James M. Hyde

James M. Hyde (1873–1943) was a metallurgist who installed the first froth flotation plant in the United States. He was also a member of the Los Angeles, California, City Council from 1931 to 1939.

Hyde was born June 25, 1873, in Mystic Bridge, Connecticut, the son of William Penn Hyde and Seraphine Smith Carr. He studied mining engineering and geology at Stanford University, where he was an instructor in assaying before graduating in 1901. In 1916 he moved from Littleton, Colorado, to Palo Alto, California, and he was married in 1923 to Bessie Lorraine Ransom. They had one daughter, Helen Elizabeth. Hyde resigned from Stanford in 1927 and moved to Los Angeles.

He died July 18, 1943, in his home at 1300-3/4 North Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood.

In 1900 Hyde went to work for the California State Mining Bureau as curator of its museum and then was advanced to the position of bureau secretary. He resigned in July 1901, and in November 1902 made "charges of the most sensational character" against state Mineralogist Lewis E. Aubury over what was termed "Mismanagement, . . . public advertisement of private interests and a desire for personal aggrandizement." The board met and decided by unanimous vote, "That the matter . . . be ignored entirely."

In 1989 Hyde was posthumously inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum in Leadville, Colorado, as a result of his installation of the first froth flotation process in the United States. The museum states:

Without this process, there would be no mining industry as we know it today: virtually the entire world of copper, lead, zinc and silver is first collected in the froth of the flotation process. . . . Froth flotation has permitted the mining of low-grade and complex ores that otherwise would have been unprofitable, and thanks to James Hyde, many old "worthless" tailings dumps have been converted into profitable mines.

Hyde learned about flotation when working in the London, England, laboratories of Minerals Separation, Limited, and when his contract expired, he went to work for mining specialist Herbert Hoover, later the President of the United States. He was assigned to study the Butte and Superior Copper Company for possible investment and to experiment with various forms of flotation.

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