Joe Irving, the oldest living ironworker, returns after his first book to tell us stories of not just his construction days, but from his entire life. Life of an Ironworker is a collection of stories, memories, opinions and events told from the hand of a 99-year-old man, now retired and living in the Kootenays of British Columbia, Canada. Born in 1911, Joe grew up in the pioneer days in rural B.C. and then joined the Local #97, International Union of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Ironworkers, Machinery Movers, Derickmen and Riggers with whom he had a wonderfully successful career. He later retired and purchased the Rainbow Pines Ranch, in the Slocan Valley, with his wife Sylvia where they lived the better part of forty years farming, ranching, and milling. Joe has travelled the world, graduated high-school at 93 years old, lent a helping hand whenever he could and read and researched his way through thousands of books. His collected works span a lifetime of 99 years and truly show the amazing character that has allowed Joe to survive in the world for the past one hundred years, and still to be alive, healthy and strong, telling those stories today.

The book is about a young man's journey through his early age years working as an ironworker to provide money for his poverty challenged family.

Skyscrapers define the American city. Through a narrative text and gorgeous historical photographs, Skywalkers by David Weitzman explores Native American history and the evolution of structural engineering and architecture, illuminating the Mohawk ironworkers who risked their lives to build our cities and their lasting impact on our urban landscape.

"Life in these mills is a terrible life," the reformers say. "Men are ground down to scrap and are thrown out as wreckage." This may be so, but my life was spent in the mills and I failed to discover it. I went in a stripling and grew into manhood with muscled arms big as a bookkeeper's legs. The gases, they say, will destroy a man's lungs, but I worked all day in the mills and had wind enough left to toot a clarinet in the band. I lusted for labor, I worked and I liked it. -from "Scene in a Rolling Mill" In 1921, JAMES JOHN DAVIS was appointed Secretary of Labor by President Warren Harding, and would go on to also serve Presidents Coolidge and Hoover. The next year, he published this gung-ho autobiography, a paean to the hard work and perseverance that fueled his rise to personal and professional success. Born in Wales, Davis (1873-1947) emigrated with his family to Pennsylvania, where he worked in the steel mills from the age of 11, acquiring the strength of character and learning the lessons in honor, duty, and honesty that would serve him well later in life, when from his position of prominence he was instrumental in eliminating the 12-hour workday, improving relations between labor and management, and establishing a prevocational school Mooseheart, Illinois, which young boys and girls were taught the fundamentals of industrial arts. A stalwart, hearty depiction of the American dream in action, The Iron Puddler is not merely one man's story, and a fascinating and inspiring one at that... it is a universal story of the integrity and industry that built America.

Autobiography of the Davis, Secretary of Labor under presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. Covers his youth and early work in the iron industry, his membership in the Loyal Order of Moose, and founding of the Mooseheart School.

A portrait of the changing economic and industrial landscape of Wales told by one of its most enthusiastic local historians.

This introduction to the history of work in America illuminates the many important roles that men and women of all backgrounds have played in the formation of the United States. A Day in the Life of an American Worker: 200 Trades and Professions through History allows readers to imagine the daily lives of ordinary workers, from the beginnings of colonial America to the present. It presents the stories of millions of Americans—from the enslaved field hands in antebellum America to the astronauts of the modern "space age"—as they contributed to the formation of the modern and culturally diverse United States. Readers will learn about individual occupations and discover the untold histories of those women and men who too often have remained anonymous to historians but whose stories are just as important as those of leaders whose lives we study in our classrooms. This book provides specific details to enable comprehensive understanding of the benefits and downsides of each trade and profession discussed. Selected accompanying documents further bring history to life by offering vivid testimonies from people who actually worked in these occupations or interacted with those in that field.