Good Example Of Essay On Life, Death And Compensation In The Early American Steel Mill As Portrayed By Thomas Bell

Life in the steel mills was known to be hard, dangerous and often deadly. Kracha, who spent much of his life in the mills expressed his fear, or lack thereof, like this “I am no more afraid now than I’ve ever been. God knows there is always danger; a man never knows going in if he’ll come out on his own two feet. But what good does it do to worry? (53). His fears are based not on an imaged threat, but rather in the deaths that he has witnessed firsthand in the mill, and the greed that has driven the steel mills in search of profits at the expense of those who work there.
The first death that is witnessed in the book is that of Joe, a close friend of Kracha and Mikes. In 1895, Joe is working to fix a furnace that is working incorrectly when an explosion shakes the mill, leaving 3 dead, three fatally injured, and 8 seriously wounded. This death demonstrates both the steel mills lack of concern with life, and the fact that steel workers must simply accept certain truths about their work environment. The narrator notes that “officially it was put down as an accident in a large sense it was the result of greed and part of the education of the American steel mill (54). The accident could have been prevented, had the steel mill’s priorities been different, but they put profit before life, and the narrator, as well as characters like Kracha, seem to understand that knowing and accepting this fact is just part of the millworker’s facts of life. This greed, and lack of concern for life is also demonstrated in way that Joe’s wife Dorta is compensated for his death. The steel mill contributes a mere $75 “toward the cost of his funeral (54).
The disrespect with which widows were treated in the wake of their husbands’ death is tragic, in that it leaves them without a means of survival. The $75 stipend is not enough to cover the full funeral expenses, much less support a family, and give the family means to find a new way of living after the loss of their breadwinner. As a result, many women who lost their husband in the mines were forced to live with extended family, accept poverty, and ultimately marry again rapidly as a means of survival (80).
The second significant death found in the book is that of Mike. Mike’s wife has long worried about his safety in the mines, so when he dies in the early 1900s, it is not necessarily surprising. What is perhaps surprising is that the company has implemented an accident compensation plan which pays his wife a total of $1300 in compensation for his death, which is described as “more money than anyone had ever dreamed of having at one time (211).” This is considerably more than Dorta received, and yet seems like a small price to pay for a man’s life.

Works Cited

Bell, Thomas. Out of This Furnace. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh, 1976. Print.