Iron Artisans: Welsh Immigrants and the American Age of Steel

October 03, 2023
12:00pm - 1:00pm

America’s emergence as a global industrial superpower was built on iron and steel. Despite their comparatively small numbers, no immigrant group played a more strategic role per capita in advancing basic industry than Welsh workers and managers. Focusing on the intersection of transnational immigration history, ethnic history, and labor history, Ronald Lewis analyzes continuity and change, and how Americanization worked within a small, relatively privileged, working-class ethnic group.

PRESENTER BIO: Ronald L. Lewis is professor and Stuart and Joyce Robbins Chair emeritus at West Virginia University and historian laureate of West Virginia. He is the author of eight books and numerous articles and book chapters, and coeditor of fourteen books. In retirement he continues to reside in Morgantown, West Virginia, with his wife, Susan.

FEATURED BOOK:  Iron Artisans: Welsh Immigrants and the American Age of Steel

"Iron Artisans is a deeply interesting, insightful, and meticulously researched book. Ron Lewis addresses a major gap in the study of American industry and immigration and ethnicity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by providing a comprehensive, full-length study of the contribution and experiences of Welsh immigrants in the American iron, steel, and tinplate industries. His book brings out well the human dimension to the topic and establishes the importance of individual experience and contingency, as well as structural factors, as agents of change. Equally, a sense of place emerges strongly in the discussions on various Welsh communities, be they in Pittsburgh or Youngstown. A fascinating new contribution to literature in the field. 
-Bill Jones, Cardiff University

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"Lunch With Books" is the library’s flagship program for adult patrons. These lunchtime programs feature authors, poets, musicians, historians, and more every Tuesday at noon. Bring lunch (to the Library Auditorium or your computer), feed your brain!