The Workers Pyramid

Hundreds of workers were needed to produce iron, though only a few worked directly at the furnace. Fillers dumped carts of ore, charcoal, and limestone into the tunnel head. The founder, assisted by a keeper, directed the ingredients, determined how much air would be blasted into the furnace, and decided when to draw off the iron, usually every 12 hours. Guttermen guided molten iron across the sandy cast house floor, and some furnaces employed moulders to make castings for iron stoves and utensils. Beyond the furnace itself, woodchoppers cut the wood used by colliers to make charcoal, miners dug iron ore and quarried limestone, and teamsters hauled wood, charcoal, iron ore, and pig iron. A bookkeeper managed company accounts, while many laborers and their families performed the unskilled work that kept both the furnace and the nearby village operating.

Pennsylvania · United States