Can you imagine 33,000 workers on 480 acres of steel works? That is what Homestead Steel Works was. At its most productive, Homestead Steel Works produced nearly a third of all the steel used in the United States. The Carrie Furnaces stood at the heart of Homestead Works until 1979. At one time, the furnaces and the steelworkers who labored in them produced more than 1,000 tons of iron a day. Today, all that is left is the remnants of those days. Homestead Steel Works is mostly on outdoor mall. However, Carrie Furnaces is now an area that can be visited to see the blast furnaces that produced iron. The Carrie Furnaces were built in 1884 and they operated until 1982. Now they are relics of the past. Visiting the site we were able to get an idea of what workers did to produce iron for the production of steel.
Then we went to the NIOSH Personal Protective Technologies Lab. Here we visited four labs to see the research NIOSH conducts on personal protective equipment. The labs we visited are:
Mine Rescue and Escape Training Laboratory (Virtual Reality)
The Advanced Respirator Test Headform
Fit Testing Labs
Sweating Manikin
In each of the labs, we saw some of the latest research conducted to improve how workers can be better protected from hazards, and how PPE can be better constructed to make it more effective for workers.
