Iron Artisans

Throughout Iron Artisans, Lewis amply demonstrates how Welsh immigrants uniquely contributed to the development of America’s iron, steel, and tinplate industries through their knowledge and labor. In doing so, Lewis expands our understanding of Welsh immigrants as more than miners or mine stewards, technicians, or managers.

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.

From previously fragmented histories, Ronald Lewis has created a coherent explanation of the strategic importance of immigrant Welsh workers to the rise of America’s metal industries. American iron, steel, and tin plate manufacturing would never have become competitive with their British precursors, he argues, without the repeated transnational transfer of skill, technical knowledge, managerial expertise, and—often to the woe of company owners—clannish labor cultures born in industrial South Wales. Lewis fills in countless gaps while never overstating his case. This well-written, exhaustively researched book will become the new standard on the Welsh role in US heavy industry from 1860 to 1910.