Steel: the Diary of a Furnace Worker

Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1922. First Edition. First printing. Octavo (21cm). Publisher's black cloth, titled in yellow on spine and front cover; 157pp. Spine lettering somewhat age-darkened; mild toning to text; a tight, solidly Very Good copy, lacking the dustwrapper. Walker's first book, a memoir of two years spent "undercover" as a rank-and-file worker at U.S. Steel in 1919, where he "...acquired the current Anglo-Hunky language and knew speedily the grind and the camaraderie of American steel-making." Walker, a Yale man, would go on to write several other books on industrial themes (including a 1927 novel, Bread & Fire, a fictionalized account of his experiences at U.S. Steel). In later decades, Walker served as a curator of rare books at Yale.