My arm got burned on my first day at Lukens, a Saturday. I was a helper for gas cutters cutting the ends of “heads.” Heads were the caps of what would become tanks, mostly propane tanks, I think.

 There were 1 inch hoops of steel cut off by the gas cutters lying underfoot. I stepped on one. It slapped up to my arm burning through my shirt. I thought I did something wrong.  

I was taken to a doctor at the mill. I had a 2 inch long welt on my arm. 

The next workday a Monday I learned the crane operator was supposed to pick up the rings. It was not my fault that I was burned. 

I was 18 when the summer job at Lukens Steel came. I was one of 4 at a bending brake. 

The brake in the photo is much newer & wider. The brake we used was likely 1940s vintage and foot petal operated but basically the same.

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I was a pressman 3d class.  I was a hookup man. When the crane grabbed a magnet I would hook up the electric wires.  Once in a while the crane operator used a magnet to hold steel for us at the bending brake. Mostly the crane held the metal plate with hooks.

I would put a steel hook, a three or so foot long 6 inch wide mostly flat piece of steel with a 90° bend that fit under the steel plate. Another man would do the same on the other side of the plate. The plates were about 30 feet long by 10 feet wide 1 inch thick steel. 

Once the hooks were attached the crane operator would lift the plate. 

It’s supposed to bend longways. Like a piece of cardboard, the long ends down. Sometimes the plate would bend at the short sides. 

The plate needed to bend longwise to fit into the brake. When the plate bent at the short sides the 90° angle hook didn’t have as much purchase. The crane operator would bounce the plate to make it flip correctly. All the time lifting it above the steel plates & “heads” on the plant floor that would become caps of steel tanks.

Sometimes a hook would come loose. The plate would fall throwing heavy steel sideways around the floor. The hooks would swing wildly crossing back & forth across the building. 

For me it was exciting. Like an action movie. 

We would wait for the hooks to stop swinging and re-attach them under the plate. 

The crane operator with 2 hooks attached and 4 of us guided the steel plate held 4 ft in the air by those 2 steel hooks.

With the crane operator’s help we eased it up to put a bend in one end with the hydraulic bending brake.

Occasionally we had a “hot job.”  One end of a three inch wide plate needed to be heated to red hot to put a bend in it in a large oven on the opposite side of the brake. I think a magnet was used to guide the plate into the oven. 

We would turn the plate to face to bending brake. 

I would stand in back of the brake holding a long steel wrench to the hot steel. I wore silver colored gloves. I was told that the gloves do nothing to protect my hands & arms.

I went outside in 90℉ weather to cool off. 

I had to be careful not to trip on a two inch deep about 3 foot diameter indentation in the plant floor while walking in one morning. Somehow a magnet fell from a crane. It fell in front of a man walking into the building. He had to go home that day.

I never thought about the danger. 

The bending break job opened up because one of the 4 man crew was crushed to death against the brake by a plate. 

You basically needed to have a relative or know somebody to get a job at Lukens. At the time about 6,000 people worked at Lukens and everyone who lived in Coatesville was likely to have a relative who worked there.

My dad was a crane operator who worked on the other end of the building known as "The Hill."

In 1926 when he was 16 James A. Pitcherella oldest child of Giuseppe & Fiorenza Pitcherella 

started working at Lukens Steel Company. He retired at 62 years of age.

My dad, James A. Pitcherella 

on his crane ladder.