Acknowledgment.
This monograph was prepared by Eugene C. Graham, Special Agent for the Federal Board, under direction of Charles H. Winslow, Chief of the Research Division. Acknowledgment is due to Dr. John Cummings of the Research Division for editorial assistance.
A Metal-working Age.
Nearly every industry depends to some extent, and most industries depend to a very great extent, upon metal working, either by employing metal workers directly in some processes, or by using metal products as raw materials in the manufacture of other products, or at least by using tools, implements, machines, and engines, which are products of metal-working trades and industries. And, in addition, these trades and industries produce a great variety of finished utensils and furniture ready for consumption in households. More than any other ours is a metal-working age.
Machine Work and Handwork.
Metals must be worked largely by machine processes, but they must be worked also in many instances by hand processes. All-round machinists and other metal workers must know how to operate machines, but they must also be skilled artisans capable of using a variety of hand tools. Bench hands, assemblers, and specialists in many lines are hand workers and only incidentally if at all machine operators.
If you like machinery and tools, and working with durable materials—working with steel and other less difficult metals as the carpenter works with wood, you can almost certainly find some line of metal working in which you can succeed, whatever your disability.
In the metal-working trades there is every variety of handwork and footwork and headwork to be done, light work and heavy work, work in shop or factory and work in the open, bench work and machine work, highly skilled as well as simple routine work.
Trade Training for Promotion.
Promotion comes to trained men who acquire dexterity in handling tools, in operating machines, in manipulating various metals. It comes easily to men trained broadly, who are able to deal intelligently with any problems that may arise in their line of work.