American Experience

Interview with Chris Thorsten, Iron Worker

Interviewee: Chris Thorsten
Birth: 51 years ago, on board a fishing boat moored to a dock in New Orleans
Ethnicity: Scandinavian
Education: No formal education
Occupation: Iron Worker
Location: Union Hall, 84th Street, New York City
Date: January 31, 1938, 1 PM to 3 PM
Interviewer: Arnold Manoff

Interview Excerpt: "Is your job dangerous?"

You ain't an iron worker unless you get killed... Men hurt on all jobs. Take the Washington Bridge, the Triboro Bridge. Plenty of men hurt on those jobs. Two men killed on the Hotel New Yorker. I drove rivets all the way on that job. When I got hurt I was squeezed between a crane and a collar bone broke and all the ribs in my body and three vertebrae. I was laid up for four years.

Excerpt from the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writer's Project Collection, Transcript #22032106.

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