The Rise and Fall of a Free-Standing Company in Nova Scotia: The General Mining Association

Abstract

The General Mining Association was a free-standing company which originated in 1826 as the result of a mercantilist granting of special privileges, but nonetheless it operated in a fashion little different from that of most mining firms during the early and mid-nineteenth century. Even its organisation as a free-standing company was common among mining companies. The firm continued as an independent corporation, although on a reduced scale, while other mining companies were created and many were subsequently absorbed in horizontal mergers during the 1880s and 1890s. In 1900 the GMA was bought by a vertically integrated steel company. The causes of the firm's lack of dynamism during most of its history cannot be determined with certainty, but attribution to its organisation as a free-standing company is hardly a tenable thesis, since rival firms which behaved far more aggressively were generally also free-standing companies.