Tools and Machinery of the Granite Industry, Part IV

The training of Italian carvers often included formal art school, for example Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara or Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (Milan), as well as practical work in a stone shed. The apprentice went from watching to applying what he saw to taking responsibility and performing for critics, the master carvers. In the early stages of his apprenticeship in the stone shed, he might clean up the shop, pick up chips, put away tools, deliver tools to the blacksmith, pick up stone from nearby shops, run a variety of errands, sharpen tools, take pay to the carvers, build scaffolding, polish stone, and pull rope for the master's bow drill. When an apprentice was ready after a few years of training, he would start to work on stone, typically in the following sequence as his skill grew: break down a stone with a hand hammer and point; draw and carve letters; put a straight face on a stone with chisels and bush hammer; put a cornice or molding on a stone; carve leaves and other simple ornaments; carve flowers, foliage, and capitals; rough out a relief, bas-relief, or full-round statue; and then watch the master finish the carving. As a point of comparison, consider the apprenticeship standards developed in Barre in 1946. The term of apprenticeship for stonecutters was three years and for polishers and sawyers two years. Sharpeners worked on tools for six cutters during the first six months, eight cutters during the second six months, ten cutters for the third six months, and fourteen cutters for the last six months.

Since many immigrants were itinerant workers, following the work wherever it was available, wives and children often stayed home and husbands sent money back home. Wages in the American granite industry were much better than in Europe. Some waited until they were established and then sent for their family. In the meantime, they usually lived in boarding houses provided by the granite companies or in private boarding houses (Figure 43). Many returned home to retire and, tragically, often to die from silicosis. With the warmer climate of southern Europe, many immigrant granite workers were used to working in open-sided sheds which allowed the granite dust to dissipate to the outdoors. Also, there were fewer dust-producing machines in use and the granite itself was softer, resulting in less dust. The European marble workers who came to work in the granite industry were completely unfamiliar with silicosis since marble dust does not cause silicosis. European stone workers called silicosis the "American disease"!

Silicosis, Tuberculosis and Granite Dust

"I've lived through most of Barre's labor troubles. ... Men wanted the elimination of dust. That was always a sore spot. I don't blame them. I know what I'm talking about. My father, brother and three uncles all died from stonecutter's TB."1 Those are the words of a granite worker describing the effects of silicosis in Men Against Granite. Silicosis was caused by the prolonged -seven to eight years- inhalation of excessive levels of airborne granite dust produced primarily by pneumatic, granite-working tools and machinery that were in use as early as 1887.