[HN Gopher] The Scranton Iron Furnaces ___________________________________________________________________ The Scranton Iron Furnaces Author : PaulHoule Score : 80 points Date : 2021-11-22 16:03 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (abandonedonline.net) (TXT) w3m dump (abandonedonline.net) | exhilaration wrote: | If you're in this region, a visit to Bethlehem Steel is worth a | detour: https://www.steelstacks.org/about/what-is-steelstacks/ | | Much of the steel for the Golden Gate Bridge came from here. | PaulHoule wrote: | Yesterday I went to Scranton for a comic book convention and saw | something remarkable next door and found it was this. | monocasa wrote: | My dyslexic ass read this as scantron. | | I would absolutely refer to 7th grade as a 'scantron iron | furnace'. | akamia wrote: | That's funny. I read it that way too. | f00zz wrote: | > The iron ore reserves near Scranton began to be depleted by the | end of the 19th century. | | Something mentioned in the book "The Toaster Project" (where a | guy tries to build an electric toaster from scratch) is that | high-grade ore basically doesn't exist any more, and you now need | to process a ton of ore to extract a few kilograms of metal. | | (Just something to keep in mind if you ever find yourself in a | position of having to rebuild civilization after being trapped in | stone for 5,000 years.) | philipkglass wrote: | Was that book perhaps referring to copper ore? Even low grade | iron ores like taconite contain a double digit percentage of | iron: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taconite | Athas wrote: | Would it be viable to mine the remnants of civilization? Would | a garbage dump or the ruins of a 20th century skyscraper be a | viable source of iron? | kevinmchugh wrote: | There would be plenty of metal to work with, but sources of | heat hotter or denser than charcoal will make working the | metal difficult. | debacle wrote: | All over your town, drivers work day in and day out | harvesting scrap metal on garbage pickup days. | jacquesm wrote: | Precisely. | jacquesm wrote: | I would start digging where there had been a scrapyard or a | garbage dump or landfill. | bostonsre wrote: | I grew up near scranton and never heard of these before. Was an | interesting read. | icanhasfay wrote: | Likewise, I must have driven past them a few dozen times | without even knowing! | AdamTReineke wrote: | I was in Scranton for a wedding earlier this year and along with | visiting the Iron Furnaces, we also stopped by the Anthracite | Heritage Museum [0] because we were looking for something else to | do on a lazy Friday. It was interesting to learn a bunch about | historic coal mining practices and people but the real surprise | was about halfway through the museum the topic changed to | textiles -- including some massive Jacquard looms and reels of | punch cards. [1] I don't have my own photos handy, but this photo | a loom from the museum with the "tape" of punch cards hiding | behind the threads in the top right of the photo. | | [0] http://www.anthracitemuseum.org/explore/anthracite-museum/ | | [1] https://uncoveringpa.com/wp- | content/uploads/2017/04/Anthraci... | derekjdanserl wrote: | From a report on the cultures and politics around the | Anthracite Coal Mines at the turn of the 19th century, which is | linked below and is probably the most fascinating piece of | journalism I have ever read: | | > _Why the Mills Have Come to the Coal Regions_ | | _The factory inspector will tell you, "The mills locate in | Anthracite because they all employ girls, and girl labor is | cheaper here than anywhere else." A glance at a "textile" map | of Pennsylvania will show that wherever there are miners, there | cluster mills that employ "cheap girl labor."_ | | _Besides silk and hosiery a local feminine industry is the | manufacture of the fuses or "squibs" which are used in coal | blasting. The statistics of the nine counties of Anthracite | count up 11,216 "females" employed in them, 2,403 between 12 | and 16 years of age._ | | _The perjury certificate prevails for the girls, as well as | the boys, and I estimate that 90 percent of the 11,216 females | are girls who have not yet reached womanhood. They work ten | hours a day, and the majority stand all of that time, having a | chance to sit only in the noon hour. This brings on a | characteristic lameness in the girls during their first year at | the mill. The report of the Secretary of Internal Affairs of | the State places the "average daily wage of children between | the ages of 13 and 16" employed in the manufacturing of | underwear at 47 cents, in hosiery mills at 46 cents._ | | https://wynninghistory.com/2021/03/27/children-of-the-coal-s... | 123jay7 wrote: | The office ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-11-22 23:00 UTC)