This is an interview with Andrew P. Skibo for In the Age of Steel: Oral Histories from Bethlehem Pennsylvania. The interview was conducted by Pat Parker on December 9, 1975 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 00:00:00 Parker: This is an interview with Mr. Andrew P. Skibo on working conditions held in Bethlehem, PA, on December 9. My name is Pat Parker. Mr. Skibo, how did you come to work for the Bethlehem Steel? Skibo: After I graduated from high school, of course, Bethlehem Steel was the biggest employer in town, and most of the employment opportunities would naturally be at the Bethlehem Steel Company. Parker: What year would that be? Skibo: 1925. Parker: Describe what your work was at the Steel. Skibo: My first position at the steel company was in the sales department, and it consisted of processing sales orders to the order department and the pricing of the order at the mills. Parker: Any particular mills? Skibo: This was in the tool steel department1, which was a new department. High-cutting steels were invented at about that time. Parker: So you first started out as salesman? Skibo: As a sales clerk. Parker: A sales clerk. Now, did you advance in your job? Did you switch jobs? 2 00:01:32 Skibo: I graduated from high school in the accounting, in a commercial course , and I didn’t see any opportunities in my field in the sales department. In fact, the pay in the office was much lower than in the plant, so after exploring the pay schedules in the plant, which were about three times the level of pay in the office, I tried my luck in a plant. However, after working there 1 Worked with a variety of carbon and alloy steels that make good tools due to their hardness and their resistance to abrasion. 2 Educational courses designed to teach a variety of business skills. two years, I decided that my forte was accounting and commercial subjects, so I transferred to the payroll department, which is part of the accounting department. Parker: Where did you work in the plant when you worked? Skibo: The Saucon shipping mills3 and roll-turning shop4. Parker: What did you do there? Skibo: We made new rolls for the 52 inch mill5 at Lackawanna [Pennsylvania], and then in the shipping yard— (tape interruption) Parker: Were there many accidents around you? Skibo: Quite a number in the structural shipping yard. In fact, there were. I had three close calls myself. Parker: What exactly were these accidents? Skibo: Well, in those days they didn’t have the safety teams or the safety engineers, and the crane men would continue with their careless habits, and no one would check up on them. I had three close calls where a pile of beams almost fell on me. I saw the chain tighten, I could see it catch, and instinct told me to run, and the last beam fanned out at my feet. Another case where the crane man didn’t follow instructions. In the beam yard, of course, steel is loaded onto cars, and as a car is loaded, the craneman6 would pull a car out of the way with a block and tackle. But in this case, the crane man hooked the car, the crane hooked on the car and lifted it, and I didn’t see. I did see, finally, what he was doing. I was holding the chain down at the block and tackle between two lines of cars, and the big block on it and the hook slipped from the car, and I saw this block on the crane come swinging down at me, and I dove, prone, between the two cars and just escaped. So that was one reason. It was too dangerous. It wasn’t my line of work. So I left the plant, luckily. 00:04:53 Parker: So, mainly, you began working— 3 A group of buildings at the Bethlehem Steel plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. This location was often referred too as Lehigh/Saucon. 4 Department that processed and formed the steel into the desired shape and improved its mechanical characteristics through the use of horizontal rolls. 5 A two-high reversing mill in the Alloy and Tool Steel division driven by a 6,000 HP electric motor rolling ingots into blooms, billets and slabs. 6 Operates a crane; the type of craneman correlates to the type of crane being used (example: Skull Cracker Craneman) Skibo: Accounting work, payroll work at first. But I suppose I was an ambitious young man. I studied not only payroll work, which was simple in those days, but I studied cost accounting, Bethlehem Business College7, and took correspondence courses. So I had a good background in those days what they called cost accounting. Of course, cost accounting nowadays is much more complex. Parker: So most of the people that entered into these departments really weren’t college graduates; they were high school graduates. Skibo: Back in the 20’s [1920], college education was at a premium. In fact, even a high school education was at a premium. I lived in an area which was called the Northampton Heights [Bethlehem, Pennsylvania], and it covered quite a bit of area in town, as you know, all the way up to Alfred Street [Bethlehem, Pennsylvania] and Donegan School8. Out of that area, there were only nine boys that graduated in my class in high school. Nine. So, you see, even a high school education was at a premium. Parker: Did they train you in these departments? Did you begin at a certain level and work your way up, say, in the payroll department? Skibo: They didn’t have wage scales in those days as they do now, brackets, and after a number of years of service you would be promoted into another class. It was sort of a hit-and-miss method. After five years in the payroll department, I tried to get a transfer to New York City, where there were night schools. Back in the 20’s [1920], there weren’t any night college courses or no such thing as community college or night courses at Lehigh9 or Lafayette10. But the transfer didn’t materialize. Parker: Was there many people that wanted to transfer or just because of— Skibo: Just a few of us. Only two of us wanted to transfer. Parker: Why? Because of economic reasons they wouldn’t let you go? 7 A vocational school that was located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 8 An elementary school located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania at 1210 East 4th Street. 9 A private university located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 10 A private, four-year college located in Easton, Pennsylvania. Skibo: Economic. They didn’t have any openings in New York, and Bethlehem had only a small operation, a head office and a steamship office, so there weren’t any openings in the metropolitan area. Parker: How many people were probably in your office that you worked in? Skibo: Oh, there must have been about 200 in that department. Parker: Was the New York office as large as your department? Skibo: It was in a different area. It was steamship operations accounting and corporate work. Not as many. I would say maybe about 60 people. So it was pretty difficult to get a transfer. Parker: Did the Steel encourage you to take night courses? Skibo: Not in those days, no, no. Parker: They did not? Skibo: No, no effort. It was a big difference. Of course, it’s a long span of time, but it was a big difference between the 20’s [1920], and the opportunity that the people have now. There was no educational assistance if a person wanted to go to school. I did line up some courses in Muhlenberg11, but the courses would have cost me almost as much as I was earning. 00:08:50 The pay, I don’t mind divulging it. Back in ’25 [1925] when I started to work with the steel company, my pay as a clerk was $60 a month, and it was much less. You might say I worked my way through high school the last two years by running a newsstand at the Anthracite gate and selling newspapers and magazines and delivering papers. I made $30 a week or $120 a month. Then after I graduated from high school, I made $60 a month. So, you see, you couldn’t do much in the 20’s [1920]. 00:09:38 And, of course, you probably don’t know, I started in the accounting department in 1927, and, as you know, the big Depression hit in ’29 [1929]. In fact, all the single people were laid off, including me, in the accounting department, which surprised me terribly. It shocked me, but I was out of a job for a year. 11 A private, liberal arts college located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. In fact, you probably didn’t read about the employment, unemployment in those days. Maybe you might know in recent articles when they talk of 6, 7 percent unemployment. Back in the big Depression it was 25 percent [un]employment. One out of four was laid off. All of my brothers were laid off and my father was working one day a week. 00:10:40 But back in ’33 [1933], I was recalled to work again in accounting department, but this time in accounts payable. A big corporation like the steel company has a huge expenditure, so the accounts payable department was a big department. And I was happy that I went into a new department, because it broadened my experience in accounting.