This week's Hagley Vault is visiting an iron-works in Birmingham, Alabama, where a metalworker is coating cast-iron pipes with bitumen. Bitumen was, and still is, used to coat pipes intended for water and sewage lines as well as seawater intake and outflow pipes, as it is resistant to microbial activity, as well as corrosion from rust and other chemicals found in soil and water.
This undated photograph was probably taken some time between 1910 and 1940, and is part of Hagley Library's collection of American Iron and Steel Institute photographs and audiovisual materials (Accession: 1986.268), which consists of photographs, research notes, audio, film, and video documenting the Institute and the history of the North American iron and steel industry.
The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) was established under the leadership of United States Steel Corporation co-founder and chairman Elbert H. Gary (1846-1927) in 1908 after the Panic of 1907 brought an end to industry-wide consolidations. But its precursors date back to 1855, starting with the American Iron Association, which became the American Iron and Steel Association in 1864 following the American adoption of the Bessemer steel-making process. This makes it one of the oldest trade associations in the United States.
Given the long history of the AISI, the collection is a big one (though we certainly have bigger!), consisting of 39 boxes and 19 film cans of archival material. It has not been digitized in its entirety, but a generous sampling of the collection has been made available in our Digital Archives (you can browse it for yourself right here!).