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Two oil workers in Wyoming
Currently on display
From the Smithsonian Collection
This Bureau of Mines photograph number 28740 has the annotation “Pulling tubing with tubing oil saver. Production test work - Wyoming. 1921-1922” on the bottom of it. Oil fields were masculine workplaces that sprung up whereever deposits of petroleum were found. |
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Physical Description |
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photograph. The images shows two men covered in oil, dressed in protective clothing. They are smiling at one another. In between them is a large piece of oily machinery, hanging from a hook.
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Details |
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History |
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The 20th century oil industry employed increasingly large numbers of men in the the oil fields: their number rose from 22,230 workers in 1902 to 93,205 in 1919. Even more were employed building pipelines and working in refineries, corporate offices, and marketing. Despite the Depression, by the mid-1930s the oil industry employed some 1 million people.
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