Theses and Dissertations

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Making meaning in a modern world: place and identity in Leadville, Colorado
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Hawk, Jennifer, author; Fiege, Mark, advisor; Ore, Janet, advisor; Calderazzo, John, committee member
Leadville, Colorado is one of many former mining towns significant to not only the state of Colorado, but also to the history of the West as a whole. Part of the larger history of the extractive industries on which the Western United States was founded, mining towns like Leadville provide a postindustrial landscape through which to study the ways in which individuals and communities rely on their history and memory to maintain a stable identity in a modem world that no longer accommodates the kind of economic structure that they most strongly identify with. This thesis consists of three parts, two of which offer a more traditional historical study of the ways in which Leadville residents use their past to mitigate the realities of life in the modem world. The third portion, a non-fiction essay, reflects on my own experiences with both Leadville and with the nature of modem life.