[Steel worker in mill as molten steel spills from vat, in Chicago, Illinois]

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Molten steel pouring from a vat is the dramatic center of this 1949 photograph, taken in a Chicago mill where the work was hot, heavy and done largely by hand. Chicago was one of the country's major steelmaking centers, and its mills on the Calumet and South Side supplied rails, beams and sheet for a postwar economy gearing up for expansion. The image belongs to the Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs collection, and it captures the physical risk of the smelter's job at a time when steel production was central to the city's identity.

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