This the Bruce Mine Shaft headframe. I took this photo outside of Chisholm, MN while biking on the Mesabi Bike Trail. This is the mechanism that took the miners down into and up from the underground mine shaft that the “incident” in the novel took place.
Typically, the headframe had buildings attached which held tool, supplies and other needed materials for the underground mining operation.
Here is a postcard of underground miners getting ready to descend in a cable car to mine in an underground shaft.
Depending on the mine, year built and work methods of the particular mining company, the same cable car would be used to haul ore up…hopefully not at the same time there were men loaded in the car. If they were allowed to come to the surface for lunch, their children would meet them as they came off the car with lunches from home.
At the Soudan Underground Mine State Park about 20 minutes west of Ely, MN you can ride in such a car down to an old mine shaft where you hop on an underground train and tour a mined iron ore vein. At one point in the tour, all the lights are shut off and you are able to experience “darkness” as the men of old did.
Here is a more primitive head frame from 1900:
Bruce Mine Incident 
“Well that’s the way work was done then,” my grandfather assured me. One got use to this way of coming and going to work.
I have wondered how much of a psychological dimension there was to this coming and going. There had to be. Taking turns with the ore ascending and descending isn’t like sharing an elevator.
With so many creature comforts today, it is impossible for me to imagine what it was like riding in a dirty metal box with no protection from the elements and no natural lighting. I am sure the ride wasn’t smooth and neither was there wasn’t a seating area.
If I contrast this type of work with a farmer or the retailer in a store:
How accepting was the average miner of his conditions?
Did these conditions contribute to the organizing efforts in direct or indirect ways?
Perhaps they slowed the organizing because the “Radicals” could be threatened by the mine “captains” during the journey down and up from the mine shafts.
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You ask excellent questions. I am sure you can find a lot of discussion on the dynamics of the psychological affects of the ride and the mining environment. Personally, I think it was a genuine variable. I think you just have to ask yourself would you have enjoyed the ride and the 10 to 12 hour work day in the dark with candlelight.
Recently, I saw a piece on TV on the coal miners today and how black lung is still terrorizing the miners. Pronoinced was the lack of help they received from their companies in terms of paying the costs for the medical procedures needed to maintain the life of someone who has contracted the disease.
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