The Mayor of Gary

[WilliamPitt]

I asked the Mayor of Gary about the 12-hour day and the 7-day week.
And the Mayor of Gary answered more workmen steal time on the job in Gary than any other place in the United States.
“Go into the plants and you will see men sitting around doing nothing—machinery does everything,” said the Mayor of Gary when I asked him about the 12-hour day and the 7-day week.
And he wore cool cream pants, the Mayor of Gary, and white shoes, and a barber had fixed him up with a shampoo and a shave and he was easy and imperturbable though the government weather bureau thermometer said 96 and children were soaking their heads at bubbling fountains on the street corners.
And I said good-by to the Mayor of Gary and I went out from the city hall and turned the corner into Broadway.
And I saw workmen wearing leather shoes scruffed with fire and cinders, and pitted with little holes from running molten steel,
And some had bunches of specialized muscles around their shoulder blades hard as pig iron, muscles of their fore-arms were sheet steel and they looked to me like men who had been somewhere.

Gary, Indiana, 1915.

- Carl Sandburg

[elleng]

1. Chicago

HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

http://carl-sandburg.com/chicago.htm

[abq e streeter]

2. I attended college in Sandburg's hometown, and at the homecoming/reunion

in 2012, they had a screening of a PBS documentary on Sandburg. I hope you (and anyone else reading this, of course) get to see it ,or already have.Fascinating portrait of a truly great American.
( Galesburg, Ill. BTW)

[Ikonoklast]

3. Men with soft hands and soft live always seem to tell those whose hands are scarred and calloused

just how lazy they are and how easy they have it.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Similarly, Huckabee thinks there is no War on Women today. nt

[passiveporcupine]

5. Love love love

Carl Sandburg

[ananda]

6. Brilliant!

I never expected 1915 to become 2014, though; but it did.

[aggiesal]

7. Gary is now considered a ghost town . . .

It had about 150,000+ residence back in the 70's and about 70K now.
That means that half the buildings, half the businesses, half the houses are gone.

[Enthusiast]

9. Mostly due to trade policies.

[aggiesal]

11. Absolutely . . .

Gary had problems first with Japan dumping steel on the market in the 70's
followed by Korea in the 80's and now finally by China.
There is no way the steel industry in NW Indiana could support that kind of
cost dumping without getting rid of their employees.

[hfojvt]

13. are they gone

or just empty?

That should make for some affordable housing. In theory.

[aggiesal]

14. Some are gone, . . .

most are empty.
Very depressed area that the property right now is pretty much worthless.

[WilliamPitt]

8. Up

[Enthusiast]

10. Recommended X 1000!

[octoberlib]

12. K&R!