Archive ID: 1981-051-21

Blast Furnace Orchestra

Date Created: undated

Created By: U.S. Steel

Donor: William Ferry

Media Type: Photograph

Language: English

Backstory:

At various points, U. S. Steel organized activities for employees including sports teams and singing groups. Such activities were seen by managers as a way to create good will towards the mills (and not incidentally, as historians noted, dispel desire for unions). Pictured here is the Blast Furnace Band, also known as Garrett’s Orchestra, in 1918. The South Works Review, a plant magazine, published a number of stories about the group. A June 1918 article began a list of members by noting, “This orchestra consists of the following Blast Furnace Department boys and their work cannot be too highly praised.” This particular photograph was published in the October-November, 1920 issue of South Works Review. After unionization in the 1930s, unions increasingly took over sponsorship of social activities.

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