CHAPTER VI
The World of the Steel Workers
“The sky-line of your cities is the monument of your civilization.” These words summed up the impression of an Oriental visiting America for the first time. He had seen everything of America that could be shown during his two months’ visit. Boards of trades in the various cities entertained him. Figures concerning miles of pavements, hundreds of miles of trolley lines, millions of dollars in the various banks, thousands of bales of cotton, millions of tons of coal, iron, steel, potatoes, rice, wheat, corn, and all the rest of the things that go to make America great had been quoted to him. He was apparently impressed by what he saw but did not become enthusiastic, and accepted every statement with becoming politeness. No one could tell what moved him most. When he summed up his total impressions and expressed his opinion, it showed that he had really formed a most exact judgment of that which makes the true material basis of our national life. The skyscraper building is the only important contribution that America has made to the art of architecture. This structural development, which is so truly American, has been made possible only because we have learned how to use steel for the framework of the gigantic construction.
The Steel Industry. Interesting statistics as to the extent of the steel industry have been compiled. The United States and Canada together produce about half of the world’s output. According to the last figures, there are employed in the iron and steel industry of this country 1,426,014 workers. At the present time the capacity of all the shops is taxed to the utmost and hundreds of new factories have been erected. Canada and the United States are cooperating in the production of ships. The huge bridge works are giving over all of their machinery and time to the building of new boats to carry men and food in support of the Allied armies in France.
The Use of Steel. Steel is made by melting iron and combining it with a certain proportion of carbon. The softest grade of steel contains less than one per cent. of carbon, the hardest contains about thirty per cent. Iron furnishes almost every useful thing that is necessary to our life in the community. When we have food and clothes, we are then ready to take up the routine of living a part of the common life of our city or town. Iron is used extensively in building our homes. The house is held together with nails made of iron; its plumbing, its lighting, its heating are all made possible by the use of steel.
Possibly the building in which we work is a steel building, if not, it may be made of reenforced concrete and this form of construction is dependent upon the use of iron. The product toward which we are contributing our industry, whatever it may be, is dependent upon commerce, transportation, and communication; and these great branches of activity are dependent upon steel. Iron can be melted and cast into a thousand different shapes. It is used to make the most simple kitchen utensil and the largest and most complicated machinery. Again, it is melted in larger quantity, combined with carbon, and put through the rolling-mills. By this process it may become steel rails, or be made into plates and huge sheets that form the protective outer skin of the great ships of war. It is rolled out thin and corrugated to be used as sheeting for houses, and sides of freight-cars, and roofs of houses; or it may issue in things as delicate as knitting-needles or the finest springs which form the adjustment and motive power in the most costly watches. It is used in the construction of buildings that tower up hundreds of feet above the level of the street, and is the only thing that has been found so far that can be used successfully for such a purpose. At the same time this most necessary substance is formed into pliable rope and used to draw the miner and the minerals he mines from the depths of the earth, and to keep the elevators running up and down in hotels, office buildings, and apartment houses. The finest cambric needles are first cousins to the great guns with which the Germans were able to shell Paris from a distance of seventy-five miles.
The advance in recent years in invention and new processes as applied to the manufacture of steel has brought about more changes in the industrial life of the world than any other thing. The cities of the future will all be steel cities. We have already built our cities twice—once of wood and once of brick—and we are now building them of steel. An advertisement in a hotel in a Middle-Western city reads: “This hotel is built without a stick of wood. We could roast an ox in the room next to yours and never disturb you.” Steel mesh is replacing lath in ceilings, and ornamental steel ceilings are replacing plaster. In subway systems quantities of steel have been used for tunnels; the elevated railroads are prolonged bridges. Williamsburg Bridge between New York and Brooklyn cost $20,000,000, and 45,000 tons of steel were used in its construction. One pound in every ten of all the steel manufactured is made into wire. The Brooklyn Bridge cables have each 6,400 strands of wire. Other wires made of steel have approximately a dimension of one tenth the thickness of a hair. A carpet tack is an insignificant sort of thing, but one factory in Chicago produced 3,000,000 pounds of these tacks in a year. Steel goes into furniture, is made into barrels; utilized in art work, so that the value of common iron when refined and drawn out to the highest possible utility makes steel the most precious of all metals to-day. Watch-screws cost $1,600 a pound and hair springs twice this amount.
McGraw-Hill Company.
Commerce and transportation are dependent upon steel, and to-day there are employed in the iron and steel industry of this country, 1,426,014 workers.
The Making of Steel. The workshop of civilization is now on the west side of the Atlantic because of the vast manufacturing establishments producing steel on this side of the ocean. The so-called Bessemer process in making steel has brought about a change that is almost as revolutionary in its far-reaching results as any of the great revolutions in the past. Within thirty years American resources have been developed, and American methods have been reorganized with such amazing rapidity that the United States has to-day, together with the natural advantage, the means at hand for utilizing its almost inexhaustible supplies of fuel and iron. The world needs these supplies and America is glad that she is able to do her part in supplying them.