Document text
7.91 3S61
WPA L. C. PROJECT
Form -3
WriterelUNIT
.121,livre Collection (or Type)
Date received Title Stalla tBagin4; The 141,4611 in the
10/1C/40
Consignment no. pits are big.
1
Shipped from Place of originehicsat9/ Illinois
Wash. Date
Office OM
Label Project worker Um Ross
Amount Project editor
5p Remarks
Forms to be Filled out for Each Intervie
CHICAGO FOLKS TUFF
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE Illinois
NAME OF WORKER Sant Rosa
ADDRESS 713 Rush Street
DATE April 3, 1939
SUBJECT Steel
FOLKLORE
CHICAGO
No. Words
1. Date and time of interview
April 9, 1939
2. Place of interview
6310 Blackstone Avenue
3. Name and address of informant
Nelson Walton 6310 BlaCkstone Avenue
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
None
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
None
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Two roam apartment, a living roam and kitchen, seeming packed wilth
furniture because of a piano crowded into the roam.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number bb which the material refers.)
4.)
W366
FORM 0
Text of Interview (Unedited)
CHICAGO FOLKSTUtt
STATE Illinois
NAME OF WORKER Sam Ross
ADDRESS 713 Rush Street
DATE April 11, 1939
SUBJECT Steel
NAME OF INFORMANT Nelson Walton
FOLKLORE
CHICAGO
No. Words
I don't know haw true this story is. I have been hearing it for years.
Every time I try to pin the guy who tells the story down about what year the
accident took place, where, and who the poor son of a bitch was I mm evaded.
But the boys say it is true. The story goes that a guy fell off, or was
pushed off,ono of the bridges into a ladle. You know what happens then. Be
goes pouff into nothing. Then the company buried the guy with the steel
until the family got over the accident, or until they, moved away. Alter that
the company dug up the metal and used it in the process of making steel.
The last fatal accident we had was on the mold yard crane runway.
There were three cranes on the runways two slag cranes and a mold crane.
Some molds were needed in a hurry and the foreman sent the mold crane
operator dawn to get the oraneman dawn from one of the slag cranes to
relieve the man on the mold crane because he was faster. The guy thought
he'd ride on the center crane instead of walking. Before the crane stopped
he jumped off. It was pretty dark in the place and as he jumped he was
crushed to death between the crane and the columns that support the roof
of the building. Next day the company issued orders that no craneman can
get on or off moving oranes.
FORM C TEXT -1-
CHICAGO FOLKSTuno
The ladles in the pits are big. They weigh 175 tons. They are
hooked up into the cranes by hookers in the pits. We had an old
fellow, pretty well along in 'ears and not as huslqy as he used to be.
The hook got away from him and swung back from the ladle and hit him
in the chest. That didn't kill him right away. But a few days later
he died. The company doctors went over to examine him. They said
the man had died from heart trouble.
For years steel has been made with soft ore, raw limo, scrap
steel and a small amount of scrap iron. That made up about forty
per cent of the total charge. The hot metal added made up about
sixty per cent of the charge. A week or so ago the bosses got a
brain storm and decided that ore was more expensive than 'cinder",
which was nothing but old slag they had thrown away and which they
were dragging out of the lake with their cintering plant. Now this
'cinder' is porous. And it was a fine business when the weather was
dry. The bosses overlooked that the cinders were porous and held a
lot of moisture in damp weather. They had started that type of oharge
in dry weather and it worked fine. Yesterday was the second day of two damp
days and the cinder they charged yesterday absorbed a great dealcf
moisture so that when hot metal was poured on the top of the partial
molt in the furnace it trickled down to the cinders. A tremendous force
of steam was created and two furnaces were blown up. And I was working
on the crane when thwt happened. What a noise'
FORM C TEXT -2-
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
Most of the humor on the pit side is around the word Jura
which means in Polish hole, When things aren't set right in
the holes of the furnaces the guy is always ribbed about putting
some hair around it so that he might have a better chance of
getting it in right.