This is the first thing that is shown on movies if they want to say that people are in San Francisco, the first thing that they show is the bridge. So, a great history. Gotten a lot of really good attention. Thank you very much for coming here. [applause] harvey good evening, everybody and thank you very much for coming. I would like to thank george for having the program. And think the Commonwealth Club for having me. This evening, i plan to tell you several things about the bridge. First of all, i wrote this particular Book Building the and to givebridge, you some background about the bridge, and finally to read some selected passages from the book. I may labor historian who i am a labor historian who ventured into oral history in the 1980s. When i was working on a project for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union on the west coast. A very famous union. I interviewed some veterans for the labor archives at San Francisco state university. For the director there. These are veterans let helps build the Golden Gate Bridge in 1930 between 1933 and 1937 when the bridge was built. They were interviewed for the 50th anniversary of the building of the bridge. So it was 1987 will most of the people in this book were interviewed. A few of the people were interviewed at finally different times. Well, i mean really thought that these were special interviews. That this was a special group of folks that built an american icon. I thought that there would be interesting. There was good literature on it at the time in the 1980s. Most of that literature dont with the politics of the bridge and the engineers and helped build it, particularly Justice Strauss was the chief engineer on the project. Some of the literature also had good profiles of some of the workers. But i thought that the workers deserved a book of their own. Their words should be presented to the public. So, i thought maybe to give you an idea of my thinking a while and why i thought this was you ase, i will read quote here from a man who was an iron worker, a steel man. He was interviewed in the 1980s. Heres the quote. I never met Joseph Strauss, the chief engineer, but i saw him around a lot. I never shook hands with him or nothing. I was out there working. We were busy. We couldnt leave and go shake hands with him, that was for the upper man. All of the big shots were the one who are doing all of the handshaking. In fact, they shouldve come out and handshaked us. We are the ones doing the work. This statement reflects the book or what is in the book. What was required was i needed to make a manuscript out of the interviews. I was not able to do it at the time. It came later in my life. All along i thought readers might be interested in the experience of the people who survived cold, dangerous conditions, the tragedy of seeing some of their coworkers killed, bad accidents happened. These folks survived the Great Depression, as well. What better way, i thought, can you make i do correct, can you oblige or invite gentle readers to take a look at the experience of American Workers in the 20th century . Or at least to take a fresh look. I thought the bridge was the way to do it. It took me a long time to complete the project. Be that as it may, before we get to some readings of the book itself, want to give you some background on the bridge. The idea to spend create the Golden Gate Bridge was first posed by someone named joshua norton. He posed his idea in 1869. Nobody took them seriously. Him seriously. He was actually the selfstyled emperor of california. And i believe mexico. He wore a military uniform of his own making. He was the emperor norton. Nobody took him seriously at the time. 50 years later, San Francisco city engineer, michael a haughnessy Michael Oshaughnessy began to discuss the idea around 1916, with an experience Bridge Builder named Joseph Strauss. Joseph strauss for this terrific idea and in the 1920s he propagandize the idea throughout northern california. What is interesting, to me, is that in some ways, this beautiful bridge that we know so well, did not come to pass easily. First of all, it was clear in the 1920s that there is a need for Something Like this because there was a much traffic. The therapists were backed up as the ferryboats were backed up as they tried to take people across the water. However, the ferryboats oppose d the coming of the bridge because they wanted to continue to make profits by taking people across from ron from marin county to San Francisco and so forth. They put up a big fight. The lobbyists and the legislature and so forth. There were even some suits. There were objections from the army and also from the navy. At that time, it was the Army Air Corps, and they said, if the bridge is bombed or whatever by an enemy they will block the way , to the bay and that will be terrible for us. Environmentalists also opposed the idea in many cases, they felt that the environment today is beautiful as it is, very natural, it should stay that way. There were objections to be overcome. I think in many ways, the biggest obstacle to us getting a beautiful bridge, came from Joseph Strauss himself. He made a design in 1921 for the bridge which was a combination hybrid cantilever bridge and a suspension bridge. The cantilever bridge depends on strength of power and reaches out like that. Its supported by a series of pieces of metal. Of things that look like a tinker toy. Think about the old oakland bay bridge when you think about this kind of bridge. It stretched out like that. Dependent on power. The suspension bridge is suspended from suspender cables which are held up by very large and strong main cables that go they are horizontals. They go to the top of the towers. They go up like that and they go down like that. Well, what happened was people thought that this was not a very good design. Although it was the lead design for some time. There was an employee named Charles Ellis of strauss, who is a math expert who is a professor, and he said, he could come up with a design that would allow a suspension bridge to be built, which is what we got in the long run. It would be 1. 7 miles, it would 100. 7 miles. It would be the longest suspension bridge of its type in the world, and it was for several years until the 1960s. For his trouble, and strausss design is really what youre looking at he was fired in december of 1931 by strauss. And ellis never got the credit that he really deserved for the design of the bridge that weve come to know. There was another obstacle, if you want to call it that way, to the bridge coming out, as well as it did, and that was the color. It was suggested that International Orange would be the best color. This was suggested by the designer. He said, if you look at the color of the county, this will be the right color. He picked that because the primer originally was pretty close to that. Well, he also designed the overhead arch at four points. He designed the art deco lines, too. He was an important figure. It was decided that was the right color. He wins out over the navy suggestion, which was going to be black and orange stripes. Socalled bumblebee effect. The Army Air Corps suggested white and orange stripes. The fact that that didnt happen because of the suggestion helps save the bridge to become what it is today. I think it is interesting that strauss is a very famous and he still gets a lot of the credit, particularly as a propagandist and chief engineer, but it was other people that came up with the ideas that made the beautiful bridge. Made the bridge so beautiful. Of course, the practical side of the bridge is that it opened up ies to commerceys and tourism. Ultimately, to gracious living if you can afford it. Apparently, even coyotes like the bridge. They visit Golden Gate Park and apparently community of San Francisco less than the Golden Gate Bridge. Everybody likes it. It is a winwin. I think one of the interesting things about the bridge is that it was built at a time in american intersection rockets were supported it seems to me today that the a bridge and Golden Gate Bridge were built at the same time. Both projects began in 1933, Golden Gate Bridge was completed in may of 1937. In novemberbridge of 1936. The bay bridge was funded by federal money, restriction finance corporation money initially under hoover. And then completed under new deal money when fdr was president. In november he took office in 1933. It had a lot of new deal money into it. The Golden Gate Bridge is funded by private bonds. Sold in the counties north of San Francisco. Even though it was funded that way, it is still a large public project with Public People involved in it. Including legislature. So, it seems to me is interesting that this comes at a time when american supported infrastructure also the speed of the completion of the thing is interesting. It took just four years. As well as the relatively speaking reasonable costs. Golden gate bridge cost 35 million. That would be in the 1930s, that would be about 600 million today. By contrast, a partial part of the oakland bridge cost 6. 4 billion. It took 12 years to build. And it has been played the difficulty. You are looking at a different era, to some extent, that is related to safety issues. The Golden Gate Bridge, for example, did not have the kind of earthquakeproving that you had to do. It slowed things down. You have to have work that is temporary, called false work, and it had to be taken out, and it raised the price a lot, to protect the building of the oakland bridge from earthquakes. So 1930s, engineers had to worry about things like that. A different situation there. The other thing i think is really interesting is that in the 1930s, workers lives were not held as valuable as they are today. In many ways, you can say they were held cheaply. At the time, in the 1930s, it was assumed as a rule of thumb that one worker would have to die for every 35 for every Million Dollars of investment. So 35 people should have died. Building the Golden Gate Bridge. The thing is, around 1936, new Union Movement was afoot in the bay area. And it seems to me, following the great 1934 maritime strike that was one. Employers were little bit on the defensive. Strauss, himself, i think, i dont know this for sure, but im pretty sure that this is probably what he thought, he thought there would have to be safety, we better get ahead of the parade here. We better make sure we are ahead. He insisted that harnesses be used. He insisted that hardhats be used. These were innovations, if you can imagine, at the time. People, in some cases, 700 feet in the air working over the ocean without this kind of safety. He insisted on that. He also brought the idea for us to have a net, it did not cost a lot, it was made of a thick rope, a safety net, you can see a picture of it there, strauss brought in and said that this was going to be important. He also thought that workers would work faster if they had a safety net under them. That was part of the thinking. The net is credited with safety saving 19 people who fell into it. The fellowrse was whose quote i read. He is the subject of one of the chapters in the book. There are 19 people who fell into it, and lived, and they were called members of the half in part, i think that name was selected because if you fell, for example from its ban at 220 feet, youre going to the water at 75 miles per hour, you probably die. The 11 people who died building the bridge, at least was not 35, and it was looked upon as being a pretty good record. 11 is better than 24, for example, who died building the oakland bridge. I have seen different figures, at least 26 and 28. 24. By and large, the bay bridge was more of a nonunion job. At the time, it was when hundred it was 100 union. A little background maybe would help on the workers themselves. By and large, white males. Many were sons of immigrants, which i think is very interesting. There were some older guys were actually immigrants, themselves, but as far as i can tell, a great number of these people were immigrants would come from europe during the great migration of 1882, the beginning of world war i in 1914 in europe. Today, politicians are condemning immigrants as much as they can. I guess they are making political hay, but i think it is great that the bridge was built by and large by the children of immigrants. Another unique thing about this book, their testimonies from women, who had serious roles on the Golden Gate Bridge. One of the chapters focuses on two nurses who cared for injured workers and they were quite a number of them. One woman, and her son are pictured here. Theyre standing during the great celebration of 1937, held in San Francisco in the bridge she sucks but anxiety of waiting thehe also talks about anxiety of waiting for has been to come home from work. To update the story, an africanamerican woman worked on the bridge in 2000. I thought maybe i would tell you little bit about oral history as a technique. It is direct. It is appealing. It has immediacy that i think appeals to a lot of people. And i think maybe that is why it is enjoyed. In recent years, and this book is driven by oral history. Theres an introduction, but after that the workers take over. The standard and oral history is what they called the full life history. Where were you born, when you were born. Thehave to do research in library, you have to figure out things before you ask questions, and yet to develop a question list. You have to stay alert and, which is not the easiest thing in the world. You have to listen to the unanticipated kind of that you want to follow. Sometimes, the question you did not anticipate can come up with the best answer in the whole interview. You try to develop as you go along to get the personality of that particular person. I like to think of it in my terms is what makes that person take, and sometimes you can get that. Through publication, you have a raw transcript, it could be a hundred pages long. Some of the chapters in this book or maybe 15 pages, and some of them are coming out of 100 days transcripts. What you have to do is pare down the thing edit it down and organize things chronologically and most material around, some oral histories do that some dont. That will make it readable. The main thing you want to do is retain the town, style and meaning of the person you are interviewing. I thought we might find it a little interesting because there is a lot more to it than just recording somebody and printing it out. Now, lets turn to some quotes from the book. Im going to start out with teaser stories of people experiencing the bridge on their first day. Fred, a son of immigrants, grew up poor. He managed to graduate from uc berkeley and engineering in 1934. So he has his degree. The only job during the Great Depression that he could get was as a paint scraper on the Golden Gate Bridge. So, he did that on the north tower and by the way to years two years later, because of his background and training, he did get to be the person who installed or who was a supervisor for the installation of the strauss safety net. That is very interesting. Theres a whole chapter on him. Heres what he remembers on the first day. This is 1934, going up and outside elevator. The wind was flowing. The flow is coming in. Everything was tripping wet. You could hear the riveting hammers going. Just noise. Here i am, a country hick, just coming in. Ive never been on a job like that in my life. Here i am, running up this elevator, up, up. Getting more scared as we get there. The towers are 746 feet. We are down your 710 feet. The elevator stops. The elevator operator says that this is where you get off. Two other painters were with me. We looked out there. You get off, you have to step on a two by 12, and the two painters looked, and they saw the two by 12. They said, do we have to get out and cross that . The elevator operator said, that is the only way. The painters say, no, take me down, im quitting. Then, the elevator operator said to me, how about you . You want to get off . A little bit. Then i said, it is the only job i have. You have to walk out there, i can make that. So i braved it, and went across. That is the first day on the job. Heres a guy named glen mcentire, and ironworker, he worked as a dancer, and a Railroad Worker before he got a job on the Golden Gate Bridge, he was a fright cook and a bunch of other things. He worked on both bridges. Heres his first day. He put up steel. He says when they sent me out to the Golden Gate Bridge, the first place they put me i did not have a net under me. That was before they stretch the safety net on the Golden Gate Bridge. There was nothing under you but the water. They used to get guys that would go down on the bay bridge and count the guys on the bay bridge, it did give you a good feeling on the golden gate to have that under you there when it went in. Heres another person. This is john irving. He was the son of immigrants. He was a cable spinner, so the cables were spun, including the huge cable. It goes over the saddle. It was built by a spinning system that went back and forth. Its in the book. He worked on the huge main cable that went over the saddle. It was made out of the little pieces. He says they handed me the end of this galvanized wire to take over the tower top. The wire was just a little bit smaller than the let of a the lead of a pencil. That is the way it is built. That first and looked at the catwalk the walkway. The first day, i looked at the catwalk, and up to the top of a tower and i say, am i going up there or not . I gritted my teeth and said here goes and i went up to the tower top. You can imagine looking at that, elsewhere, he also talks about being afraid of heights, too. But he overcame that because he had to, because he needed a job in its the Great Depression. Heres little section called describing the work. Again, this is going mcentire. Who is a riveter. He describes getting a hot rivet ready. By the way, tools were used, he did not handle red hot rivets by the hand. Just to make it clear in regards to what we are going to be listening to. It was full of hot rivets. They have them stacked around coals. M of the g it was heated to a cherry red. You take one of that, just like you are serving hamburgers. They would throw the rivet any man would catch it in a can. He would hand it to you and you would stick it in the hole. Sometimes, you would start driving ahead of time before you fumbled the rivet in. Then you would catch hell. They did not want to lose that. Because they would have to heed another one to take its place. As a bad rivet called down to much, you would have to take after and using held on on it. That is 120 pound pressure gun, they are the same as a riveting gun, only it is a big one. Riveting gun had 90 pounds of re, but held on. R sometimes it would come out, just like it was coming out of the shotgun. I guess he didnt want to be in the way of it. Couldve been a good idea. Mcentire told another story about getting scale. Getting it in the clothing. It happens quite a little bit. The old riveting system had been supplanted in the 1950s and 1960s. If it got on you or in your clothes. You didnt dare lose the rivet. Sometimes, the skill would get in your shirt and go down your stomach. You try to whittle away from the heat. You stay there and burn. You never ever give the rivet up. You try to turn the scale this loose with one hand, but that does not usually work. It would stay there and are quite a few scars over that. With the mark on you. The person i mentioned before was also the son of immigrants, came from crockett, california. He was next buried steel man, ironworker. He also suffered a fall in 1936. Broke his back. Recovered, return to work and became a high still managing, and became a legend among ironworkers. He is still a legend among ironworkers, he passed way some 10 years ago. He defined ace in world history. He says, there he is. He said, the good ones we call aces. That was a fellow who could do the work, and it quickly. And up in the air. All the time without a scaffold, nothing below you. I was one of the aces. So, you can see the pride of the highly skilled craft worker. Heres another individual named john, who is an elevator installer. Sometimes, he had to ride outside of a Small Service elevator while holding onto the cables, so he is he is on the outside on the top. He says that when the little elevator got overcrowded i would tend on a small beam about 10 feet above the elevator platform. I would stand on that and hold onto the cable and write up. I got used to it. I felt very much relieved when we hit the road at 4 30 p. M. And you got your feet on the ground. They would finish around 4 00 or 4 30 p. M. , is basically an 8 00 to 5 00 situation. This section is called wages and hours. We were well paid, we got 11 a day for eight hours. That was a good wage in those days. Bricklayers were the only ones that made more than the ironworkers at that time. On the golden gate, we cannot get much over time, it was it was a eigh hour day, and he was glad of it. It is 1930s money we are talking about. I call this section desperation. Desperation for work. People desperate for work in the Great Depression. He said, sometimes during the depression, i would down from the cable, the golden gate from thed look down cable, the golden gate tower, and when i was up there, and it would be 150 people waiting for a job, waiting for us to either fall or quit. Well, Glenn Mcintyre also talked about the bridge color and he echoed what a lot of other workers thought about it, they did not think it was all that important. Their concerns were not with the color of the bridge, it was the concerns of the people tried to survive the Great Depression. His argument was that politicians and bridge designers and reporters and other people were preoccupied with the color, but that was not the weight of the way the workers looked at it. This is what glenn said, there is controversy about the color of the Golden Gate Bridge. And the color is painted. That was for other people. I dont think it mattered to the workers themselves. And they have been important with the politicians just sending to say. The ironworkers to not care what color was. Payday was 5 00. Payday and the paycheck is what about. Cared forth,liticians, and so at the time, there was a tremendous amount of hoopla over the bridge. This one is also called skepticism. There was some skepticism on the part of many people over whether this thing could be built, whether it would work it all and so on. This is a teamster who drove equipment to the bridge in the 1930s. He remembered the skepticism of coworkers. Many people were skeptical of the whole project, too. Like the ironworkers, the teamster guys thought it was just another job. He said, there were a lot of skeptics back then. They didnt think the bridge would ever be built. They thought it was a big pipe dream. Some of the teamsters i talked with said they considered it just another job. They didnt think there was anything special about it. Most of the guys didnt think it would ever be finished. Amazing. Looking back, the paper the people i talked to had a different point of view. This is an electrician. He thought it was something special. Most of the people i talked to who were builders did looking back. This is what fred said. Today, whenever i drive across the bridge, i sure am happy to have been one of the workers on it. One thing i will say is that the bridge was special. Because earlier, everybody said he couldnt be built. So after he got built, i said i guess everybody who figured this could be built must have been wrong. It is all finished now and it is going to stay up. And its been up there a couple of years now, you know . He said that in the 1980s. Another thing that the bridge is famous for is the weather. There are microclimates on the bridge. You can stand of four point ago to the top. This is just up five stories or so. The reference years to the fort at the foot of the bridge on the San Francisco side. It is a civil war era fort. This is what fred said. Some days, when you are working on top, you were up above the fog. You could see all over, real pretty, like it was a blanket of snow. Of course, some days, it wasnt pretty. On some days, when it was clear, it was hotter than blazes on top. Then you would go to the bottom and you would almost freeze. Freeze. And people make references in the book, the changes in weather. He also described how wind could balance the catwalk or the suspended walkway. There is the catwalk. You can see it there. Looking read over the ocean. At least 250 billion of him at least 200 feet below you. The catwalk wasnt tied down. I had a safety belt. I said, if this thing tips over, i might be hanging out there, but i will still be there. His condition, of course, might have might not have been so terrific if it had happened. Heres a guy named martin adams from the ozark mountains. He was a local 261 of the laborers, in case we have anybody from that group here. He described the cold weather when he was a laborer on the bridge. They the gate was the coldest place i ever worked. He put on all your close and worked hard or you would freeze. This wasnt snow and ice, but it was about as cold. There was a little bit of ice a few times. It was a cold rain, winter. You are just careful. I wore a sweatshirt underneath a shirt. I wore longjohns. I had a pair of overalls on and a coat. You put them all on him but not and button up. Here is another one one who said, all the lines were frozen. Icicles were coming down up to four to five. Now we come to a grim topic. This one is called death on the bridge. There is some discussion on the 11 people who died on the bridge, 10 at one time. Breckenridge discusses the death of kermit more kermit moore, the first person who died on the bridge. There is a crane ball that has a swivel any hooks this swivel and a hook suspended below it. I looked for my buddy. He was right under the headache ball and it hit him in the head and that was the end of him. I had lunch with him a noon. And at 2 00, i went and swept his brains into the golden gate. Doing this book am i try not to hold back. To tell the whole story. In 1937, when the net tore and 10 people died, it was a scaffold that fell. It held some individuals and the clamps broke and it went down and tour the safety nets. It carried a dozen people into the holes. Of those dozen people, only two survived. Brisatti was there. He mentions a spud wrench. He says we could see the men out there trying to stay up. Heck, they had spud wrenches and Everything Else on them. They tried to stay up, but the just couldnt do it. Here is a person named slim lammert. He was in arizona cowboy at one time. He was a hobo group he is one of the two survivors during he is also a swimmer he was a hobo. He is one of the two survivors. He is also a swimmer. The net slowed peoples fall a little bit. When i fell off the bridge, i did manage to fall feet first. But i jammed down into the piece of net with both feet. I went into that net because it stopped temporarily as it hit the water. But i kept moving. I was going in the net and it was headed for the bottom. It was dragged down by the sixton stage. At first, i couldnt get loose. I was fighting it. I finally calmed down and begin to wiggle. I slid out of it. It was a long way down because i was bleeding at the nose and ears when i came up. There was a lot of debris in the water. He was actually badly hurt. Broken bones and a lot of the other. Some of the people through way down hoping people can stay up. Fred dumotson gave a family collection to the labor commission. It is a very useful collection. A lot of help from the labor archives director. Lambert tried to prop up the monson prop up dumotson. I went to fred because he was thrashing around and he was alive. The others were done for. He described being picked up by a crab fisherman. He tried to fly down the coast guard, but he could not successfully. He recounted what happened to fred. When i was picked up, i have a dead man by the feet. That was fred dumootson. He wasnt dead yet. He had been moving up until that time. And finally he stopped. There is a story of lambert struggle. It is quite something. He wrote a little bit on politics. Al zampa, the ace ironworker, was interviewed. He talked about politics. Most of the interviews in this book most of the subjects in this book, too became republicans in later life. Two became republicans in later life. Zampa remained a lifelong democrat. He said, i still remember Franklin Roosevelt who built the unions. He was a great man. Now Ronnie Reagan as president and he is against the unions. He was a democrat and now he is a republican area i dont know. I cant understand his job. And i know he cant understand mine. A lot being said there. Did i mention there were a lot of women . There were a couple of nurses i havent seen any other reference. There is a line of medical facilities at hand. The literature is terrific on the bridge, the older books. But serious treatment of womens roles somehow did not get covered. The two nurses worked at st. The two nurses worked at st. Marys hospital in San Francisco. They took care of the injured. They had very different views of these guys, as you might imagine. Different views of the builders. I know that photograph isnt angel adams quality, but its the only picture i have in the book. Mary said, the men could not stand shots with this little ittybitty needle. Here were these big burly man, building a bridge, going to the top with these cables. Then you want to shoot them with a little bitty needle. They were like children. They were afraid. I was a fiery little supervisor. I used to go see if the mental busy hating were i used to go see if the men were misbehaving. The other nurse was a lehners a lay nurse. She had a little bit of a different leader. She said, among other things, those injured workers were very patient. Some of them were so sick, but they never complained. There was so much was about the bridge at that time. It is just a shame that there wasnt more done about the men who constructed it. They were the ones who did it or we would not have a bridge. I have another segment called women and dissemination. There were no women and no africanamericans on the ridge in the 1930s. An unusual situation, but that is what it was. Things, of course, changed in the later part of the 20th century. And joyce harris, named big j she was tall is an africanamerican woman who worked maintenance of the bridge later in later years. It kind of brings the golden gate story uptodate. She overcame racial and gender. Racial and gender challenges and became a very respected worker. She was six feet tall and in all army ethically she had been in the army. An all army athlete, she had been in the army. One guy had a huge swastika on his arm. For two years, every other word was the n word. I finally said that is enough. I turned the desk on him. Since then, me and him became friends. [laughter] to kind of wrap up the formal presentation, i would like to read you joyce harriss final statement. They are going to build a new golden gate. They are always fixing that one. I was privileged to go all the way to the top vents top and stand there. The average person does not get to go see how every races there for a reason. It is a structure that how every brace is there for a reason. A lot of people do not get injected in history. It is not always all about the money. That is the end of the formal presentation. [applause] thank you. George i would like to remind our audience that they are listening to Harvey Schwartz talking about the Golden Gate Bridge building the Golden Gate Bridge a workers oral history. How many people were working on crew . K how big was the harvey one of the difficulties is that the records of all the companies that were subcontracting companies have disappeared. The companies, that is to say, or out of business and their records are not available. But would say that a range of a thousand are out there at various times. It is a little bit hard to guess. In terms of crews, they werent always so big. There were a dozen guys on that scaffolding that went down, for example. They were removing some faults work on the bridge. It is difficult to answer that question with confidence because the records are gone. George your book mentions the use of lead based paint. Was that ever replaced, removed . Was that a big project . Harvey there was paint that failed. And thats why the first guy who i mentioned was up there scraping some of that paint off. There was leadbased paint and some people did get sick from it. When that was discovered, the first thing the bridge doctors said was go home and drink some milk and you guys will get better. That didnt really work out so well. But they did bring in respirators and there are photographs in the San Francisco public library, on the sixth floor, pictures of laborers with respirators on. It is continually being repainted. It has to be repainted all the time to keep the weather from eating it away. I hope that is something of an answer. George is there sort of a Continual Team that goes around and painted again . Harvey basically, that is the case. I think they select where you have to repaint it. But it is continually being painted. George what was the typical workday for bridge laborers like . You said it was eight hour days, that they did not do overtime. Harvey they didnt do overtime on this particular job. It was an 8 00 to 4 00 job, maybe 8 00 to 4 30. And it took to ours to get down it would take you 20 minutes or so to get down from the top. They did not have overtime very much, as far as i could hell could tell, on this particular job. They still built it in four years. It was overtime in other places. In San Francisco, for example, you have to work on a saturday, so it was a 45 hour week. You didnt get overtime many. Money. It was straight time. George you mentioned the bay bridge through oakland was going up at the same time. Was a competition between the two teams . And did the beauty of the bridge come into play at the time or did the laborers not care at that time . Harvey as far as i could tell, the workers were not that concerned with one being more beautiful than the other. I dont think they felt committed. The idea was to get a job and survived the Great Depression. One curiosity, it seems to me to be related to that question, is al zampa said the Golden Gate Bridge was more beautiful. You have the camelback span. You have the suspension span on the San Francisco side. To the eye of a high steel ace, that was more beautiful than the civil span system of the Golden Gate Bridge, which is really interesting. So many of us look at it and say, oh, look at the beauty and brace of the the suspension bridge. The other one looks like a jumble. Zampa didnt see it that way. George you mentioned they both started at the same time at the bay bridge was finished earlier. Was there any kind of competition or the end . Harvey i dont think there was as far as i could tell. One of the things that slow down the golden gate is that the San Francisco side tower had a difficult problem. It had to be built out in the ocean. There was a lot of stopping and starting. It is Something Like a thousand feet out in the ocean. It was built and destroyed and beat up in an accident. I think a vessel hit it. It was a really, really tough tower to build. Finally, it did get built. It took a little bit of an effort to do it. George who was the big employer you said this was done by bond issue. It was partly privately funded. Did the workers organize . Or the way they were treated, they did not have to organize . And was it before the wagner act . Harvey it starts in 1934 and the wagner act is in 1935. Can i see the paper again . And trying to remember all the questions. George who was the employer . Harvey there were several employers. Steel was one of them. Roebling was the one in charge of the spinning of the cables. So there were several employers involved. You had another interesting part of the question. George whether the workers organize or if the organize or the employers accepted that they were union . Harvey thats a good question. Basically, there was not too much difficulty in organizing. Some cut subcontractors didnt fight it. The great strike in maritime had been finished in 1934. There were a couple of workers who said we didnt have to do too much to organize. Only had to do is just kind of do it. One of the employers came to us and said do this. And so we did. I think the reason it was not so difficult was because the employers for the moment were on the defensive right after the great 1934 strike. So by the end, it is 100 union. Provided time its finished, i dont but by the time its finished, i dont remember it being a big battle. George about the safety net, do you know if there was any negotiation behind the scenes about that are ahead of time or whether it was strausss idea . Harvey it was credited as strausss idea. One of the workers mentioned safety. Your safety was coming in but the unions did not have a lot of power yet. We did not get a lot of safety insisted upon at that time. It was basically strausss baby to get that in thatnet in. George how long has this term safety net been around or was it invented when building bridges came around . [laughter] harvey safety net is postworld war ii. I think it is a 1930s and 1940s reference. I dont really know that for positive. But i think the safety net was called that in the 1930s, that is, the rope safety net. George in the 1930s, how they construction was done, big public projects, in a time when we were poor, people feel that there is not as much being done. Is there any weith to that or a weight to that or a misperception . Harvey i think there is weight to that. So many are not being built. So many of our politicians are against it. There was a Public Program in the 2008 recession. There wasnt stomach for it in congress. I think obama would have liked to try that. He got some programs going, but he didnt i get what he would have liked, which would have cost more. There is also a kind of antispending perspective, antispending of money to borrow it, a bias against that, which seems to be in the United States and europe. Personally, i think thats a mistake. I think there is kind of a feeling against investing in public projects. I think it is unfortunate. George a question that comes up in that same context how many construction workers are unemployed so that come a few developed a bunch of projects, would you be able to pull them in or are they just not available because the has been such a lack for a long time . Harvey the construction trades are cyclical. That is to say, they are like the birds in the canary cage. When times are bad, they are among the first people to go down. That is to say, they lose their jobs. Right now, jobs are coming back. So there are more jobs and can in the construction trades. A lot of people who were unemployed are now getting jobs. I dont know if it is as happy a situation as you might help. Might hope. But it is cyclical. George anybody have another question . This is the last one. What is the Golden Gate Bridges lifespan . Are there many years left or is it on its last legs . Its been a longtime. Harvey the rule of thumb is about a hundred years. So we are coming up to 80 whatever. It seems to be in pretty good condition. There is work being done on it all the time. There is retrofitting being done on it. That retrofitting will cost more no, it is not the retrofitting. Thats really lower thats really longterm. A safety feature to be built in will take a long time to be achieved and cost a lot of money. I think its got a long time to go. I dont know that for sure. It is a suspension bridge and it depends on the ability for it to move. It can be compromised by earthquakes pretty darn easily. I dont know how long it is going to last. I hope it will last a long time myself. But i have an ax to grind, rate . Right tackle [laughter] george thank you very much, Harvey Schwartz. [applause] you are watching American History tv. 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan 3. Follow us on twitter for information on her schedule, and to keep up with the latest history news. Toanaheim is home disneyland. The park opened in 1955, and welcomed its one millionth visitor after only seven weeks. Our time warner partners worked with the cspan city towards staff when we visit anaheim to explore the citys rich history. One of the reasons why some way people are interested in this collection is because it is something that Many Americans can relate to. When someone hears about this collection, they immediately inc. , my grandfather fought in world war ii, maybe we have some letters. It is something that is a shared experience for so Many American families. It immediately captures the interest, and makes people feel like it is something they can relate to and participate in. Wered about 2012, we approached by a guy called eddie carol, a journalist who would started a project where he someted the loss of personal family letters. He felt that was important that materials are preserved. He wrote a letter, and the response was be start receiving all this material. He was able to edit down the