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This is an interview with Steve Bartos for In the Age of Steel: Oral Histories from Bethlehem Pennsylvania. The interview was conducted by John Fugett on April 8, 1975 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 00:00:00 Fugett: I’m at the home of Mr. Steve Bartos in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on April 8, 1975. I guess we could start by how did you come to work for Bethlehem Steel? Bartos: This was 1917. The war was going on at that time and they were importing Mexicans and people from (inaudible) wouldn't go in the war anymore. So about four or five of us kids went down where the rest of the fellows were working in the soot mills and we says as long as they're hiring anybody like this, let's go down there and maybe we can get a job down in the Steel. So we went down and standing outside the little employment office and one of the foreman1, a young boy, he was about 23, from Drexel University2, Drexel College, Richard Gleason3 was his name, he came out and he looked, he says, `You fellows want a job?' said, `Sure, that's what we're here for.' (chuckles) So I was in the back, I was 14 then. At 14, and he looked over and he says, `You,' I was the tallest and I was around 160 pounds then already. He says, `You, how old are you?' I said, `18.' Because if you told him you were 14, you couldn't get in. If you told him you were 16, then you'd have to go to what they called continuation school once a week. That's the people that went to work in mills, soot mills and places like that. So if you were 18, you were a man, so I said, `18.' `Okay, come on.' He filled out the papers and he took me down to the plant. And when we were going in, that time they didn't have as much safety like they do now, and switchboards were cracking and sparks were flying. If I could've found my way out, I'd of ran out. I didn't know my way out, I had to follow him in. So they took me in and then he said, `This'll be your job here and this fellow will show you what to do.' And the fellow that had the job, a recorder, he was promoted to another job and that's how I got this job. I sat there and had a little desk. So I stayed there and nobody ever bothered me after that. So I stayed there all these years, 50 years, 1 month and 22 days when I retired, that's what they gave me. And those days it wasn't like now. Those days there wasn't much safety. I mean you know, like now this Mr. Martin, Edmund Martin4 that was Chairman of the Board, he started a safety program when he came down there, and they really go into it, safety. Even if production stops, if something's not safe, they just stop and fix it. And the people are different, too. The supervisor, of course, is different today than it used to be. I remember, I was just telling my wife this morning we had a superintendent5, Snyder his name was. He was a Lehigh6 man, his son wrestled in Lehigh's wrestling 1 A workman who supervises a group of workers, especially in a factory. 2 A private research institution located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 3 Project staff were unable to identify this person. 4 Former chairman of Bethlehem Steel Corporation from 1964‐1970. 5 A person in management charged with overseeing or directing an organization. 00:03:53 team, he was a heavy weight wrestler. He used to like me because I played ball and everything while I was working. I was playing football with the semi-pros that time with a team. We played teams like what's now the Eagles. That time it was Franklin Yellow Jackets. And I played ball. I even made a track team that went to Europe while I was working. And this Snyder, he went big for that, you know, and he wanted to send me to school. So I did go. I went to Allentown Prep.[Pennsylvania] They were building a football team and I played a lot of football, so he got me up there and I had a good practice session. Mrs. Bartos: Hello. Fugett: Hi, Mrs. Bartos, how are you? Mrs. Bartos: Good. I interrupted, I'm sorry. Bartos: So I said how can I do that, this is prep school, I said I didn't even go to high school. He says, `You'll make it, they'll show you and you'll make it. A year and a summer, then you can go to college. I said, `You think so?' `Oh yes.' So I was out there practicing and came in to work. I didn't want to give up my job because my brother was going to Fordham University7 at the time and I was helping him. And I already had a pretty good job, I was making as much money as my father with a family. So he said, `You go out and practice. You come in and you work steady 3 to 11. And practice to 6, 7 o'clock, whatever it takes and you come in here and you go downstairs.' I said, `What's my job?' `Never mind what the job is, the job is to study. You go down there, I'll get you a desk and a locker where you can keep your books and you just study. And at 11 o'clock you go home. You don't have to punch in or anything, just come in there and study and go to school.' Then I went about a week. I called up my brother at Fordham and I says, `Guess what?' `What?' `I said, `I'm going to school.' He said, `Good for you.’ He said, ‘Do you think you can do it?’ He said, ‘You're used to throwing 20 dollar bills around, going to school you're going to squeeze nickels.' `Yeah, I guess.' So Saturday came along and the first day, first game. The coach told me around Thursday, he said, `This Saturday you'll play on the line because you don't know the signals, and then next week you'll go on the backfield.' So Saturday came along (chuckling) and I took off. I had a Ford. I took off, I went down to see Fordham. The coach came up to the house because we were supposed to be at the school at 11 and I wasn't there at 12 or 11:30 or 1 o'clock. So he came up to the house and he asked my mother, `Where's Steve?' She said, `He went to New York.' `He went to New York? He 6 A private, four year university located in Bethlehem PA. 7 A four‐year, private university located in New York. was supposed to play ball today.' She said, `He went down to see his brother play; that's all I know.' So that was the end of my schooling. Yeah, the supervisory force today is altogether different. This Martin, he was a good man, too. He started the safety program. Wrestling. We used to wrestle on the floor because I used to wrestle with the YMCA8 in Allentown and he liked wrestling up here. We used to follow Lehigh. So he'd come in and he'd say, `What kind of a hold is this?' And two of us, we'd be wrestling all the way to floor. Today (chuckling) you wouldn't dare do that. 00:07:17 Fugett: What was your job like as a recorder9? Bartos: Why we'd keep track of heats when they rolled beams. See, each furnace, when they make a heat, there’s say 24 ingots10 to a heat, then they made beams, every heat is marked, the analysis is, the customer wants, say 20 carbon steel and they make 25, and if they want harder steel, it's higher carbon. Now in the railing mill where I started, that was the rail mill11, they made rails for the railroad, and that was all high carbon steel, around 40, 50 carbon. And that was hard steel to make. I mean a lot of times we'd come out and they maybe didn't have 3 or 4 heats in the furnaces and none of them were applied to any of the orders and we'd have to throw them out. But steel like now that they make for beams and all, that's around 20 carbon steel. Is there anything else? 00:08:34 Fugett: Were you from the Bethlehem area? Bartos: Originally I was born in McKeesport [Pennsylvania] and we came here around 1911, I think we came here. My father was a heater12 in U.S. Steel in McKeesport and when he came here, even I was a heater there. I wound up being a heater. It's a fair job. I have a son working down there now, he's going to the University of Scranton13. but he's down at the Steel. And I had another son that was in the Air Force and he worked there, a metallurgist.14 Now he's back in 8 Young Men’s Club of America, this now inclusive organization is located in communities around the United States and is dedicated to fostering principles of healthy living.

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