The Mohawks in High Steel
I remember enjoying the article “The Mohawks in High Steel” many years ago, to some extent because of the detailed descriptions of bridge work, not unlike Moby Dick’s detailing of life at sea, but I was also fascinated with the fearless, steelworking nomads who I share some small amount of blood with. Reading this excerpt from the original article (I have the whole hardcopy back in Nashville), I particularly like the recounting of the Caughnawagas’ introduction to high steel (about 3 paragraphs down, beginning with “The records of the company …”) and the workers’ reaction to “the disaster” a bit farther down: http://www.brooklyn101.com/articles/boerumhill-mohawks.pdf.
I was reminded of “The Mohawks in High Steel” at the American Indian Museum on Saturday – I got there before opening, walked up from Foggy Bottom, saw a multimedia presentation in the round and then a fictional account in the main theater on 4 Native American’s living in today, one a Mohawk stock trader in New York. Then I went to the cafeteria and had shank of wild boar from the Great Plains counter (I should have taken a panarama shot of the various counters — I keep forgetting that not everyone can visit the place on a whim 
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The American Indian Museum seemed to be the place to go while preparing for a talk on computing and the Environment, and I was right.