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MECHANICAL VERSUS HAND WORK ON THE BRICKYARD.
BY W. P. ALSIP, WINNIPEG, MANITOBA.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention:
In the city of Pittsburgh, sixty years ago, my father, then a boy, made brick by hand; the only mechanical appliances, if they may be so called, were a spade, wheelbarrow, table, bow and two two-brick molds. A brief description of a gang making hand-made brick with these mechanical helps may be of interest to some of our younger brothers who have installed an up-to-date plant equipped with all the latest appliances and have never known the hardships of a hand yard. The owner of a hand yard, after determining the amount of brick he wished to make, would start in the fall by weathering his clay. This process many of our manufacturers follow today. To weather the clay the bank was undermined and caved down, then cast over with a spade and left to freeze and thaw until spring. This reduces all the lumps and puts the clay in condition to be tempered with the least amount of labor, which was very necessary, as you will see later on.
In the spring the gang consisting of four men and a boy were hired by the month without board. The moulder received thirty-five dollars, the three men twenty-six dollars each and the boy fifteen dollars. This made a daily wage of four dollars and eighty-five cents per day for the gang.
Thirty-two hundred brick was a day’s work for this gang, who took the clay from the weathered pile and made it into brick, which they stored in the shed built for that purpose. The clay was taken from the weathered pile with a spade and cast into a pile called the soak pile, where water was added and then it was left to soak over night.
Next morning the clay was slashed out or tempered with a spade until in proper shape for the moulder. It was then loaded on an old fashioned wheelbarrow, where the man carried most of the load by the aid of a strap over his shoulders, to the moulder’s table located on the drying floor, where he would again, by the use of his spade, deposit the clay on the table which had been sanded to keep it from sticking.
The moulder with his hands cut a clod from the clay and, after giving it a roll on the table, drove it into the mould, which had been wetted and sanded and placed before him by the off-bearer. The surplus clay, called caps, was cut off the top of the mould with a bow and wire and the caps thrown back onto the table. The off-bearer took the mould and dumped the brick on the floor or ground, which had been leveled off to receive them. The bricks were next edged and hacked and when dry enough were wheeled
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to the storage shed where they were kept until one hundred thousand or more were made. Then the making was stopped and the kiln filled and burned. This was hand-work brick making as my father knew it when a boy. On a hand yard today a striker will mould 8,000 brick in a day. His clay is ground by horse power, otherwise he has very little advantage over his father of sixty years ago.
Hand-work in the brick yard, like the stage coach, will soon be a thing of the past. It has filled its mission and, while some of the work in a modern yard is done by hand, the ratio is about the same as the amount of mechanical appliances was in the yard I have just described. Mechanical made ware, where the workmen have only to look after the machines through most of the stages of its manufacture, is a blessing to mankind. Much of the drudgery of the hand yard is eliminated. The workman after his day’s work, returns to his family with some spirit left in him, which makes life what it should be, well worth living.
The age when men object to machinery lessening the labor required to produce the necessities and luxuries, which even the man who labors expects and should enjoy, is passing away.
Today a man who discovers or invents anything which is a benefit to mankind, is looked upon as a public benefactor; our laws are framed and passed to encourage and protect him in his work. The result of this policy is that the clayworker of today has at his command machinery that relieves him of much of the heavy manual labor which was necessary in our father’s time.
Looking back through the ages we see many of our great benefactors who, after years of toil and study, invented great labor-saving machines, which, when introduced, brought only persecution and condemnation.
Each year marks improvements in equipment, from the clay bank or mine to the delivered ware. With all this advance in improved machinery we still face the problem of how and where we can procure the labor necessary to produce the quality, quantity and kinds of goods required to keep up with the urgent demands that our country, in this era of prosperity, places upon us.
The manufacturer is looking to the machinery man and inventors for improved methods, which will enable him to produce not only more and better ware, but make it at less cost.
Many of the manufacturers have closed their books for the year of 1906 and find their profits much less than for 1905. They have analyzed their costs accounts and find that nearly everything that enters into the cost of the manufactured ware has advanced in price, while the sales price has remained about the same. The manager is convinced that he must do something to protect his profits and first turns to the most natural remedy, which is to raise the selling price. After careful investigation he decides that this will not be wise, as structural steel, cast concrete, sand-lime and sand-cement brick are in the field and are ready to fill the place of clay brick if given the chance. The only other remedy is to produce the brick at a less cost. This is what every progressive brickmaker of today has been and is trying to do. He is looking
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for machinery that will make more and better brick at a less cost. He is installing the best machinery, adopting the latest methods and equipping his plant with the best his means will afford.
Mr. Alsip: In addition to what I have read, I desire to say that I started back in 1880 in Iowa making hand-made brick. I was only twenty-one years old, and I believe the price we got for the brick while I was working for my father was $8.50 in the wall, under sharp competition. In 1882, by molding brick by hand, with the aid of one horse such as many of you have seen made, I built the opera house in Waukon and put the brick in the wall for $6.75. The front of the building was pressed brick, the wage was $1.25 for laborers and $3.50 for bricklayers. We made 5,000 brick per day per molder, and made them much as they make them today, except that many of them are struck brick. If I had attempted to say what we made brick by machinery for, or had gone into that at all, I would have been up against it, and they would tell me we have been robbing the public. We are getting $10.00 a thousand for our brick. The Chicago people tell us what it costs them to make brick. They seem to burn them with wind. I hear the St. Louis people say they are shipping them down here in competition for them. Be that as it may, I did not give the price of machine-made brick, because I believe every man here is making brick by machinery and knows what it costs. Gentlemen, I thank you.
General Discussion.
Mr. J. J. Amos, Humboldt, Kansas: What did it cost you to make your hand-made brick in 1880?
Mr. Alsip: I never got so far as to figure it out that way, but I made brick for two seasons and in two years I had $120.00 to go north to Grand Forks.
Mr. Blair: How much did you have when you started?
Mr. Alsip: I got married when I only had $5.00 to pay the preacher? (Official Report Twentieth Annual Convention of the National Brick Manufacturers’ Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 7, 8, and 9, 1906, T. A. Randall & Co., Publishers, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1906