Artist: Thomas Pollock Anshutz Place/date of birth: Newport, Kentucky 1851 Place/date of death: Fort Washington, Pennsylvania 1912 Title: The Ironworkers' Noontime Date of completion: 1880 Materials: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 17 x 23 7/8 inches Signed lower left: Thos. Anshutz Collection: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Accession number: 1979.7.4 Introduction The Ironworkers' Noontime, by Thomas Anshutz, depicts the yard of a nail factory in Wheeling, West Virginia during the noontime break: the workers stretch the kinks out of their muscles, eat, and sit in the sun. The factory where these men were employed was not one of the enormous steel mills that came to dominate the metal industry and the American imagination around the turn of the century. This was a relatively small factory that produced iron nails similar to the way iron nails had been made in the 1820s, but on a larger scale. Discussion The 1880s were considered "The Age of Steel." Steel was much stronger and cheaper than iron and with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, steel mills flourished throughout the area. Industrialization meant mass production of goods, but it also meant longer hours for workers in less specialized work; workers no longer needed to be skilled laborers or craftsmen. This painting can be seen as a tribute to the iron workers as true craftsmen. It may also commemorate an era in labor history that was rapidly becoming extinct. The workers shown here were called "puddlers," the most skilled workers in the factory. They assembled the ingredients for iron in cauldrons and monitored the heat carefully as the ingredients melted together. Just at the right moment they would remove the cauldrons from the flame and pour the hot iron into molds where it hardened into sheets. The sheets were then cut into nails. Any miscalculation on the part of the puddler would render the sheets of steel too hard or too soft and useless for nail production. Puddlers were the highest-paid workers in the factory, and one could only learn the skills of a puddler through a long apprenticeship beginning as a child (notice the children in the picture). Even as late as the 1880s, school was considered a luxury for most children, and it was common for poor and working class children to spend their days working on farms or in factories. The practice of child labor continued until the early part of the twentieth century when the labor movement won rights for children, making it illegal to work until the age of twelve! Still, Thomas Anshutz did not intend The Ironworkers' Noontime as a commentary on child labor. Apprenticeship as a way of life was becoming increasingly rare as industrialization and mass production lessened the need for workers with specialized skills. This painting has often been analyzed as a sympathetic attempt to show the plight of workers. This particular interpretation seems inspired more by the odd subject matter and the convincing way it is portrayed (the careful attention to the rust and dust on the iron bars, the smoke bellowing from the factory, the grim masses of the buildings) than by consideration of the way the figures themselves are represented. All of the characters carry themselves with upright dignity and do not give the appearance of being downtrodden or otherwise oppressed. The workers look tired, but these men were skilled laborers who took great pride in their work. Anyone would feel tired after a day at this job. Style This realistic scene gave the artist the opportunity to present the bodies of a variety of people of varying ages -- from childhood through old age. The art school that Thomas Anshutz attended stressed the study of human anatomy. In addition to sketching live models and casts of statuary, students dissected cadavers and observed medical procedures. This was not a new practice for artists; Leonardo da Vinci was known to visit cemeteries and exhume corpses so that he could achieve a more thorough understanding of the human form. Artist Thomas Anshutz moved at an early age to Philadelphia. After a year of art training in New York, he returned to Philadelphia to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where he later became a teacher. As a child and young adult he often visited family in Kentucky and West Virginia, where he probably witnessed work places like the nail factory. Oddly, this is Anshutz's only painting of an industrial scene; most of his other works are portraits and beach scenes. Links to American History Curriculum
SLIDE 23
THE IRONWORKERS' NOONTIME
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