Hi, I'm Dave Stotz from Drive Thru History. Happy Labor Day! Labor Day is an American holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September to recognize the American labor movement and its contributions to the development of the United States.
It's the Monday of the long weekend known as Labor Day. as Labor Day weekend, which traditionally marks the end of summer, viewed by many as the last opportunity to get in that camping trip or backyard barbecue before school hits and the weather starts to turn. But to truly appreciate the meaning of Labor Day, we need to know the history preceding it.
So here we go. At the time the United States was founded, most people were farmers or worked in trades such as bakers, butchers, cobblers, and blacksmiths. Then the Industrial Revolution began in the late 18th century. Coal mines were built in the 18th century.
kept filling up with water, so Scottish inventor James Watt came up with an invention to pump the water out. A steam pump. By the early 19th century, steam wasn't just used to power pumps, but also engines for steam trains, steamboats, and manufacturing equipment.
This led to the creation of factories, which could mass produce a variety of items inexpensively. After the American Civil War, factories in the North really took off. They started producing everything from clothes to dishes, furniture to tools. Inventions and advances in manufacturing made more and more goods available at cheaper and cheaper prices. New ways of making stronger iron and steel led to the building of bridges, skyscrapers, ships, and machinery.
Railroads began taking people and goods across the entire nation, opening up new regions and opportunities. All of this resulted in Americans experiencing the fastest increase in the standard of living of any people in world history. Factories had a continual source of workers through the millions of immigrants making their way to America. Immigrants were anxious to assimilate, work in the trades, learn the English language, and swear allegiance to their new country. Rags-to-riches stories became a popular literary genre, where hard work, honesty, and strength through adversity led to success.
President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty in 1886 to welcome immigrants. Immigrants were not a financial burden on the government, as there were no government welfare programs yet. Extended family members, churches, and individuals giving charity provided the welfare net.
With all the growth, there were issues of safety and fairness in some of the factories. Laborers began organizing for better working conditions. Since some of the immigrants brought socialist and anarchist ideas from Europe, this created additional labor tensions in some of America's cities.
In May of 1886, a labor protest in Chicago near the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company plant, turned into the Haymarket Riot when a protester threw a stick of dynamite at the police. Seven police officers and four laborers were killed and dozens were wounded as a result of the blast and following riot. To commemorate the incident, labor organizers chose May 1st to be the annual International Workers'Day. Then, in 1894, labor leaders organized a nationwide railroad workers'strike.
There was rioting and the burning of railroad cars, destroying an estimated $80 million worth of property across 27 states. After the railroad strike started affecting mail delivery, President Grover Cleveland declared it a federal crime and deployed 12,000 U.S. Army troops to break up the strike.
A few people died. and a number went to jail. As a result of these types of labor tensions, President Grover Cleveland thought it might improve his chances of getting reelected in 1894 if he appeased these organized workers with a National Labor Day.
He intentionally He did not choose May 1st as it was the anniversary of the bloody Haymarket riot and the International Workers Day. Instead, President Cleveland chose the first Monday in September. And there you go. The history of Labor Day in America. While Labor Day has some sketchy roots in the socialist labor.
movement, it's important to redeem the holiday and explore the truly unique aspects of American ingenuity, hard work, and free enterprise. As such, we're going to use this special episode of Drive Thru History to celebrate American industry and how innovative entrepreneurs and immigrants built our country. First stop, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the story of American iron and steel. This is the historic city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When it comes to great stories of industry and innovation, this city has deep hard-working roots.
Officially founded in 1758, Pittsburgh was named after British citizen statesman William Pitt. The city played a key role in America between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War because it had a strategic location for manufacturing and trade into the western territories. The opening of the Pennsylvania Canal and the arrival of the Pennsylvania Railroad in the mid-1800s accelerated growth as factories and settlements expanded around the city. Pittsburgh's abundance of coal and its three rivers, the Alligator River, Manonga Gila and Ohio quickly attracted the steel industry and Pittsburgh went on to be known as the city that built America. Pittsburgh experienced its golden age between 1870 and 1910. During this period the city's population rose from about 86,000 to over 530,000 people and at its peak Pittsburgh produced over 60% of America's steel.
Andrew Carnegie, one of the richest men in America at the time, owns nearly 40% of Pittsburgh's steel production. But like many of America's industrial cities, Pittsburgh ultimately experienced a downturn. By the late 1980s, 75% of the city's steel companies were gone. Although Pittsburgh is still proudly known as the steel city, it currently has no... operating steel mills within its city limits.
This is the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area, just outside downtown Pittsburgh. This entire industrial site was once owned by Andrew Carnegie. In 1901, Carnegie Steel sold its holdings to JP Morgan, who went on to create US Steel, the world's first billion-dollar corporation.
Carnegie used his steel wealth to become a philanthropist. Here in Pittsburgh, Carnegie donated two million dollars to the World's First Billion Dollar Corporation. to start the Carnegie Institute of Technology, which later became Carnegie Mellon University. One of the properties that Carnegie sold to Morgan was this, the site of the Cary iron furnaces. These blast furnaces showcase an era before computer controls, where all valves were operated by hand and all levers were manual.
Now, to give us a general sense of how this place worked, I'm here with my new friend. Ron, who is the Director of Historic Resources and Facilities. Did I get that title right? You got it. Yes.
Okay. That was like take 72. Okay. So give us a general picture of what went on here and how this place worked.
Well, from 1884... until 1982 they made iron on this site. Okay. So they took rocks and they melted them. These are man-made volcanoes.
What they were doing here was taking this iron ore, extracting the impurities from it, producing iron. which was then eventually shipped across the river and converted into steel. And that steel is the steel that literally and figuratively built America and the world.
It created America's 20th century. From places like this, you have, you know, the middle class growing, you have unions. coming out of it, but you have the Empire State Building was made with iron from this place. No kidding. Wow.
So it literally built the world. This is the basis of all of it. This is coke. Coke in a previous life in this region was bituminous coal. We sit on, you know, Pittsburgh sits on the richest coal seam in the world, and that coal becomes the fuel that fuels this industrial revolution in this part of the country.
So, this is coke, this is the fuel. What they discovered is burning the coal was fantastic. It's a great fuel, but it's very dirty.
So there's lots of, you know, tars and benzene and xylene and sulfur in it. But if you can burn those off and you end up with this fuel source that can burn hotter, but is essentially a pure form of carbon. And you need that carbon for the exchange with this.
This is iron ore. Okay. This is a very small piece of iron ore. This is hematite.
Perfect for making iron. However, there's impurities within this. So to smelt it, you're taking coke, taking the iron, and then you're adding one more ingredient. Yeah. Where'd you get that?
There you go. One more ingredient, and this is a small little piece. That's limestone. Okay.
What the limestone is going to do during the smelting process is it's going to bond with the impurities in Coke and the impurities in the iron ore. When these first opened, the men that were working here were doing 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, and every other Sunday doing a 24-hour shift. Wow.
Accident rate was high, death rate was high, but it offered something that they couldn't get elsewhere, and that was a chance at the American dream. So where we are, this is the stock-ups. So all those raw materials that we're talking about, the coke, iron ore. What I'm holding here in my hand. Exactly.
The coke comes in directly up above us. This is, you know, the stocking trestles up above us. It would come in via train and hop. and be unloaded into these bins. The iron ore would be stored out in the ore yard where we just were, and it would be moved in by that big ore crane that was there in that big bucket, put into hoppers, and then dumped into here.
Limestone the same way. These are parabolic bins that were holding the materials to be unloaded by a vehicle called a scale car. So it is a type of larry car, which is just a dedicated train car.
The operator was known as a larryman. So the larryman would be given what is known as a burden card. So it sounds like something from the Game of Life. But, you know, it's basically the recipe for the day.
How much coke he needs for that load, how much iron ore he needs. how much limestone he needs, and there are other additives they would add in, but those main things. He would take that scale car, and he'd bring it over to these bins, and he would know that he needed X amount of cars of coke.
He'd get the car underneath here, and you could see more so here. See where that handle is? That handle would be up. There's one right here where the handle's up.
This handle right here? Yep. He would get this under there. If you move that, you get to be king. If I had a little WD-40, I could probably get this down.
or a lot, he would pull that handle, which opens those gates, and the coke that was in that bin would come down into the car. He would then take that car right over here. There's an old track underneath there. He'd bring the car here, get it over the, there's a hopper underneath here, underneath these boards. He'd open the bottom of the car, materials would go through that hopper down into this pit.
At which point there are skip cars. You might have noticed. Those cars come down, pick up the material, take it to the top of the furnace, and dump it into the top of the furnace. So it's four parts coke, two parts iron ore, one part limestone. That's the recipe for making iron ore.
That's the basic recipe. Now, you know, there's variations within it, but that's the basic recipe. Okay, so Ron, what is the room we're in right now?
It looks a little bit like a science fiction movie set, but I don't think that's what it is, so... No, not today. You know, this is really the big payoff. This is the cast house. This is cast house number six.
So you have, you know, those... the iron ore, the limestone being charged into the top of the furnace, falling down into the furnace, and here it's met with a blast of hot air. That hot air was created in the hot stoves out there, heated up to 1800 degrees, pushed in through a pipe, through that big The big bustle pipe. The one right there? You got it.
The bustle pipe. Hot air goes through there? Yep.
Hot air is coming through. It goes through an elbow, through a blowpipe, in through things called tuirs, which are those openings. That hot air is pushing up inside.
Hot air hits the coke. Coke starts to burn, raises the temperature up another thousand degrees inside of that furnace. Gets you close to 3,000 degrees.
Coke is also giving off carbon, which is displacing the oxygen in the iron ore, and the limestone is bonding with all these impurities. That's happening in midair. the iron rains out, pools at the base of the furnace, the impurities, called slag or cinder, settle on top.
And then every four to six hours, a crew of men are charged with opening this furnace and draining it. drawing that slag and that molten iron out. So they opened this tap hole standing from where?
Right there. Where would this really underpaid guy stand? Yeah, totally safe job.
So this is about as automated as it gets here. This is a pneumatic drill. They started using them in the 1890s. Prior to that, they would actually hand tap and then set a charge, which is really crazy.
Set a charge. Set a charge. To open this hole, they would...
Exactly. They'd basically have to blow it up. Yeah, but this is a drill, and the drill operator is stationed right back. He's got a piece of steel plate protecting him. Still somewhat toasty in there.
Yeah, it's mighty toasty. And he has controls in there, and he moves this drill into place, and they drill out a clay plug. Right through that hole, right? Right through that hole.
Now... If everything's right, you'll drill through, the iron will start flowing. But that didn't always happen.
Sometimes you'd hit an air pocket, and iron would start squirting every direction. Which is why he's behind a piece of plate, which is why there's a drop-down window over there. But here, if they can't get all the way through, he stops drilling.
And see where this long pipe is? Yeah. That is what's left of an oxygen lance. So you would have the first helper. So in here you had six guys working this floor.
The first helper would stand. Right back here. With that oxygen lance, he would burn that clay plug out. The iron will start flowing.
This runner is lined with what's called black sand. So it's a combination of coke dust and sand. And it's to protect the walls and to keep the iron from sticking.
It doesn't melt, it doesn't... Right, exactly. It's just like what they use in foundries. Right. The iron would come out.
There's a dam built here. There's a dam built there. And at each gate is another dam of this sand. Comes out, pools here. Any slag that is there is skimmed off and taken off that way.
Once that's skimmed off, using a bar like this, it would break this pocket. The iron would then flow down the runner, hit that gate, make a left-hand turn, go down that runner and through a hole in the floor. And hopefully stationed right below that hole in the floor would be what's called a bottle car or torpedo car or submarine car, a bunch of names for the same thing. Iron would flow into that.
Once it was full, the third helper, whose job was to stand over that grate there and watch it, give the high sign. He could yell all day. You'll never hear him. It's like a jet engine behind you.
Gives the high sign. They throw that gate. The iron goes down to the next car that's waiting.
They throw vermiculite on top of the iron in the ladle car or put an asbestos bonnet on it. And that would be pulled out of here and then taken across what's called the hot metal bridge over to the homestead side of the river where it'd be converted into steel. So Ron, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks so much for taking me through the Cary blast furnaces. We couldn't have done it without your dog Jed, who I think the heat in here has finally gotten to him.
He needs to get rehydrated as soon as possible. Anyway, this has been great. Thanks a lot. It's been our pleasure.
Thank you. So there you have it. Because of their high strength and low cost, iron and steel played a major role in the American Industrial Revolution. They were at the heart of buildings, bridges, ships, trains, cars, machines, and weapons. And these Pittsburgh blast furnaces were at the center of it all.
Times have changed. Now we live in an era of information and technology. These Cary furnaces were shut down in 1978, and the entire site was abandoned in the mid-1980s. In 2005, the furnaces were named a National Historic Landmark, and the Rivers of Steel Organization stepped in to preserve their history. What an incredible place to visit and honor our industrial roots.
Walking those huge furnaces and experiencing their impact on the industrial revolution was awe-inspiring. It was such an important era of our history that few of us truly appreciate anymore. But if we're going to talk about the building of America with iron and steel, well then... You've got to talk about the importance of coal.
So for that story, let's travel to the rolling hills of West Virginia. Historically, West Virginia is coal mining country. After the railroad companies started carving routes through the Appalachian Mountains, coal mining really took off here between 1880 and 1900. New communities popped up throughout the region.
virtually overnight as immigrants from Europe and African Americans from the South poured into West Virginia for jobs and better lives for their families. These beautiful rolling hills are filled with old mining towns. By the beginning of the 20th century, West Virginia was the national leader in the production of coal.
However, West Virginia was also known as the leader in something else. Dangerous working conditions in its mines. Year after year...
West Virginia had more mining-related accidents and deaths than any other state. Then, on December 6, 1907, an explosion occurred in Monongah, West Virginia, that's still considered the worst mining disaster in American history. The explosion happened at the Fairmont Coal Company's No. 6 and No. 8 mines, probably when a spark from a miner's lantern ignited methane gas.
There were officially 367 men in the two mines at the time. 362 of them died almost instantly. This is a monument to the Monongah mining disaster of 1907. The terrible tragedy was one of the final events leading to the creation of the United States Bureau of Mines, a government oversight agency with the mission to inspect mines, train crews, provide rescue services, and investigate disasters.
It was considered a major safety initiative for coal miners in the entire mining industry. In addition to the Bureau of Mines, the labor union known as the United Mine Workers of America worked to create additional safety regulations. As a result, the following decade saw a steady decline in mining related accidents here in West Virginia and the rest of America.
West Virginia coal was a big part of the Industrial Revolution. It was primarily used to power steam engines, heat buildings, and generate electricity. As America's infrastructure developed, West Virginia coal also filled an important role in steel production, especially to the north in Pennsylvania.
This is the Avenue Mine near the border of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Established in 1850, it was owned by the Allegheny Steel Company and operated by the Leachburg Mining Company. The coal was used to make coal. at the Allegheny Steel Plants, but also shipped by railroad all over the United States. Today, I get to go into the mine with my new friend and mining expert, Larry.
Now, Larry, this was called the Avenue Mine. Today, it's called the Avenue Mine. the TourEd mine, stands for tour and education.
So we're gonna go with you and we're gonna get an education today. So come on, let's take a look at the mine. Let's take a ride, go into underground.
We're about to get in here. First we're gonna put a check in. So what's the green mean? The green means you're safe. You're safe.
You're up. You're up. Red means you're underground.
Red means you're underground. So if I'm looking for number four, whoever he may be. Right. I know the number four is down there. He's already in there.
Okay, so I've got a 303. I don't think I saw... No, we don't have that number on there. Okay, how about I just put me on three? Put it on number three. All right.
All right? Yep. Now, when you come out, you got to take it off.
Okay. Yes. Okay. Well... You all ready to go?
I think we're ready to rock. Let's ride into there and I'm going to take you into the mine. That's why you wear the helmets.
Keep our body parts inside. In the line. You got to get out and let some coal out.
How'd you like that for a ride? All right, so Larry, I got to tell you, not to complain, not a lot of leg room in that thing. That's really small. How many miners would have to fit in one of those?
Well, you see there's five compartments in there and there's probably seven guys in each one, 35 guys. And as they're going into mine, they drop one off at every place where they're hand-loading by now. That was in the olden days. That cattle car right there is over 125 years old. No joke.
Yes. Well, you're a good driver. How many times have you hit your head on the tunnel on the way down? A lot of times. All right, where are we going from here?
We're going to start right down here, and we're going to go into hand loading in the early 1800s. And these coal miners basically had their own workplace. They'd come in there with their bucket, put their bucket down. They'd hang their canary up.
They'd set their posts and undercut with a pick. They'd actually get in there. On their hands and knees, they'd undercut like that so they can actually make a void down underneath. That'd take about three hours.
I know this for a fact because my grandfather, my great-grandfather, my dad were all hand loaders. All right, so undercutting, what's the benefit of undercutting where it's like lower at the bottom? It's going to basically, once you drill these holes in the top to shoot the powder, it's going to drop down.
They're going to drill a hole about six feet. Three on the top, one in the middle. At that point, they're going to put their black powder in it.
They didn't use dynamite back in the 1800s. They light it with a match and run and shoot the coal down. Then once they did that, they'd have to shovel it in a coal core. All right.
Put that on your chest. Put that on my chest? Breast auger.
Okay. There you go. Like this. Righty tighty, lefty loosey. Yeah.
All right. So you just grind this in for how many feet? Six feet? About three feet. Three feet.
And... Three to six. I was a little confused, so I put a charge up in that. Yeah. Light it, and it explodes.
And it'll explode, just like dynamite, but it's black powder. And it'll break the coal right down. That's why you undercut it.
And then they get in here with what? They get in there with a shovel, number two coal shovel, and shovel all the coal into the coal car. So, Larry, you mentioned the miners would...
Hang up a canary here. Is this because they just wanted to bring their pets to work? What is that all about?
The canary checks for noxious and poisonous gases. He has a lung capacity less than a human being, and with ferrous methane or carbon monoxide, basically that bird would go to sleep. If that bird goes to sleep, you're going to sleep too.
And when you say sleep, you mean... You're going. A dirt nap.
Okay. So you're always kind of looking out of the corner of your eye to make sure... You're listening to him tweeting. Okay. When he's thinking and having a good time, you don't have to worry.
When he's starting to get lackadaisical and not making too many noises, you better start looking. And that's where the phrase, we've all heard, canary in the coal mine, obviously comes from that. You're the first to know if there's bad news.
You are the first to know if there's bad news. And we go outside to the weighmaster. The pony boys or mule boys were 10, 12 years old and they didn't get paid.
They worked for their father. They would haul this outside. Come outside with a weighmaster, basically.
He would check that check, see who it was, weigh the coal, and give them credit for loading. Quarter ton of coal. Four of them wouldn't be a ton. And the more coal you loaded, the more money you got. At that point, you'd get paid in script at the end of the day.
They'd take out for your shovels, they'd take out for your picks, they'd take out for your black powder. They take out for your post whatever you use you had to pay for and then you bought stuff from the company store So they didn't pay you with actual cash money. They paid you with script Yeah, and then they use that could only use it at that company store You couldn't take it to another company. You couldn't go to the local 7-eleven and pick up anything You know there was buying there weren't any 7-elevens.
You needed dynamite. You need the shoes You need hats coats your kids needed clothes. You had to buy from that company store Well, I get my dynamite from 7-Eleven, but that's just me.
So what's that song, 16 Tons and What Do You Get? Ah, 16 tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.
St. Peter don't call me cause I didn't come. Oh, my soul to the company store. You load 16 tons, what do you get? You get another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don't you call me cause I can't go.
I owe my soul to the company store. Okay, so this is a... now we've moved forward ahead in time a little bit, right?
And you're not down on your hands and knees with a pickaxe. You're still down on your hands and knees. But this is a machine that's gonna cut the rock underneath.
Yes. We're going to use electric auger. The same scenario, we're going to drill three holes in the top and two in the bottom and we're going to undercut it. We're going to pack it with dynamite. Five sticks.
It's going to be 24 holes to bark, undercuts 20 feet and you'll be 125 feet away. Make a gas check. Nobody from this point, nobody from that point, nobody comes in this area. You yell fire.
Fire in the hole, fire, and you shoot it down. You got 25 tons of coal sitting down on the ground. We went from one ton to 25 tons. We're not getting paid scripts.
We're getting paid by the hour now. Okay. Because there's about... Too much quantity coming out. Yes.
You want to do that? No, I do not. I do not. This is Italian, so I don't want to get any grease on it.
All right, we're going to come over here, and this is actually how we're going to get the coal to the coal car. Once we shoot that down this pan line will come right up to where we just shut the coal down. Then you have a guy over here and a guy over there shoveling the coal onto the conveyor system.
And there'll be a guy up there operating the conveyor system with a locomotive with 10 cars. He'll actually dump all the cars back in there empty. The first empty will be right under the chute. Now imagine these guys are shoveling this coal onto this conveyor.
The more they shovel the faster it goes. Uh oh. And...
That one lost. That last one lost. As the coal car got loaded up on top, the operator at the head will shut it down until they put another car under. And these guys will start shoveling when he starts up.
You load ten cars in about an hour and a half. and these guys are busting tail. So that goes all the way up to the surface onto a locomotive. Onto triple cars. OK. 10 times the total cars will hook to a locomotive.
The locomotive will put one empty underneath the chute. The operator will start. start the conveyor.
These guys will shovel it. Once it's full, they go up there and the operator at the head will shut it down. The locomotive will put another empty underneath.
And that's a continuous cycle until they get 10 cars loaded. Wow. And how long would it take to get one car filled? Probably about five minutes. Really?
These guys are hustling away. My goodness. We're going to go to 1942, 1941. Moving forward in time again. As you know, in 1941, 1942, World War II started with Japanese mom in Pearl Harbor. and the coal industry and a steel mill, and everybody needed more steel and more coal to make steel for ammunition, ships, everything possible to keep the war going.
The storm will come in and make a gas check. The machine will cut, machine will come in and undercut, rib cut, roof cut, and rib cut again 20 feet wide, 20 feet deep. He'll move away, boss will make a gas check, the coal drill will come in.
That coal drill drills 20-foot holes, one, two, three, four, five, and a hill. So the shot fire will come in and they'll load it with 25 sticks of dynamite. And they'll, same thing, 125 feet away, fire, fire in the hole, fire. And we've got 125 tons of coal sitting down on the ground. Over the last 100 to 130 years, basically, coal miners, 5,000 to 6,000 would die a year because of no safety at all.
Coal companies didn't care about safety. If this guy got hurt, push him aside. We've got a lot of people who want a job.
But that has all changed when the UMWA came around. The UMWA, United Mine Workers of America, came into operation basically to protect the coal miners. You got safety lights, hats.
Yeah. Didn't have no carbide light, no, you know, didn't have open flames. They didn't even have hard hats back then?
No, they had a cloth hat. Oh my goodness. Or a leather hat.
Okay. Safety came a long way. We actually sent people to training classes.
Fingers and toes. Eyeglasses. You can't come underground without a pair of gloves on, without a pair of glasses, without a respirator, without reflective material all over you.
And that all has to do with the Bureau of Mines. They make a lot. You got to heed to it. Well, Larry, you're an amazing driver of this beast.
Thanks so much for the tour. I learned one way. You can't turn nowhere.
It went down and back. It follows the track. Well, I appreciate it.
I learned a lot about mining and mining safety. I never could get a strong Wi-Fi signal down there, so that's something to look into. Don't have any.
Now that I'm back on top, I've got my check, and I'm going to go spend my scripts at the company store. Do you think they have any lip balm or hand sanitizer? You'd have to ask them.
Well, okay. When we visit these incredible locations tied to American iron, steel, and coal, We are reminded of the awesome machinery that was created as part of these industries. Massive machines and new power sources that drove American industry.
So to further investigate these relics of the industrial revolution, let's visit the Western Museum of Mining and Industry in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This is the Western Museum of Mining and Industry in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The mission of the museum is to educate the public about the history and continuing contributions of mining, ranching, and other industries of the American West.
The Museum of Mining and Industry houses all sorts of vintage machines and engines from the first industrial revolution of the late 19th to early 20th centuries. The incredible thing is that much of this equipment still works. Today I'm getting a hands-on tour with Grant, the museum's executive director. We're going to look at some of the awesome equipment that helped fuel American growth and talk a little bit about workplace safety and child labor laws that became a big part of this time in U.S. history.
So Grant, thanks for spending a few minutes with me today. My pleasure. Yes, absolutely.
Glad to do that. I'm excited to show you some of these things that do work, these old machines. They're all over 100 years old.
And if we could, I'd like to kind of start over here. So this is one of the oldest steam engines. And the idea of a steam engine is to take steam power and to convert it into motion. Just like today, we plug into electricity to do that with an electric motor. So this is a two-piston steam engine.
It's an Oris Embauer. But the point is this whole massive thing is only 10 horsepower. So when we run it, you'll see it's just like you on your bike.
It's going to be pumping and it's going to turn a crank. And if you see in the back, you can see the belt that's back there, just like on your bike as a chain drive. And what it's driving is amazing. This is a Thomas Edison Dynamo. About 5,000 watts of electricity, enough to run kind of a small estate or a small business.
Can I recharge my cell phone here on this thing? If you know where to connect it properly. Good, I'm a little low.
Maybe a little tricky. While you're down there, I should point out, so you'll see there's some glass jars around on this. If you've ever heard the term grease monkey, Dave, that's where it comes from.
Little boys, probably about 10 years old, would work in the factories roughly 10 hours a day for about 10 cents an hour. And they would keep those filled with oil, originally whale oil and then petroleum oil. So wait, little 10-year-old boys with whale oil would come through here and fill these little glass tanks up with whale oil. Yeah. And they were called grease monkeys.
Correct. Yeah. They get no respect. I can identify that. My camera crew doesn't respect me one bit.
In fact, they didn't turn off the machine, so it was a little dangerous for the kids at that time. Oh, wow. We didn't have the child labor laws at that time. So it was dangerous.
Sometimes they got injured or... That's correct. Yep.
So here we go. The sights and sound. Whoa, I'm getting nervous, Grant.
See your legs pumping on the bicycle? Yeah. Here we go. What do you know it?
Fully charged. Thanks. That is amazing. I love it. Edison would be thrilled.
So that's a typical steam engine of that period. And so how would things be powered? They would be somehow connected to...
So everything was done by basically belts and pulleys. So today we plug into the wall, they would plug in with a belt with another pulley to run a saw, a lathe, whatever the case may be that they needed. This one was generating some electricity.
This big red one, this is one of my favorites because it makes a great sound, but it's also much more efficient. So this one did not need grease monkeys. This was called the Skinner Automatic because he figured out how to automatically oil the machine. It's a single piston, 67 horsepower as compared to 10. And this one is much more efficient as the electrical design, graphite and connections, that sort of thing.
So how many years between? the 10 horsepower versus the 60. Really only about 10 or 20 years in the change of the technology going from a dynamo to a Westinghouse generator, much more efficient. So this was 10 times as much electricity.
So this is 50,000 watts. Wow. And if you like the old fashioned steam locomotive sound, you're going to love this one.
I do. So let's run this one for you. And then you can help me, actually, because we have to stop it in just the right spot.
So you can do that at the end. Everybody ready? Here we go. So if you'll come over here.
You tell me when it's safe to try. I don't think we're there yet. You're okay. You can get your hands on there and keep it going. Whoa, that's really heavy.
Nice. Well done. Excellent. All right. Down here, the next one down, this is not a steam engine.
This is a steam-driven water pump. And this is one of our oldest machines. Still operates.
Original paint job. Pretty impressive with all the little stars and pinstripes and such. Oh, yeah. So this one would pump 8,000 gallons of water per hour.
Used out of a well? This one was used at the Wolverine Mine here in Colorado. So one of the tricks of mining is we always collect water when we have underground mining.
They tend to collect water and we have to get that out. So 8,000 gallons an hour. And you can watch this one in action as well. Here we go. So this one used the concept of positive displacement.
If you've ever been a kid and had a full glass of water or a bucket of water right up to the top and you just like couldn't resist, put your finger in there right, what happens? Spills out. Spills out.
So this is the same thing. I still, even as an adult, I can't resist. Yeah, exactly.
It's too much fun. So same thing, push the piston down in there and pushes the water up and out. So this one is called the coreless.
Built in 1895, ran a paper mill on the East Coast from 1910 all the way to 1970, if you can believe that. And we talked about the big flywheel. That's 17 tons of flywheel just by itself.
And then it would have a belt, a drive belt, that was three feet wide and 180 feet long in circumference to go all the way out to the driveline. And this one, you want to guess how many horsepower this was? Because review, we had 10, 67. What do you think? I'm gonna say 500. Bingo, nice job.
Really? Yes, 500 horsepower. Total wild guess.
I love it. All right, so this one, I can only run it about one tenth as fast as it would have run. So 10 times faster than this would have been the operational speed. You can come down in the pit if you want. Yes, I want.
Get the special tour that we give to birthday folks. So here's all the timing mechanism that would be opening and closing the valves. So this is going about 10 times slower than what it would have done if it was actually generating electricity. Yep.
So if you walk around we can see some of the big piston arms moving as well. So back on this side you'll see the long arms from the crank running the pistons in and out. So one thing you may want to notice is when I turn it off, you'll see how long it coasts because of the mass. It's so massive.
I'm going to go ahead and not try to stop this one with my bare hands. Okay. I don't think I would do a very good job. You know what would be fun on this one is be up on top and try to jog as it's going.
Yeah, there we go. That is one enormous hamster wheel. It is. So that's a quick visit to the first industrial age in a sense.
right, where we went from basically human power to animal power to figuring out how to use machine power to do work for us. And the first way we did that was through steam. So Grant, this was an amazing tour. Thank you so much. Thank you.
It's been a blast. The Western Museum of Mining and Industry. It was a lot of fun. So thanks again.
Welcome anytime. Colorado Springs, Colorado, man. Come on back. Can I have some gold? Sure.
Okay. In addition to mining and industry, some of that awesome old equipment at the museum reminded me that agriculture has been the mainstay of American lives and labor for centuries. For a very unique look at farming, ranching, and horticulture in the United States, let's travel to the incredible countryside of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Sorry, I'll be a little more gentle. Oh.
Skim. I'm more of a 2% man. Uh, let's go to the, uh, water wheel.
That's, uh, this way. How's it going? Seems as if you want something. And I don't have, actually I do have something.
I think I have some spearmint gum. Anybody? Yes.
He needs it. You know, I actually do think you're kind of cute. Would you like to come home to my daughter?
Are you really the greatest of all time? What you got here is a traditional horse and buggy that the Amish use for their main mode of transportation. Now, I was raised on a farm in rural Ohio, and I remember seeing these all over the place where I grew up. These things can get going pretty fast.
I wonder what the horsepower is on this bad boy. I'm outside beautiful Lancaster, Pennsylvania, home to the largest Amish community in the United States. Although the first Amish arrived in North America in the mid-1700s, the European Anabaptist movement began well before that, in 1525, as a rather radical wing of the Protestant Reformation. Anabaptists, or re-baptizers, differed from other Christian denominations primarily in two things. They practiced adult baptism, which went against the beliefs of Catholics and other Protestants at the time, and they insisted on a free church, separate from state interference.
In the late 1600s, there was a religious dispute among the Anabaptists, and they split into the Mennonites and Amish branches. The Amish began migrating from Europe to Pennsylvania because of its lack of religious persecution and attractive land offers from the state. Between 1717 and 1750, approximately 500 Amish migrated to Pennsylvania. Many eventually settled here in Lancaster County.
The population of North American Amish grew slowly in the 18th and 19th centuries, but began thriving by the middle of the 20th century. Today, their population has swelled to more than 250,000 people in nearly 2,000 church districts. While each church community follows its own lifestyle guidelines, all Amish groups have an ordnung, a set of unwritten behavioral regulations that members must follow.
These rules vary by church district, but they usually limit or ban certain technologies and restrict interaction with the outside world. So, why don't the Amish use electricity and other technologies? Well, Romans 12.2 says, Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing, and perfect will. The Amish people take this verse very seriously. In the early 1900s, Amish leaders agreed that connecting to power lines would be a connection to the world, and therefore not in the best interests of the Amish community.
They didn't make this decision because they thought electricity was evil in itself, but because easy access to it could lead to many temptations and the deterioration of church and family life. For over three centuries, the Amish lifestyle has centered on agriculture, working their own soil, growing their own food, raising their own children. own livestock.
It's all seen as cooperating with God's creation, timing, and will. To the Amish, family farming is not merely a job, but a sacred calling grounded in the Bible. Communing with nature is a form of communing with God. The average Amish farm in Lancaster County is about 40 acres.
The crops include corn, alfalfa, tobacco, and a variety of grains. Based on their religious principles, the Amish famously shun tractors and mechanical farming in favor of horse-drawn equipment and hand tools. Regardless, they're still considered some of the most productive farms in the nation.
In the end, it's the long days, discipline, and love of the soil essential to family farming that are also qualities foundational to Amish religion, culture, and tradition. The Amish are staunch believers in faith. responsibility, hard work, simple living, and community support.
And farming is seen as a way to ingrain these timeless values for generations to come. Today, most of us would think it's impossible to live without modern conveniences, such as electricity and cars. But the Amish value simplicity and self-denial over comfort and convenience. Their lifestyle is a deliberate way of separating from the world and maintaining self-sufficiency.
As a result, there is a bond that unites the Amish community and protects it from outside influences such as television, radio, and the internet. When it comes to Labor Day in America, the Amish are an incredible example of hard work, creativity, and community. As we've seen, meaningful work contributes to purpose, personal responsibility, and self-worth.
It instills in us a sense of accountability and happiness, the joy of providing for our families and engaging in our communities. There's a connection between reward and accomplishment. There is dignity in honest work. Work isn't just about money. As Pope John Paul II said, work is a good thing for man, a good thing for his family.
his humanity, because through work, man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being, and indeed, in a sense, becomes more a human being. The Bible tells us that the human person doesn't live by bread alone. To thrive, people need purpose.
Today, we talk a lot about long-term welfare, wealth redistribution, a guaranteed income program. These are not just economic issues, they are also moral ones. Government has the power to crush the human spirit and rob people of initiative, work satisfaction, and meaning. Why? Because the mere offering of material sustenance is not enough.
Human beings are made for war. Let me speak from the heart. I don't think we're cogs in a machine, keys on a piano, or so-called human resources.
We are persons created in the image of God, designed for meaning, purpose, and eternal destiny. We're not one-dimensional economic creatures. We have a soul, and we are created to pursue our God-given calling in life. To get economics right, we need to get the human person right. Labor Day reminds me of the historic power of the American worker within our awesome free market economy.
At a time when some are challenging America's roots in capitalism, I'm more confident than ever in our system that promotes innovation, ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and growth. The integrity of hard work, risk and reward, long-term planning, private property, community investment, and enlightened philanthropy. These built America like no other economic system in history. Let's use Labor Day to tell stories of American entrepreneurship, industry, expansion, and prosperity.
To encourage our younger generations to double down on capitalism, to embrace the integrity of work, and to take America to the next level of liberty, influence, and renewal. Happy Labor Day, indeed.