All language subtitles for Hazardous.History.with.Henry.Winkler.S01E08.Occupational.Hazards.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

Do you know that there
was a time when making hats

for a living could
literally drive you crazy?

There is dizziness
and slurred speech

and mental confusion.

It's one thing to be
called mad as a hatter,

as a turn of phrase.

It's another thing to
actually be a hatter

who's gone insane
because of your job.

Would you be surprised to
know that there was one job

that literally sucked the
life right out of you?

These women are deep in
dirty water with gaping wounds

from the leches all
over their bodies.

Or that a career as
a film projectionist

was more like a disaster movie.

It was just a stressful job.

Am I gonna catch on fire?

Am I gonna burn this
whole movie house down?

Once a fire breaks
out, his only hope

is to make his way to the door,

which hopefully isn't
engulfed in flames.

These are the
things we used to do

for fun, for money, or
maybe out of boredom

that we'll never see again.

Were they dangerous?

Certainly.

Deadly?

Occasionally.

But boy, wasn't it exciting?

You know how construction
sites have those signs

that say it's been this many
days without an accident?

Well, back in the day, they
didn't need those signs

because the answer
was usually zero.

Although Chicago
invents the skyscraper,

one place on earth perfects
it, and that is New York City.

From the early 1900s until
the mid 1930s or '40s,

New York underwent
a growth to the sky

unlike any other
city of the time.

Before modern
advancements in construction,

some of the most famous
buildings in America

are built very
differently by workers

who risk their lives
to get the job done.

Let's talk about the type
of man it takes to be like,

I am gonna go up
there with no harness

and I'm gonna build
those buildings,

and the evidence of this bravery

is all around us
in New York City.

I mean, you look at
any of these buildings

that were built in
the '20s and '30s

and they were only
built one way.

Each steel girder is
lifted upon one another

and they have to be manually
positioned by workmen

who are straddling
or walking along

these exposed steel beams.

Imagine stepping out
on a narrow steel beam,

suspended hundreds of feet up
in the air over New York City,

no safety equipment,
just your balance.

That was the daily
life for these workers.

Those men who are
840 feet in the air.

If you were to fall
chance of survival, 0%

Spectators
around New York

refer to these workers as
the sky boys and call them

the best open air show in town.

It makes
me dizzy to look at 'em,

and yet they're as nonchalant

as though they
were on the avenue.

You know, the famous photo,
lunch atop of skyscraper.

It was a staged promotion for
the Empire State Building,

but these people actually
did hang out on beams

hundreds of feet up in the air.

And look at that photo
of those guys up there

on the I-beam sitting
there eating lunch

200 feet above the
air in New York City.

They look so happy
to be up there.

I mean that's
what always shocked me,

like they're always
having a good time.

As one newspaper put
it, they spend their days

strolling on the thin
edge of nothingness.

These jobs are so dangerous
that two out of five workers

fall to their deaths
or end up disabled.

And their
workday involves a lot more

than just balancing along beams.

They have jobs to do
and none more dangerous

than the work done
by the rivet gang.

A rivet gang is a team
of four men whose job it is

to fasten steel beams
together with red hot rivets.

Imagine a giant erector set,

but rather than taking little
screws, it's fiery hot rivets

and the rivets have
to be heated on site.

All this had to be done with
precision and in seconds.

First, you have the heater,

a guy who fires up the
rivets until they're red hot

in this portable forge.

The heater then
hurls these rivets

up in the air, 20 or 30
feet up to the catcher,

who then uses a tin bucket
to catch this red hot rivet.

The catcher then passes
it to the bucker up

who sets the rivet
for the riveter

who finally drives the
flaming hot rivet home.

There's nothing quite like
working with a furnace

while you are a hundred
stories off the ground.

There're being battened by wind,

fighting off rain,
handling fiery hot rivets.

These are really
talented individuals.

Obviously a lot can go
wrong during this work.

Miss a catch, and
a red hot rivet

can land on an
unsuspecting worker below

who would not have
been wearing a hard hat

because those aren't
required for another decade.

And riveting is no small task.

A 1,000 foot skyscraper
would need 10 million rivets

to hold together
50,000 tons of steel.

Means 10 million
times was it heated,

thrown, caught, held,
and riveted by hand.

Not only is
there no room for error,

there's no time for it either.

Putting up the tallest
building in the world

literally becomes a race between
the Empire State Building

and the Chrysler Building.

The Chrysler Building
finishes first,

but the Empire State
Building takes the crown

rising to 1,453 feet after
only 410 days of construction.

It's world's
tallest structure.

Lofted nearly quarter
mile into Manhattan skies.

410 days.

That's one year and 45 days.

That's three years faster
than the Golden Gate Bridge.

Four years faster
than the Hoover Dam.

Eight years faster than
the Statue of Liberty.

Today, building an
average single family home

takes about seven months.

On the Empire State
Building project,

of the 3,400 workers, it
was officially reported

that five lost their lives,
but some report the number

at much higher, even
in the hundreds.

The dangerous anything goes
skyscraper construction era

of the 1930s eventually
diminishes in the 1950s

as first welding starts
to replace riveting.

And secondly,
stronger labor unions

call for safer
working conditions.

No more sky boys, no
more lunch on the beam,

no more putting up
skyscrapers in the time

it takes to play
a baseball season.

I always admire
guys like that,

taking lives in their own hand

and doing really dangerous work.

That's what America used
to be, a country of people

being like, yeah, I got
this, and I don't think

those guys should
ever be forgotten.

That's real American spirit.

Of course, not all
jobs came with risks

as obvious as working
hundreds of feet above ground.

When America enters
World War I in 1917,

after declaring war in Germany,

everyday Americans
spring into action

to help support the effort
in any way they can.

With men fighting overseas,
many women flock to factories.

For them it's their
patriotic duty.

One of the
most coveted jobs for women

is called dial painting,

which involves using
glow in the dark paint

to make equipment dials and
clocks visible at night.

Dial painting is
actually very lucrative.

This job pays almost
three times what a typical

you know, hourly job
was paying at the time.

One of the many draws of
this job besides the money,

is that after a long
day of painting,

you would sort of glow.

The women who work
in these factories

get this nickname
as Ghost Girls.

I mean, it's pretty cool, right?

This is before glow in
the dark products exist

like kids stickers and toys.

So you can understand why people

are so excited about
products that glow.

They wear their finest
dresses to work,

so that it'll pick up
in the paint and glow

when they go to the
dance halls that night.

They even paint on their teeth
for a truly radiant smile.

Turns out what
makes the paint glow in the dark

is radium, which is
also highly radioactive.

So a lot of the dials
that are being painted

are very fine little lines.

So the women are
taught a technique

to really get the
paintbrush very pointed

and it's called lip pointing,

where they actually put the
paintbrush in their mouth

and get this nice little point.

Just to be clear, they were
told to literally stick radium

in their mouths every
day all day long.

Some of them asked
their supervisors,

is this actually safe?

Their supervisor
said, of course it is.

I've worked with radium

and many other
radioactive elements.

Radium ain't safe.

So what
happens when you keep

putting radium in your mouth?

These young women would
get something called necrosis

of the jaw where your
face would literally

start to rot away.

It's estimated that
they're consuming something

like 3,000 micro curies
of radium a year.

That's 10 times
today's safe limit

of 300 micro curies a year.

The women
volunteer for medical exams

to help scientists understand

the effects of nuclear fallout.

One scientist examines
five dial painters

and finds that they've
ingested so much radium

that their breath is even toxic.

Eventually,
new safety measures

are put in place.

Radium painting
continues into the 1960s,

but with more precautions,
specifically radium painters

are instructed not to put
the brush in their mouth.

Almost everything
that we know about

radiation inside the body today

is because of the radium girls.

We've all heard
the warning about

not yelling fire in
a crowded theater,

but it turns out in the
early days of cinema,

sometimes you had to.

In the 1880s,
Eastman Kodak produced

the first commercially
available motion picture film.

Then Thomas Edison
creates the kinetograph,

which is the first
motion picture camera,

then the era of movies begins.

These early films
are shot on a substance

called nitrate film, and
nitrate film is durable,

which is what makes it perfect

for a motion picture projector.

But there's
a pretty big downside

as they soon discover nitrate
film can't take the heat.

Nitrate is hugely
temperature sensitive

and sometimes it
can just combust,

so that is a recipe
for disaster.

Keep in mind how these
film projectors work.

A big incandescent light bulb
is used to cast the image

of the film onto a screen,
and a big bright light bulb

means an incredibly
hot light bulb.

Nitrate film
is comparatively strong,

but it has the disadvantage
of being highly flammable.

It is almost an explosive.

These films can
combust on their own

just by sitting in a
hot car in the sun.

And because the chemical
can generate its own oxygen,

it's practically
impossible to put out.

That's right.

The film used to shoot movies
and project them in theaters

is so flammable it can
spontaneously combust.

Just a year after the
first public viewing

of a motion picture, there's
a fire at a theater in London.

Shortly after that,
there's an even bigger fire

and it kills 126 people.

So the irony of all of
this happening is the idea

behind movies was
to capture this art

and give people
this way to escape,

except it's really just
putting them all together

and then kind of half
setting them on fire.

After several
nitrate fires in the late 1880s

and the early 1900s, movie
theaters make a change.

In the early days
of movie houses,

the projector would be
right there in the middle

of the theater with the patrons.

It was easy, it was cheap.

Eventually, there were so many
fires that this innovation

called the projector
room was created.

They decided we'll just
move the projectionist

up top above everybody.

Let's project the movie
through a big glass window

with this fireproof shutter.

If the waxed around this
shutter got hot enough

because of a fire, then
it would slam shut,

which is great for the audience.

It would keep them safe.

The projectionist, on the
other hand, is in great danger.

Once a fire breaks out
and those shutters close,

his only hope is to make
his way to the door,

which hopefully isn't
engulfed in flames.

They took the poor
projectionist

and they said, okay,

we're banishing you to
a metal room up there,

which is gonna be hot,
but it's gonna keep

everybody down in
the theater safe,

so if the film does go on fire,

you're the only one that's
really gonna get hurt.

The people working
as projectionists

were not high school kids

trying to make a few
bucks after school.

These were highly
trained union members

who had studied fire safety
as well as electronics.

It was just a stressful job.

The whole time they're nervous,

Am I gonna catch on fire,

Am I gonna burn this
whole movie house down?

It's only in the
1920s and 1930s

that we get what's
called safety film.

This replaces the nitrate
and celluloid with acetate.

But the studios and the
professional filmmakers

continue to use nitrate film

because the picture
quality is greater.

Films like, "Citizen Kane,"
"Gone With The Wind,"

"Wizard of Oz," they're
all shot on nitrate film.

Sure, they may have to deal
with spontaneous combustion,

but for a true
auteur, it's worth it.

It
might've been worth it

for the studios,
filmmakers and moviegoers,

but for the projectionists,
not so much.

Could you imagine, you're
in that projection booth

and it catches fire
'cause think about it,

you have a super hot bulb

and you have a super
flammable film going over it.

They would catch
up all the time.

The dangers
finally lead nitrate film

to be discontinued in 1951.

Thanks to conservation
efforts, you can now watch

some films from the nitrate
era in digital format,

but you really don't
know what you're missing.

I'll bet that most people
were unaware of the risks

for the person
behind the projector,

and they probably had no
idea about the hazards

faced by the workers
who refined the gas

that kept our cars running.

By 1921, automakers
have a huge problem.

The engines that they
use suffer from a problem

that's called engine knock.

Some drivers are so
startled by the sound,

they sometimes lose
control of their vehicles.

A scientist named
Tom Midgley Jr.

discovers a chemical
additive he calls T-E-L

that makes the knock go away.

Both the automobile
and the oil industry

are thrilled with Midgley's
anti-knock solution.

They immediately pour money
into production facilities

and start advertising
its wonders.

One refinery that
begins using this additive

is a Standard Oil
facility in the port

of New York and New Jersey,

But this is only
one of countless products

the refinery is
constantly turning out

for the diverse
needs of America.

But within a year of
production, they find that some

of the workers start to
exhibit strange maladies.

The men who work
in the TEL buildings

start to exhibit
insomnia, memory loss,

and these bouts of rage.

One man even starts
babbling deliriously,

another gets taken out
in a strait jacket.

And this isn't
just a few workers.

65% of the workforce
ends up in the hospital

with some kind of
mental health issue.

Workers dubbed the factory
the Loony Gas Building.

To dismiss the concerns,
Standard Oil ultimately releases

a press statement saying
that these men were probably

driven to this because
they worked too hard.

Turns out it
isn't how hard they're working,

but what they're working on.

Well, you know how
the chemical additive

is called T-E-L?

Well, that stands
for Tetra-Ethyl-Lead.

The people working in the
factory are handling lead

and inhaling this
fumes all day long.

The dangers of lead exposure

were already well known.

In fact, dating back to 1786,

Benjamin Franklin wrote
a letter to a friend

where he described
his own experience

with lead's harmful effects.

But Standard Oil
is not convinced

that lead is causing
these issues,

so they do something
that most PR firms

today would not recommend.

They hold a press conference
featuring the creator

of T-E-L himself,
Thomas Midgley.

They get Midgley there
who then just basically

rinses his hands in a bowl
just filled with T-E-L

saying like, look, I wouldn't
do this if it was bad,

look at me.

I'm totally fine.

Can you imagine
someone doing that today?

Doubtful.

Leaded gasoline still
continues to be sold

for the next 70 years.

For those of us who remember

growing up before the mid 1990s,

you will remember pulling
into a gas station

and being asked if you
want regular or unleaded.

Most compact and
imported cars can be operated

on leaded regular grade
gasoline for maximum economy.

I remember pulling in
and buying regular gasoline

because it was cheaper.

Now, leaded gas was
sold up until 1996,

and you remember Midgley, right?

Well, it turns out
right after that stunt,

he took a little
vacation to Florida

where he was treated
for lead poisoning.

Though the US hit the brakes
on leaded gas in the '90s,

it took until 2021
before the world

finally phased out
leaded gasoline

for road vehicles entirely.

There used to be a time
when all men wore hats.

They were a symbol of
their social status.

But in one New England town,
the people making the hats

found the work a bit maddening.

By 1890 Danbury's known as
the hat city of the world.

It's 33 factories are pumping
out 5 million hats a year.

Each of these 5 million
hats is made from animal fur,

either rabbit or beaver,
and made through a process

called carroting.

Carroting gets its name from
the orange colored solution

that helps remove the
fur from the animal

and turns it into felt.

So you might be wondering,

what is this miracle
solution made of?

Turns out it's a
silvery white chemical

that we call mercury.

The closest most
people in the model world

get to mercury is in a
thermometer, which if broken,

you are supposed
to open a window,

throw it away, and
call poison control.

Even at low levels,
mercury can cause damage

to the brain, heart,
lungs, and kidneys.

And what the hat
makers of Danbury, Connecticut

and elsewhere are exposed
to is way above low levels.

These hat makers spend
hours a day handling mercury,

which is absorbed
through the skin,

but also inhaling the fumes,
which go right to the lungs

and then to the brain.

This leads to
a huge number of hat makers

suffering from the effects
of mercury poisoning.

Mercury poisoning
is pretty unpleasant.

Sufferers experience a
wide variety of symptoms.

Painful itching, burning,
peeling skin, a loss of hair

and teeth, swelling,
sweating, and asthma.

There's also slurred speech,
dizziness, mental confusion,

which is actually the
root of the expression

as mad as a hatter.

It turns out that
you don't get poisoned

from wearing the hats,
just from making them.

That's because the hats
have a protective lining

that prevents the mercury
from seeping into your brain.

The hat manufacturers
aren't particularly concerned.

In fact, they often attribute
workers' health problems

to alcoholism because
they share a lot

of the same outward symptoms
like slurred speech,

confusion, and tremors.

So eventually the use
of mercury in hat making

comes to an end, but it's
not because of the poisoning.

In 1914, the war in Europe
breaks out and mercury

is too important to the war
effort to be used in hat making.

Not only that, but fashion
is a fickle beast as we know,

so by the Great
Depression, tall felt hats

have fallen out of
style, at least for men.

Hat making wasn't the only
profession where they neglected

to put the risks in
the job description.

When X-ray technology was
brought to shoe stores,

the results weren't
exactly a perfect fit.

In 1895, a German
physicist, Wilhelm Rontgen,

discovers a radioactive
wave everywhere.

He doesn't know what to call
it, so he calls it the X-rays.

Through the miracle of
X-rays, doctors can see bones,

can see structure, and
then better ascertain

what treatments
patients will need.

A doctor in
Boston, Jacob Lowe realizes

that he can use
X-rays in his practice

and comes up with an
innovative device.

Lowe designs an X-ray
machine for a foot,

and it's essentially a box.

The bottom of the
box has an X-ray tube

and then a slot just above it
for where the foot goes in,

and then there's a screen on top

which people can look down on
and see the bones in the foot.

The device allows
Dr. Lowe to examine patients

suffering from foot
pain without needing

to remove their shoes,
which gives him an idea.

Lowe is trying to
figure out what to do

with this machine he's invented,

and then it hits him,
retail shoe stores.

Lowe modifies his
device and brings it

to a shoe retailers
convention in Boston in 1920.

He names it the Foot-O-Scope
and it immediately generates

a lot of interest
within the industry.

Lowe starts the X-ray
Foot-O-Scope Corporation.

He finds a manufacturer
to build his machine

and starts taking orders.

In March, 1920, the
Pittsburgh Post Gazette

reports that the foot
scope helps diagnose

a misaligned big toe
of a local lion tamer.

You can't beat
that for publicity.

By the fall, shoe stores
are running newspaper ads

promoting this brand new device.

Soon shoe
salesmen around the country

are clamoring for the machine.

These machines become
standard for the industry,

and the result is shoe salesmen

have to become these
X-ray technicians.

These machines are so
popular through the 1930s,

'40s and into the '50s.

More than 10,000 of these
shoe fitting devices

are sold to stores
across America.

It should be noted the
absurdity of this situation.

There are X-ray machines,
not in hospitals

or laboratories administered
by doctors or scientists.

They're in shoe stores
administered by shoe salesman.

When you slide your
feet into the bottom,

you are basically
standing directly

on top of an X-ray tube.

There is no protection at all.

People are doing it repeatedly,
and the shoe salespeople

are in there all day
getting exposed to X-rays.

Salesmen are constantly
putting their hands in

and out of the machines,
and we know today

just to get a
single dental X-ray,

they throw that heavy lead thing

over you just for one X-ray.

I mean, I get it.

If there was a safe way for
me able to look at my bones,

I would totally take it.

But that is not what happened.

If you were a shoe salesman,

you were around that
machine all day.

Your job isn't bad enough,

but you're also getting
bombarded with radiation.

It's not until
after World War II ends

that the general public
becomes more aware

of the potential
dangers of radiation.

The atomic bomb makes
radiation real for people,

but that doesn't
mean that stores

immediately get rid of
their Foot-O-Scopes.

After all, they paid
a great deal of money

for these machines, and
they're incredibly effective

at bringing customers
into the store.

One shoe store
owner has bragged

that he has put his own
feet in one 30 times

in a single day,
and he feels fine.

How could a scientist
argue with that?

But actual evidence
begins to mount.

Reports of shoe store salesmen
getting radiation burns

and tissue damage
begins to circulate.

In 1953, the Food and
Drug Administration steps in

and bans the devices outright.

Shoe store X-ray machines
become a thing of the past.

Today we get our feet
measured in a simpler,

probably more efficient
way, thanks to what's known

as the Brannock Device.

That's right, that metal
contraption has a name.

And we leave X-rays to
medical professionals.

Most jobs are difficult.

Some take sweat,
some take tears,

but this next
profession took blood

and it quite literally sucked.

At the turn of
the 19th century,

American physicians
use procedures

that date back millennia
to treat their patients.

They apply leeches.

Leeches ability to remove
germs and bacteria from blood

means the doctors continue to
use them on their patients,

putting them on their
throats and thighs.

Leeches are not easy to
obtain, which brings about one

of the most gruesome, dangerous,

hazardous and sort of grossest
professions in history.

Leeches are collected in the
wild and in the early 1800s,

they were most often
collected by poor women.

They're called,
Leech Collectors.

They would hoist
up their skirts

and wade into dirty
bogs, ponds, marshes,

and they would catch
these leches by hand

and by leg and arm and ugh,

wherever the leches would
just attach,

they were basically human traps.

The leech collectors have
to wait for the leches to fill

with their blood before
they can be collected.

Think about it for a second.

You're standing
waist deep in a bog

watching this little blood
sucker attach itself to you,

get engorged with your own blood

and you're paid
just pennies for it.

The leches suck on the
legs of the collector

for up to 30 minutes.

If you consider that each leech
ingests one to two teaspoons

of blood, multiply that
by the hundreds of leeches

that these women have
attached to them each day.

That is serious blood loss.

Even the act of pulling
the leech off is a nightmare.

They're easiest to remove
once they're fully fed,

but that still doesn't mean
that there aren't risks.

If you improperly
remove the leech,

its jaws can remain behind.

A leech collector's risk of
infection is through the roof.

These women are deep in dirty
water with gaping wounds

from the leches all
over their bodies.

They're subject to cholera,

dysentery, typhoid,
and hepatitis.

Common diarrhea is probably
the least of their concerns.

And you thought
your workplace was bad

'cause someone ate your lunch.

The 20th century
sees the medical community

move away from the
human leech collectors

and to a safer, more
hygienic method.

By the 1930s and '40s, leeches
used in medical procedures

are actually coming
from certified

and sterile labs that
are growing leches

specifically for
medical purposes.

The day of the old swamp
to skin leech is over.

Leches are used
today in plastic

and reconstructive surgeries.

That's because the
natural anticoagulants

that they secrete
prevent blood clots

and help to restore blood flow.

In 2004, the Food
and Drug Administration

officially approves
leeches as a medical device

and requires them
to be disposed of

in those red sharps
containers just like needles.

So that means that the
FDA now has to control

and approve your beef,
your prescriptions,

your eyeliner, and your leeches.

Collecting leeches had
many women tempting fate,

but with this next job, the
women were playing with fire.

While humans have been making
fire for 2 million years,

it isn't until the early 1800s

that we finally figure out how
to do it a lot more easily.

In 1826, John Walker,
a chemist in England,

discovers that a piece of stick

coated with certain
chemicals can light on fire

when scratched
across his fireplace.

He calls
them friction matches.

These early friction matches,
they don't work that well.

Sometimes they
don't light at all

because you have to scrape
them so hard to get them going.

Luckily, by the
1840s, chemists come up

with a great new solution,
white phosphorus.

Matches made with
white phosphorus

can be lit on almost any
surface with very little effort.

It's a real game changer
and it's a huge innovation.

These days we take for granted

how easy it is to start a
fire, but in the old days,

you had to rub two sticks
together or find some flint.

You needed to be a MacGyver.

So people go nuts for these
miracle fire starters.

Pretty soon there are
dozens of factories

that can churn out 10
million matches a day.

The factories
making these matches

are typically staffed
by young women.

It's one of the few jobs
they can actually get.

So in that way, it's
a pretty sweet gig.

The women who work
in these factories

even get a cool nickname,
the Matchstick Girls.

But
there's a problem.

White phosphorus is a
very dangerous chemical.

Today, the most common
use of white phosphorus

is by the military for making
grenades and artillery shells.

White phosphorus
can burn your skin,

it can burn your eyes, and
it can irritate your lungs.

The gums would glow in the
dark, teeth could fall out,

and prolonged exposure could
make their jaws disintegrate.

Doctors at the time refer to
this condition as phossy jaw.

Phossy is short for phosphorus.

You know, things are pretty
bad when the medical profession

is coming up with
this weird nickname.

Not exactly
the kind of substance

you'd wanna handle
all day, every day.

Eventually chemists come
up with a new innovation,

a new product, and by
1910, white phosphorus

is being phased out.

Today we use red phosphorus,
a much safer alternative.

And that's why your favorite
matches have red tips.

For most of us, the last time

we saw a chimney sweep
was in, "Mary Poppins."

But did you ever wonder
how a full grown man

could get inside a
chimney to do that job?

The answer was he didn't,
but someone else did.

So in 1666, a massive fire
just spreads across London.

It completely guts the city.

This prompts a change
in the building code

requiring much
narrower chimneys.

Chimneys at the
time weren't long

and straight like
they are today.

They were curved.

They were at jagged angles,

and so you couldn't
just take a simple tool

and run it down the
length of the chimney.

These chimneys that
used to be this big

that a man could just
walk in and clean out

are now about this big.

So they need smaller people
to go ahead and do the job.

Throughout
most of Europe

and the United States, if
your chimney's being swept,

it's likely a kid is
doing the sweeping.

These young boys
sort of clamber up

with their scraping tools
and their brushing tools.

When they get to the top,
they slide right back down.

They collect the pile of soot,

they give it to
the master sweep,

who then sells it to
farmers as fertilizer.

Some of these chimneys
are 60 feet tall,

and the opening inside is
between nine and 14 inches wide.

When
the pressure is on

to get the job done fast,
the boss has a solution

that would be
frowned upon today.

These master chimney
sweeps had a way

of motivating the apprentices.

You've heard the expression
light a fire under someone.

Well, this is where that
expression comes from.

The way to get kids to sweep
up to like 20 chimneys a day

is to literally light
a fire under them

to quote, unquote, motivate
them to get up that chimney

and clean it as
fast as possible.

Now, you probably think of
yourself, how is this possible?

How is it okay to just
shove kids in chimneys

with a broom and
let them sweep it?

Oh, that's because the
first child labor laws

weren't until 1916.

What brings an
end to this practice

is actually innovation.

Joseph Glass, an engineer,
designs a new method

for cleaning chimneys that
is much more efficient.

He develops a
chimney sweep device

that consists of
a series of rods

that are capable of
bending, so that the device

can follow the curves and
the angles of the chimney,

and this becomes the chimney
sweep brush that we know today.

If you thought sending
children up chimneys was wild,

there was another job where kids

had to be fast on their
feet or watch out.

Bowling has been popular in
the US since the mid 1800s,

but it wasn't until 1951
when an automatic pin setter

was actually used.

So, who is setting up all
those pins all those years?

It was a bunch of boys down
at the end of the alley.

Starting
in the early 1900s,

pin boys are a common fixture

in bowling alleys across the us.

It's funny to think
about situations

that will never exist again
because time has moved on.

Imagine it.

You got your first
job, you're a pin boy.

You're gonna set up those pins.

Pin boys work
very hard for their money.

They would either
sit on a ledge

or straddle the lane dividers,
repositioning the pins,

and then quickly hopping out
of the way between throws.

So you also have to be
on high alert at all times

because there are just
projectiles flying.

You'd have to get
down on your stomach

and slide through
to reset one pin.

By the 1930s,
major American cities

have hundreds of bowling alleys,

each employing multiple
pin boys per shift.

Speed was such an
important element of this job

for the teenager trying
to reset everything

because a lot of times the
people that were bowling

may have had a few drinks.

Everybody drinks,
everybody bowls.

Suddenly you got some big drunk
jerk with his bowling team.

Sometimes they would
get a little crass,

maybe think the pin setter's

not setting the pins
fast enough for them.

And guess what?

They're just gonna
lob one down at 'em.

Could you imagine?

He got some drunk guy
and he throws his bowl

and he misses completely.

If this kid's getting just
crap on him from this guy

who missed it, 'cause
he's a bad bowler.

Sometimes people
wonder why we have

such strict child labor laws.

It's 'cause of what we used
to do to kids in this country

so that we could go bowling.

But regulations
aren't the main reason

the job of pin boys becomes
a thing of the past.

So who do these
boys have to thank

for getting them
out of harm's way?

His name was Fred Schmidt.

He developed an
automatic pin setter

and the rest is history.

Today we take modern
conveniences for granted,

like how bowling balls are
returned automatically.

The potential dangers
for being a mail carrier

seem very obvious.

Dog bites, extreme weather.

But in the early 20th
century, they were dying

to get you your mail faster.

Washington,
DC, had been selected

as the starting point for
a sensational innovation

in modern communication.

The mail was going
to take to the air.

In 1918, the US Post Office

establishes its first
air mail service.

For just 24 cents an ounce,

you can have your post
delivered to New York,

to Washington, to Philadelphia.

It's such a big deal that
President Woodrow Wilson

is there to witness the event.

The plan is for one
pilot each to take off

from Washington
and from New York.

Together, they'll
meet in Philadelphia,

they'll exchange their parcels,
and then two other pilots

will finish the
respective journeys.

Unfortunately,
things don't get off

to a flying start.

Thousands of people have
gathered in a field in DC

to watch the first
air mail flight

and the pilot, Army
Lieutenant George Boyle,

he's about to take
off when they realize,

oh, there's no gas in the plane.

They forgot to fuel the plane.

It seems obvious today,

but this is the early
days of aviation.

There aren't the safety
measures, the checklists,

even the instrumentation
that can guarantee

that a plane's
going to take off.

They refuel the plane and
the Curtiss Jenny takes off,

Boyle at the helm on the
way for the first leg

from Washington to Philadelphia.

Once he's in the air,
Boyle rapidly gets lost,

so he decides to make
an emergency landing

at a Maryland farm
to get directions.

As he descends to
make his landing,

Boyle wrecks his
propeller and the plane

is no longer air worthy.

He gathers up his mail and
returns to DC in disgrace.

The whole operation
is a huge failure.

Things
for air mail pilots

only get worse and more
dangerous from there.

The truth is flying these
planes in the early days

of aviation, it just isn't safe.

They're very basic.

They have open cockpits,
no safety features,

no radios, no navigation tools.

That's it.

If they have to
land and it's foggy

or there's no visibility
for whatever reason,

they just basically have to
land the plane on a prayer.

So in the first
week of operation

six pilots flying for
the post office die.

The planes the post
office are using

aren't even the
best for the time.

The one they're typically
using is the De Havilland DH-4,

which has this fantastic
nickname, the Flaming Coffin,

and that's because it's
got this design flaw

where the fuel tank sits between
the engine and the cockpit.

This makes the planes
prone to explosions

in a bad landing, but they
are Army surplus planes

from World War I,
so they're free,

so the Post Office is
gonna use them anyway.

From 1918 to 1927, around
230 men fly for the Post Office

and more than 30 die in crashes.

The life expectancy for
these pilots is estimated

to be around 900
hours of flying.

That's less than 40 days.

These brave
workers are given a nickname,

the Suicide Club.

You might think with
the dangers of flying

and also the fatalities
associated with flying air mail,

that this would be a
job that nobody wanted,

but thousands of people
apply for these positions

to fly air mail.

There's something about
the aura and the idea

of flying a plane and flying
a plane for the US government

for the mail that is very
attractive to young men.

One of the most
famous airmail pilots

is none other than
Charles Lindbergh.

Before he flies solo across the
Atlantic, he makes headlines

for surviving multiple air
mail crashes, including one

where he parachutes into
a barbed wire fence.

Eventually,
air mail gets safer

thanks to regulations
and a little bit of help.

Almost as quickly
as the postal service

gets into the air mail business.

They start getting out of it.

In 1925, they begin outsourcing
some airmail delivery

to commercial airlines.

And by 1927, all air
mail is now being

handled by commercial airlines.

I think that sometimes we
look back on some of these ideas

and we're like, we never
should have done those things.

And maybe they're right, but
we need to try these things

because if we don't, we're
losing out on something bigger.

When thinking about
the ways we used to work

from radioactive shoe stores
to sending kids up chimneys

to building skyscrapers
without a net,

danger was business as usual.

Sure, occupational
hazards were everywhere,

but as we learned to work
smarter, not just harder,

it paved the way
for new innovations

and navigating our
hazardous history

was all part of the job.