This is a social history of the families of the Keweenaw Peninsula area of Upper Michigan, from 1840 to 1875 when the district's main industry was copper mining. It is the story of these "reluctant pioneers", who survived in what was, in many ways, a hostile environment.

Spanning the years 1840-1875, Beyond the Boundaries focuses on the settlement of Upper Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, telling the story of reluctant pioneers who attempted to establish a decent measure of comfort, control, and security in what was in many ways a hostile environment. Moving beyond the technological history of the period found in his previous book Cradle to the Grave: Life, Work, and Death at the Lake Superior Copper Mines (OUP 1991), Lankton here focuses on the people of this region and how the copper mining affected their daily lives.
A truly first-rate social history, Beyond the Boundaries will appeal to historians of the frontier and of Michigan and the Great Lakes region, as well as historians of technology, labor, and everyday life.

a richly-detailed study