I Have Done Hard And Dangerous Work In A Steel Mill
Here's How I Began My Work History... While going to college challenged my mind, it also depressed me as a place to make friends and have a social life. After 2 years, I left and began heavy industrial work. In those days, factories regularly hired young men as laborers and such. After doing 4 jobs in a year and traveling a bit in Europe, I joined the huge forge shop of a giant 20th century industrial concern. After a year, I left to resume my studies. Withing 9 months, of my leaving, there was a major layoff. I recently learned that the whole shop closed for good in 1989. The entire mill poured its last steel in 1995. The entire plant closed in 1998. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and was liquidated in 2003.
My time in the forge shop is the macho experience of my life, my equivalent of time in the Armed Forces. Some of the men I worked with were near retirement, and told me that our shop had worked 24/7 to make pistons for the B-24. I recently learned that 70% of all pistons used in American planes during WWII were made in my shop. I also heard that my shop had employed many women. Gruff men, whose views of women were patronising in all other respects, told me that they were still amazed, 30 years later, at how hard and well the women worked. Rosie the Riveter had left warm memories...
This YouTube video is a sad elegy to an industrial concern that was crucial to the Civil War, the World Wars, and the Cold War, but that could not survive competition from imports and from recycled scrap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wACV87RMNQQ
Note the Victorian details of some of the architecture. Some bits built in the 1860s are still standing. This plant was horribly past its use by date. What is left is the most spectacular industrial ruin on earth, and two office towers vacant for 15 years.
The work was hard because it required great strength, and the ability to work an 8 hour shift in unheated buildings in winter. The work was dangerous because the steel had to be yellow hot before being forged. It was then smashed by forging machines with a footprint as large as a room and two stories high. The machinery was so violent and noisy that hearing loss was a major concern. This video captures a smaller and cleaner version of the sort of work I did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmS3LgfdT7E&list=FLsJ6HyXYRuOktpCpYV7bkoQ&index=66&feature=plpp_video
I was not qualified to be a forger, and so worked as a helper. To operate a forging machine required two forgers who spelled each other every 20-50 pieces, and a crew of about 5 helpers. One to work the furnace, one to keep the hot billets moving, one to swab the forging dies between pieces, and one to work the trimming press.
Half or more of American steel production today consists of recycled scrap. The stuff is made to order in small batches. My coworkers 40 years ago told me that the way we worked was obsolete. Our forging hammers worked by steam, when compressed air worked just as well and was much cheaper. I was also told that the state of the art for shaping steel parts was injection molding, not forging. A coworker explained "continuous casting" to me, something my mill simply could not do. Instead, the plant rolled fresh hot steel into square and round bars. These were allowed to cool, transported to the drop forge, chopped up cold into billets, then the billets were heated right before forging. This reheating was very wasteful of energy. Worse yet, completed forgings were heated again to red temperature, for "annealing."
I netted about $150/week, out of which I paid rent of $100/month for a shared modern apartment. I had free health care but never used it. I was astounded to learn that I could retire on a nice pension after 30 years. This fact alone doomed the company; in its last years, the company had 7 retirees per active worker. After 20 years, I would have earned the right to 4 weeks of paid vacation every year, and 9 extra weeks every 5th year. Also too good to last. These benefits were granted after a bitter 4 month strike in 1959. That union victory planted the seeds for the company's eventual collapse. In life, it's easy to win battles and lose wars.
The company was the largest single defense contractor in WWI and WWII. It owned the only plant in the USA capable of braiding the cables required for giant suspension bridges. It was the general contractor for the entire Golden Gate Bridge. In the 1950s, it operated the largest steel mill in the world, in suburban Baltimore. It was brought low by a company that recycles scrap.
Small nocturnal mammals feasting on untended dinosaur eggs...
My time in the forge shop is the macho experience of my life, my equivalent of time in the Armed Forces. Some of the men I worked with were near retirement, and told me that our shop had worked 24/7 to make pistons for the B-24. I recently learned that 70% of all pistons used in American planes during WWII were made in my shop. I also heard that my shop had employed many women. Gruff men, whose views of women were patronising in all other respects, told me that they were still amazed, 30 years later, at how hard and well the women worked. Rosie the Riveter had left warm memories...
This YouTube video is a sad elegy to an industrial concern that was crucial to the Civil War, the World Wars, and the Cold War, but that could not survive competition from imports and from recycled scrap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wACV87RMNQQ
Note the Victorian details of some of the architecture. Some bits built in the 1860s are still standing. This plant was horribly past its use by date. What is left is the most spectacular industrial ruin on earth, and two office towers vacant for 15 years.
The work was hard because it required great strength, and the ability to work an 8 hour shift in unheated buildings in winter. The work was dangerous because the steel had to be yellow hot before being forged. It was then smashed by forging machines with a footprint as large as a room and two stories high. The machinery was so violent and noisy that hearing loss was a major concern. This video captures a smaller and cleaner version of the sort of work I did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmS3LgfdT7E&list=FLsJ6HyXYRuOktpCpYV7bkoQ&index=66&feature=plpp_video
I was not qualified to be a forger, and so worked as a helper. To operate a forging machine required two forgers who spelled each other every 20-50 pieces, and a crew of about 5 helpers. One to work the furnace, one to keep the hot billets moving, one to swab the forging dies between pieces, and one to work the trimming press.
Half or more of American steel production today consists of recycled scrap. The stuff is made to order in small batches. My coworkers 40 years ago told me that the way we worked was obsolete. Our forging hammers worked by steam, when compressed air worked just as well and was much cheaper. I was also told that the state of the art for shaping steel parts was injection molding, not forging. A coworker explained "continuous casting" to me, something my mill simply could not do. Instead, the plant rolled fresh hot steel into square and round bars. These were allowed to cool, transported to the drop forge, chopped up cold into billets, then the billets were heated right before forging. This reheating was very wasteful of energy. Worse yet, completed forgings were heated again to red temperature, for "annealing."
I netted about $150/week, out of which I paid rent of $100/month for a shared modern apartment. I had free health care but never used it. I was astounded to learn that I could retire on a nice pension after 30 years. This fact alone doomed the company; in its last years, the company had 7 retirees per active worker. After 20 years, I would have earned the right to 4 weeks of paid vacation every year, and 9 extra weeks every 5th year. Also too good to last. These benefits were granted after a bitter 4 month strike in 1959. That union victory planted the seeds for the company's eventual collapse. In life, it's easy to win battles and lose wars.
The company was the largest single defense contractor in WWI and WWII. It owned the only plant in the USA capable of braiding the cables required for giant suspension bridges. It was the general contractor for the entire Golden Gate Bridge. In the 1950s, it operated the largest steel mill in the world, in suburban Baltimore. It was brought low by a company that recycles scrap.
Small nocturnal mammals feasting on untended dinosaur eggs...
70-79, M