Adam Hart, a heater at an iron bar mill for Lyon, Shorb & Company

Adam Hart poses with the tools of his trade in this photograph from an album documenting the workers of Lyon, Shorb & Company between 1862 and 1867. Lyon, Shorb, also known as the Sligo Iron Works, produced sheet and bar iron and products such as boilers and machinery. By 1879 the company employed 250 men. As a heater, Hart loaded iron bars into the furnace, monitored their temperature, and removed them at the proper time, one of the most skilled and highly paid jobs in the mill.