Blast from the Past: US proposes huge mining program

In early 1942, with America newly at war and global supply lines shattered, the U.S. Bureau of Mines unveiled an ambitious plan to secure the raw materials needed to arm the Allies and sustain industry. The program called for a massive expansion of domestic mining – from copper and zinc to manganese, tungsten, and magnesium – materials suddenly deemed “strategic metals.”

As The Northern Miner celebrates its 110th anniversary in 2025, the archive story below highlights how Washington’s push for rapid development contrasted with Canada’s more measured approach, while signalling a new era of state-directed resource policy across North America.

The proposal came as the U.S. government scrambled to replace imports cut off by Axis advances in Asia and Europe. It urged companies to reopen idle mines, develop low-grade deposits, and build new refining capacity under wartime subsidies. The bureau’s message was clear: the nation could no longer rely on foreign ores for its defence or manufacturing base.

For miners and engineers, this wartime mobilization meant jobs, urgency and unprecedented government backing. For policymakers, it marked the birth of a permanent “strategic materials” doctrine that would shape the Cold War and beyond, laying foundations for today’s critical-minerals debates.

Seen from 2025, the 1942 call to action reads like an early version of the same challenge now facing Western governments: how to rebuild secure domestic supply chains for essential metals in a world again divided by conflict and resource rivalry.