Inclining toward his long tongs, this
youthful iron puddler's partner postured for this photo in the mid 1860s, when
the Sons of Vulcan was a youthful union. (From the accumulations of Henry Ford
Museum and Greenfield Village.)
Inclining toward his long tongs, this
youthful iron puddler's aide postured for this photo in the mid 1860s, when the
Sons of Vulcan was a youthful union.
(From the accumulations of
Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village.)
Truly, iron was delivered by the
hot-impact technique, or later, the anthracite heater. In any case, the
principal action in iron making included a specialist blending little bunches
of pig iron and soot until the iron isolated from the slag. Called "puddling,"
this was very talented work, but at the same time was hot, strenuous, and
hazardous. It required a considerable measure of involvement and in addition a
healthy constitution. Puddlers were pleased, free, and generously compensated.
Puddlers established the principal
exchange union in the iron and steel industry, the Sons of Vulcan, in
Pittsburgh in 1858. In 1876, this union converged with three other work
associations to frame the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers.
This was the union that Andrew Carnegie crushed in the Homestead Strike of
1892, leaving the union in shambles and the business basically disorderly until
the 1930s.
