| Summary: | In this interview, Monroe Lide gives details about mining for ore and describes the various jobs available in the mines. He also talks about how race came into play in assigning those jobs. Lide gives some background on himself, saying his father was a "rambler," so he can't remember why they came to Birmingham. His mother was a domestic worker. He remembers the relief lines during the Depression, as well as living at a CC Camp himself and knowing of others who worked for the WPA. Lide was in the Navy in 1943. Lide says he worked several industrial jobs until he was hired at Sloss, where he worked for 35 years. He describes the iron-making process in great and technical detail. He remembers seeing an explosion that killed two men, just from the heat of the furnace alone. He says they cast the iron twice in each eight-hour shift. Lide describes three different types of jobs he held in the mine: working on the labor gang, running scale cars, and working on a track job. He explains that those on the labor gang worked at "cleaning cars" (i.e., unloading them), while men running scale cars put the different "ingredients" for the iron into the furnace. Track work involved repair and upkeep of the track. He says he enjoyed that job because of the people he worked with. He also talks about how they often chanted and sang to help stay in the rhythm of laying track. Lide also differentiates between the various supervisory positions, and explains that for a long time, only whites were allowed to hold those positions. Blacks didn't advance to foreman until the labor union forced the issue, and he says that didn't happen fast enough, because the union was segregated. He recalls that after blacks began to advance, it was also more common to see whites in labor jobs.The digitization of this collection was funded by a gift from EBSCO Industries.
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