Zone d'identification
Cote
Titre
Date(s)
- 1800s-2000s (Production)
Niveau de description
collection
Étendue matérielle et support
199 boxes
Zone du contexte
Nom du producteur
Notice biographique
South African historian and a world authority on the history of the South African mining industry, early trade unionism, medical history and the history of Johannesburg.
She will be remembered for her two masterful works of South African historical scholarship, which were based respectively on her M.A., earned in 1974 at the University of the Witwatersrand and on her Doctoral dissertation for which she was awarded her PhD by Wits in 1990. Her first impressive study was 'A Trade Union Aristocracy: the Transvaal White Working Class and the General Strike of 1913' (1976), published by the African Studies Institute at Wits. In 1994, Wits University Press published her authoritative study, 'White Death: Silicosis on the Witwatersrand Gold Mines 1886-1918'. These two works established Elaine's reputation as a leading historian of the South African gold mining industry. She gathered international accolades and her reputation was enhanced by her journal publications and presentations to a range of international conferences on mining history.
In 1995, Elaine achieved the by no means minor distinction in academic circles of publishing a pioneering article in one of the top rated economic history journals of the time, the Economic History Review (UK) with a path-breaking critical article on a key debate of the decade, 'Outcrop and deep level mining in South Africa before the Anglo-Boer War: re-examining the Blainey thesis'. This frequently cited article brought her scholarship to the attention of an overseas audience and fostered much interest in the complexities of the South African version of mining capitalism and the links between technology, geology and labour issues.
Elaine is additionally remembered for her work, together with Eric Axelson and Edward Tabler, on the publication Baines on the Zambezi, 1858-1859, a prestige collector's limited edition published by the Brenthurst Press in 1982. This book was the eighth book in the first Brenthurst Africana series and remains one of the most sought after.
In 2008, Elaine contributed a major piece on Johannesburg to the New Encyclopaedia of Africa, published in the USA and edited by John Middleton. In her final years, her research took her into the subject of the role of American mining engineers and mining technology in the Witwatersrand gold mining industry; a recent talk on this subject at the Rand Club was received with accolades. Elaine also became interested in Jewish genealogy and in her own extensive family history, and applied her skills of careful scholarly research and data gathering to this new area of interest.
Elaine Katz taught at Wits for many years and she was an excellent, demanding yet· encouraging lecturer and teacher. She was versatile, serving successively as a lecturer and later senior lecturer in the Departments of History, Economic History and Communications Studies at Wits and, following her formal retirement, she held an honorary research fellowship in the Wits History Department from 1995 until her passing.
Extracts with permission from an Obituary, written by Kathy Munroe and published in 'Jewish Affairs', Vol. 72, No. 2.
Histoire archivistique
Source immédiate d'acquisition ou de transfert
The working papers of Elaine Katz were deposited by the family after her death in 2017.
Zone du contenu et de la structure
Portée et contenu
The collection contains the research working papers of Elaine Katz, which mainly relate to gold mining on the Witwatersrand, Silicosis in miners, Labour and South African politics, particularly in the Transvaal at the turn of the 20th century.
Évaluation, élimination et calendrier de conservation
Accroissements
Mode de classement
The arrangements of the files and index cards have been largely retained in the order in which they were kept by Elaine Katz in her filing cabinets and index card boxes.
Zone des conditions d'accès et d'utilisation
Conditions d’accès
Conditions de reproduction
Langue des documents
Écriture des documents
Notes de langue et graphie
Caractéristiques matérielle et contraintes techniques
Instruments de recherche
Compiled by Khumbudzo Netshituni, November 2017-May 2018
Instrument de recherche téléversé
Zone des sources complémentaires
Existence et lieu de conservation des originaux
Existence et lieu de conservation des copies
Unités de description associées
Zone des notes
Note
SECTION B - INDEX CARDS has been fully digitised and uploaded.
Identifiant(s) alternatif(s)
Mots-clés
Mots-clés - Sujets
Mots-clés - Lieux
Mots-clés - Noms
Mots-clés - Genre
Zone du contrôle de la description
Identifiant de la description
Identifiant du service d'archives
Règles et/ou conventions utilisées
Statut
Niveau de détail
Dates de production, de révision, de suppression
2019