing, markets, railroads, clubs, amusements, and other infrastructure vital to maintaining civilization near their mining operation. Harry Guggenheim himself authored an article detailing this welfare work at Chuquicamata in a 1920 article in the Engineering and Mining Journal. Interestingly, the Chuquicamata mine is still in operation today, and is known as the most productive open pit copper mine in the history of the world.