To Walk the Sky: How Iroquois Steelworkers Helped Build Towering Cities

Gr 1-5–“They sat with their feet dangling in thirty-five stories of air, eating lunch with the best views in the world. Generation after generation, skywalkers sculpted city skylines that pierced the clouds.” The history of how Iroquois came to be well-known steel workers begins with the Caughnawaga requiring a railroad company to hire their people as workers on a bridge project in exchange for land. The Caughnawaga were considered “unskilled labor” but proved their skills and comfort with height. This led to more jobs on construction sites and skywalkers worked on major projects from infrastructure to buildings. A bridge collapse during construction was a tragedy with “Almost every tribal family losing a skywalker.” The skywalkers continued in construction to support their families, and honored their lost with a memorial. Watercolor spreads, drawn primarily in soft blues, show men walking on cables or sitting on beams. The colors change to yellow and gray tones during disasters. The perspectives are mostly from looking up to the sky or the workers looking down, mixed with some panoramic drawings. The author notes their family’s participation in steelwork, information about the bridge collapse, glossary, and a list of some the projects.