[sprightly piano music] ♪ ♪ male narrator: july 27, 1898. marching bands leadthousands of people to the highest pointin downtown st. paul, minnesota. columns of veterans,stonecutters, and other workers march to the ribbon-drapedspeaker's stand. here, the new capitolis rising from the ground. onlookers lean over
the partially finishedfirst floor walls. among the throng of dignitaries is minnesota's first territorialgovernor, alexander ramsey, to officially laythe cornerstone for the people's house, the grandest buildingin the state and one of the finest capitolbuildings in the country. the cornerstoneis five feet long, with a hollow coreto hold a copper box.
into the box are placed more than 45 books, newspapers,photos, and documents, including historiesof legislators and soldiers since the founding of the state. the namesof the capitol commissioners and architect cass gilbert,as well as his associates, are etched on a bronze plate. but the box containsnot a single name of a worker or contractorwho erected the structure.
since construction beganin 1896, hundreds of workers have alreadybeen drawn to this spot. they dug and laid the foundationand built the lower walls. hundreds morewill come to work here through the building'scompletion in 1907. for some, it is the sparkfor long, successful careers and the beginning of generationsin minnesota. for others,it's one stop of many in a wandering artisan's life.
for others, it will markthe end of their lives. these people all came togetherto create this minnesota icon, but they have remained namelessuntil now. this is their story. workers lefttheir own time capsules to mark their workon the capitol. at the base of the gold leaffinial and ball atop the dome, 223 feet from the ground,three people gathered exactly 110 years after the day
that a mysteriousand tantalizing message was left there. - i was involvedin the restoration of the state capitol'sfinial and copper roof. and during the demolition, selective demolitionof the original copper, we were fortunate enough that the sheet metal workersthat we were working with took it upon themselvesto save this small cleat
that supports one ofthe original copper shingles that was up on the roof. narrator: "o.c. manke,august 10, 1902." the etched clueset historian dave riehle on a searchthrough city directories, payroll accounts,death certificates, and cemetery records to discover that "o.c."was otto manke. - i looked for a death recordon him,
and he lived a long time,into the '40s. and from there,went to the newspapers and finally get to an obituary where some living peopleare listed as survivors, including michelle. so this is the--this isyour grandfather's signature. he sent a message to you. - having my great-grandfather,you know, be so involved in this project,it's very emotional.
actually seeingthe handwriting-- 'cause it was something i wouldhave never seen before. and just to put myselfin that same position, you know, standing here, i'm sure thathe would have never guessed, 110 years later,that i'd be standing here. maybe it was a call for us to know the historyof this building, both the past and its current and what the future can meanfor this building.
what i've pieced together, he was about 34 years oldwhen he was up here. and then, of course,a couple years-- maybe, what, ten years older when he actually workedon the cathedral. so i just--i can't imagine. narrator: the vast majority of those who workedon the new capitol came from outside the state.
and like otto, most of them were immigrantsor children of immigrants. - he was born here in st. paul. his father came over here. my great-great-grandmother,she talks about the four-week journeyacross the atlantic. narrator: the mankes fledtheir homeland of pomerania, part of prussia that suffered frequent warsbetween germany and poland.
the rachac familyalso left conflict in their country, bohemia,now the czech republic. - when you considerhow bad things must have been for them to haul up stakesand everything they owned and come to a completelyforeign country in 1863, it must have beenpretty terrible. he was 14 years old,and he came with his parents from a very small villagein bohemia. he was a really finefinishing carpenter.
we knew that. we knew that he didall the fine finishing work in the james j. hill mansionhere in st. paul. that was my mother'sunderstanding. she always told usthat he was the head carpenter at the state capitol buildingduring its construction and afterwards as well. narrator: fleeing the warson one continent, the rachac family encounteredthe american civil war
on another. - they entered in philadelphiaon a train. they satin the philadelphia station for three or four days in the first week of julyin 1863. their travels to this areawere delayed because of the battleof gettysburg. and there we arein the governor's suite, looking at these panels.
we know he workedon some of the finishing work in that governor's suite,and all over, it is these massive paintingsof the battle of gettysburg, and it's--the full-circlesort of experience here is almost beyond comprehension. i wonder if--you know,if he ever knew that there were going to bepaintings up there of the battle of gettysburg. narrator: while manytradespeople
had already come to st. paulwhen work began on the capitol, others were recruitedto work on the construction. - the general contractorhad been in the south and had observed the work that black artisanswere able to do. and so he contactedcasiville bullard, who was a mason extraordinaire, and they made hima general foreman. - my grandfathercasiville bullard
was a brick masonas well as a stonecutter as well as a carpenter,which was kind of rare. he had ten childrenin tennessee-- memphis, tennessee. and because of that skill and because of housingdiscrimination at that time, segregation, you know, racism, really couldn't findopportunities to work. or if he did find work,
it was morein the poor neighborhoods and maybe notthe best opportunity to feed his large family. so throughsome different connections, people heard of his skill, and they were--asked himto come here. and so he came here in 1898 andstarted working on the capitol. - the general contractorsent casiville out to find african-americanor black masons,
and around 20 of them cameup here, including my grandfather. and casiville bullard said,"whoever i bring on this job has to performat a certain level." his house is still standing. that's the kind of qualitythat he demanded of the peoplewho worked for him. i believe my grandfather hadthat quality, and they formed a friendshipthat, far as i know,
lasted throughoutboth of their lives. narrator: hoist operatorzebulon olson was one of many swedeswho left poverty at home in a great wave of migrationto american cities. - our grandmother wasa historian, and this is one of her notes,and it says that we have "a marble eggmade by grandpa zebulon olson "when he set all the stones in building the minnesotastate capitol building."
it's the same marbleas in the structure. - this is the egg, and grandma olson had thison the buffet. he took a chipfrom the construction process and put it in his pocketand made the egg later. - the egg is the thing that-- you know, when you havea memento or something... - this is the connection. - that has a storythat goes with it
and someone keeps tellingthe story generation after generation,well... - this is shared history. there is a connectionto the state capitol, and it is strong,and it keeps us here. - yeah, the roots go deep. narrator: as an architect supervising the restorationof the capitol dome, ginny lackovic has had a chance
to studythe construction history, read the originalbuilding plans, and closely examinethe craftsmanship that statehouse tradesworkersbrought to the structure. - drawing sets, at that point, had maybe 100 sheets,maybe not even that many, for this building, compared towhat we would issue now to build a building like this
would be a four-volume setof 100 sheets each. so, i mean,buildings at this time, i mean, you relied a loton the craftsmen, on their knowledgeand their sensibilities. i mean, there's often--there are often comments that say, you know,"do it this way," and then it'll take youup to a certain point, and then it's"using typical methods." and what are those?
you know, they didn'tdescribe them at that point. they just relied on craftsmenand the trades to actually carry that through,carry that forward. narrator: the building wasessentially built by hand. men and horses providedthe power necessary to dig, move,and lift materials. every inch of the surface wascrafted by skilled artisans. - the tooling of it and the craftsmanshipthat went into it
is really why the building hasheld up as well as it has. the detailing is amazing. you know,every piece sheds water and some very subtly. but still, every single inchof the building was designed with intent. and the scale of the materials,it's amazing. narrator: craft workersarrived in st. paul with this level of skill
through rigorous formaland informal apprenticeships in europe or through american trainingbased on these models. in trades like stonecutting, these traditions still survivein europe, giving a glimpseinto the preparation that builders applied to theconstruction of the capitol. - my training in italywas mostly being with my father and uncle,two tradesmen.
i believe that isthe best training you can get, having hands onso that you learn doing things. and that's howi literally learned how to do everything that waspart of stone and masonry. you know, when i came here, it was already more than 12 yearthat i used to work. so i started very young. narrator: stefano workedas a foreman restoring the steps
on the west side of the capitolin 2012. - you know, those stepshad been there for 100 year, and the workmanship at that timewas amazing. they really were proudof what they were doing. when you see those people whoare in the picture that i saw, you know, with the hats,and that's-- i mean, that remember me those people that used to workin italy, you know. they were always well-dressed,well-respected workers.
being an immigrant myself,it just--sometime i think, "so this stone was set100 years ago "by a french, by a german, somebody that cameto do this job." and sometime you just thinkthat the story, the history repeat themself. narrator: at age 14, jan rachac already had two yearsof old world apprenticeship when he arrivedin belle plaine, minnesota.
he honed his skillsbuilding homes in the growing community. the prospect of regular work and more time to spend withhis family and fellow bohemians led him to st. paul,where he built his own house in the czech neighborhoodoff west seventh street. - he didthis fine finishing work. i think that's utterly true, because i have beautiful piecesof furniture that he made.
- this is the trunk frommy great-great-grandfather. it's what he usedon the job site at the capitol. they made their own planes.they sharpened them. that's his original. it's got his marks on it. narrator: artisanscommonly made their own tools as part of their trade, like david mcallister'sgreat-grandfather eric isaacson and his great-uncle nils nelson,swedish-born stonemasons
who served as foremenat the capitol. - i took this boxout of the garage. it had been attributedto one of my ancestors, so it was eric'sor it was nils'. a lot of times, they would maketools on site from bar steel, and a lot of these look to bethat type of thing. somebody put some energyinto that a few times. [laughs] narrator: nils nelsoncould use these tools
to cut a stone building blockto size or to carve detailed sculptures. - the marble sculpture, it'sprobably 24 to 30 inches wide. - it's a big clipper ship. uncle nils made it. narrator: artisans like nils,who had been a swedish sailor, were so confidentin their skills, they could even stand upto architect cass gilbert. - the foreman of the crewthat was setting the stone
was having to haul the stone upby rope, and they got stoppedby cass gilbert and criticizedfor doing something. and the person,nils nelson, said, "well, we don't respond to you." and so the thing was taken to beadjudicated, i guess, by one of the butler brothers. and cass gilbert reasoned that he was the captainof the ship
and so you should take ordersfrom him. and nelson said that,"i know the protocol. "the captain never gives ordersto the men. "he gives the ordersto the boatswain, and the boatswain tellsthe men." and so he said--told mr. gilbertthat "i'm the boatswain, "and mr. butler is the captain, and you, you're nothing." narrator: and general contractorwilliam butler
decided to keep nils on the job. patrick butler's namewas handed down from his great-grandfather, who left famine-stricken irelandin 1852 with a civil engineering degreefrom trinity college in dublin. the determined immigrant triedhis hand at many jobs. as a young man,he was a farmhand in the east and ran a barin galena, illinois, with his wife, mary ann,
where they often served drinksto ulysses s. grant. patrick was a teacher,contractor, and farmer near northfield, minnesota. one by one, patrick's sonsleft the farm for greater opportunitiesin growing st. paul. the older brothers,walter and william, became bricklayers and charter membersof union local number 1. they struck out on their own
and recruited their brothersjohn, cooley, and emmett to undertakesubcontracting brickwork. they soon became contractorsfor entire jobs and, partnering with mike ryan, built old mainat macalester college. winning the bidsfor general contractor to build the main structureand the dome of the capitol was the greatest challenge the new butler-ryan company
and successor,butler brothers company, had ever faced. it would test every skilland resource they had. george grant company won the bid for the first phaseof the new capitol construction: excavating and layingthe foundation. basement work was subcontractedto the lauer brothers and the universal constructioncompany. this base was constructedof limestone
from a quarry near winona. like the workers, the materialsfor the state capitol came from all over minnesota,the nation, and the world... but not without controversy. deciding on the sourceof the stone for the restof the capitol building sparked anger. architect cass gilbert, inspired by the architecturein europe
and impressed by the chicagoworld's fair of 1893, wanted the luminous whiteof marble and favored stone from georgia. minnesota businesses and laborin general argued that the statehouseshould be built entirely with minnesota materials to boost jobs and the economyof the state. the wounds of the civil warwere still in living memory, and sourcing the stonefrom a southern state
rankled many. the final compromise calledfor minnesota granite to be used for the basement and stepsof the structure and marble to coverthe upper portions of the building. the marble was broughtfrom the amicalola quarry, leased and operatedby the butler-ryan company in pickens county, georgia. most of the granite camefrom the baxter quarry
in st. joseph township,just west of st. cloud. columns inside the rotunda were shaped and finishedby a huge lathe run by the rockvillegranite company from granite quarried locally, as well as from ortonvillein western minnesota. a reddish-colored bandof quartzite circling the third-story levelof the rotunda came from an area also nearthe south dakota border.
sandstone cut from pits in whatis now banning state park supported the baseof the capitol dome. kilns in chaska, minnesota, supplied more than 2 millionbuff-colored bricks for the walls. most of the wallsinside the capitol were faced with warm-toneddolomitic limestone quarried in kasota by the babcock & wilcoxcompany.
in the capitol's interior, stone from minnesotawas augmented by more than 20 other varieties that originatedfrom all over the world, including france, greece, italy,and northern africa. while the type of stone variedfrom quarry to quarry, the labor to free itfrom the earth was much like the work in the marble pitsof pickens county, georgia.
- if you startedwith the company, you pretty much startedat the bottom unless you was the boss's son orsomething like that, you know. and they actually had-- they had something they termedas the "mud gang," and basically their jobconsisted of the hammer and wedgesfor lifting-- for breaking the stone. and so i guess that was probablya pretty dirty job.
they were workingdown in the bottom, in the mud all the time. - and marble weighs170 pounds a cubic foot, so it's pretty heavy. but back then, you lifted oneif you were told to, you know. and i'm sure that there werea lot of sore backs at night in the marble industry. [chuckles] but the men became real adeptat what they did.
they were real craftsmen. - you had to swingthem sledgehammers, you know, and them boys would get singing. we'd all hit it--you hit every one of them at the same time. narrator: while manual strengthand skill dominated quarry work, new machinery wasrevolutionizing the productivity of the industry at the closeof the 19th century.
- to pull out a block,you'd have to drill holes along the grid,all along the grid. and there are two bitsworking at the same time, and in the old days, they used steamto drive these bits, the drills. - then to cut the rocks,we had channeling machines. you'd set up here, and they hada piece of railroad track. and these thingshad two heads on them. they had five drills like this.
one of them turned one wayand the other the other way, and they set up hereall day long and go-- like that, you know. boom, boom, boom, boom,boom, boom. all day long. and back then, if it gota bit cloudy or whatnot, it'd be so dusty in the hole,you couldn't see down in there. you'd have to waittill the dust settled. - in the summertime, it getsover 100 degrees down there
because of all the reflectionon the stone. - in most of the quarries,they had ladder ropes. the ladders were actuallyconstructed of wood. and i think some of our quarriesare 180 feet deep. - you went in of a morning, and we had a break whenmost of us stayed in the hole. then we'd come out at dinnerand get 30 minutes, then go back. even the older fellas,they done that, you know.
- they got old fast. people who workedin the industry got old fast. but they supported the family. [soaring violin solo] - the people that ran the sawsand the wagons lived in the area. a number of whomused to be slaves. the carving of the stone and the artisanryshipof the stone was--
they had to import cuttersfrom vermont, from france, from italy, belgium, all over the world, actually. and i believe some of themactually ended up in minnesota at st. paul to help finish offthe state capitol there. narrator: most ofthe quarry companies were started by entrepreneurswho had worked in stone pits or cut stone themselves.
scotch immigrant stonecutterhenry alexander founded rockville granite, which became cold springgranite company west of st. cloud. albert steinbauerand the biesanz family developed quarries near winona. the vetter family took overthe limestone quarry business started by joseph babcock shortly after he helped foundthe town of kasota.
- my father's main goal in life was to start a stone businesswith his sons when they grew up. my grandfather bernardhad worked in stone in germany before he emigratedin the 1880s. settled at kasota, and hestarted a monument shop there. the old b&w management saw that he had some good talentand hired him, and he eventually was in chargeof the production for the company that furnishedthe stone for the capitol.
my father, paul, worked forthe babcock company in kasota. he first started workingin the quarry where he and his horsewere hired to run a derrick hoistin the quarry, and then he workedinto various jobs until he was in charge ofproduction for the babcock company. back in the 1930s,during the depression, he boughtthe original quarry land
where our plant is located now. at age 65, in 1954,took his life savings and bought used stone equipment, and the family basically workedfor a couple years setting up this machinery,building a building. so we operated pretty muchon a shoestring. kind of learned to walkbefore we learned to run. it's like there's stone dustin the blood. [harmonica music]
narrator: the railroads and the men who builtand ran them made it possible to constructmassive stone buildings that rose across america in the late 19thand early 20th centuries. - with the developmentof the railroads and the developmentof spur tracks, smaller tracks, it opened up these quarriesto easy transportation of these 75-ton blocksof marble.
- the rail line came adjacentto the pits, and in most cases,i'm sure they were able to extract the marblewith the derrick and place it directlyonto the rail line. narrator: whilethe minnesota capitol was to feature flags and artwork honoring the state'sunion soldiers, who fought to end slavery, the main railroad linesthat carried marble
for the statehousewere built by convict labor. overwhelminglyafrican americans, the prisoners workedunder slave-like conditions because of minor,even fabricated offenses like loiteringor speaking too loudly. the state and local governmentseven rented out these prisoners to do hard laborfor private companies, like the marietta& north georgia railroad, which built the line betweenthe marble quarries and atlanta
on the way to st. paul. [ragtime piano music] at the turn of the century,steam could power engines that pulled or liftedmassive loads on tracks or from stationary hoists. but hauling all the tonsof stone from the train depot through downtown st. paul and uphill 90 vertical feetto the capitol construction site still reliedon horse-drawn wagons
guided by teamsterslike john geary. john championedfellow workers' rights, founding teamsters local 120in minnesota. he rose to vice presidentof the international union. [cheerful fiddle music] once the stone arrivedat the capitol site, the workers and contractorshad to figure out how to get it cut to size,finished, and moved to where it belongedin the massive building.
the butlers were early adoptersof the latest innovations, like steam-powered hoists mounted on railsabove the structure that could move back and forthwherever they were needed. the son of capitol carpenterjan rachac, john rachac jr., designed other innovativefeatures at the capitol. - my great-uncle john is sort ofthe star of the family because of his associationwith cass gilbert. cass gilbert basically hired himright out of high school
and sent him to the ecoledes beaux-arts in paris, and he was in parisstudying there. and i have seen letters in whichcass gilbert directed him to please pay special attention to all the classicalarchitecture, the building facades. there's one letter in whichhe sort of admonishes him to--you know, to tryas much as possible to not have too much fun
but to actually, you know,study. and so he was in parisfrom 1900 to 1902, at which point cass gilbertcalled him back to st. paul, because he said he needed him. and it was at that point,i think, that uncle john sort of unofficially became a real primary assistantto cass gilbert, because i do knowthat he was one of-- he was an assistant architectfor the state capitol building.
narrator: likely inspiredby french architecture, john created the designfor the cantilevered staircase in the northeast corner of theminnesota capitol building-- at the time,a unique feature in america. as part of the dealto use georgia marble, the stone was to be finishedon site. a shed was built on the northwest cornerof the grounds to house the steam-poweredcutting and polishing equipment.
here, too, stonecutters used recently introducedpneumatic chisels to sculpt the statuesthat would adorn the statehouse. william butler invented a lathe to cut flutesin the massive marble columns, saving countless hours of labor. the huge equipmenthad to be anchored to the concrete floorwith iron rods. the continuous din fromthe stone-finishing machinery
could be heard many blocks away. the noise followed the workersat the end of their shifts as they walked or boardedstreetcars to go home. many immigrant workersheaded for neighborhoods where people from theirhomelands had settled together. - european immigrants settledin communities and, in a sense, gravitatedto the place where they could speaktheir language, share their culture.
narrator: a german enclavewas closest to downtown along west seventh street, with another communitynorth of university in what is now frogtown. more established immigrantshelped out newcomers, reinforcing the ethnic characterof the neighborhoods. - otto and his wife quite oftenwould rent that home out to other family members or other peoplewho were just coming here
and stay with themuntil they got on their feet and then found jobs and foundhousing for themselves. [lively piano music] narrator: germans representedthe largest ethnic group in minnesota. their influence was reflected in the capitol basementrathskeller. modeled on drinking roomsin germany's town halls, it featured mottos stenciledin german across the ceiling.
other immigrant groups occupieddistinct st. paul districts, like the bohemian neighborhoodaround west seventh street. here, carpenter jan rachacmade his home and helped build the czech and slovak protectionsociety, the csps, hall. - he and his wife,this was the central part of their socialand cultural life, and it was for my grandfatheras well. whenever my mother and i cameto minnesota,
we would always drive bythis building, and she would say,"there's the bohemian club. "that's whereyour great-grandfather and your grandfather wentall the time" for various thingsand functions. clearly, this was very importantto them in maintaining their tiesto their culture. - and this would be the place where their children wereactually taught their language.
and so we have every yeara czech play or slovak play produced in the hall. [upbeat music playing] when they would havetheir parties or festivals, the children would end upsleeping on the chairs while the parents dancedand had their good times. [cheers and applause] narrator:for the catholic bohemians, st. stanislaus church was thehub of community activities,
just as churches werefor other immigrant groups. - their churches, of course,were central to their developmentand to their socializing, to their cultural preservation. narrator: after workinglong hours in relative isolation during the week,many african-american workers came together at churcheson sundays for services and socializing. the church was the focusof community activities
for ernest jones's wife,cora lee; their children;and the next two generations. - my grandmotherwas an active member of st. james a.m.e. church, african methodistepiscopal church. my grandmotherwas on the usher board. she was--she was thereevery sunday, i think, until maybe she wasabout maybe 99. that was a loving church.
we'd have may day,and we'd run around the pole with the crepe paper and stuff. narrator: unions also brought membersand their families together. - my mother remembersthat every sunday, all of the masons would go outfor a picnic during the summertime,and they would play, and they would have great fun,and they would cook food. narrator: but workersneeded unions
for more than socializing. members banded together to deal with severeeconomic disparities and the harsh, sometimesdangerous and violent conditions of turn-of-the-centuryworkplaces. - there's a storyof the tradition of having to be a better manthan the person you fired, so you were supposed toknock somebody down before you could fire them.
and there was a shovel runner that came acrossone of the butler brothers, and so--i don't knowwhich one it was, whether it was emmett or not,went to fire the shovel runner and went up to knock him downbefore he fired him and got knocked down instead. so he tried againand got knocked down instead. so the shovel runnernever got fired, 'cause he couldn't beknocked down.
narrator: most of the womenwho contributed to the constructionand furnishing of the capitol worked at a distancefrom the building. in the butler-ryan office, catherine butler, no relation,worked as a stenographer. a new york company that manufactured furniturefor the statehouse was co-owned by a woman. the elegant downtowndepartment store schuneman's
supplied capitol draperies, some sewed on locationby seamstresses. several of the womenwho did work on the statehouseconstruction site-- like laborers anna young,josie sheeran, and mary walker-- lived at the houseof the good shepherd, a catholic home for impoverishedwomen and girls. the residents supported the homewith a commercial laundry. the statehouse construction site
could be a rough placeand a dangerous one. six workers died in the courseof building the state capitol. the first worker to losehis life was felix arthur, who came north with the marbleshipped from georgia. on may 4, 1898, felix was workingon a stone-polishing machine when he got caughtin the flywheel. he died in the hospitalearly the next morning. felix was only 25 years old.
his body was returnedto nelson, georgia, where his parents wereso distraught, they left the areaand moved to texas. john biersack, 36-year-old son of bavarian immigrantsto wisconsin, died in october 1898 a few days after he fellfrom a derrick. these accidents stirred upcontroversy in the newspapers about safety conditionsat the capitol site
and even garneredthe public concern of the labor commissionerand state attorney. yet four more men fellto their deaths in the following five years, not to mentionnonfatal injuries. the state could inspect sitesand request accident reports but had no authority to enforcesafety rules or fine employers. - i think the level of safetywhen this building was built was based on everybody's senseof their own judgment
and their own sense of safety,what they were comfortable with. you know, there was no osha. there were--again, your safetywas your own responsibility. and if you made a mistake,you paid dearly for it. narrator: the lastfatal accident happened in 1903 when 18-year-old john corriganfell 32 feet near the senate chamber. the young man,just a week or two on the job, was pushing a heavily loadedwheelbarrow
across three narrow planks when it tipped overand he fell with it. the outrageover young corrigan's death may have had an effect. he was the last worker to diebuilding the capitol. - there were no hard hats or any kind of protectionfor the head. the scaffolding was builton site, and everythingwas cobbled together
using whatever was available. i mean, the handrailsand the guardrails that are now partof all these projects are there for a reason. i think every safety implementyou see, as you look across the roofsand at the scaffolding, is because of some unfortunateaccident in the past. and there are organizationsthat monitor that. narrator: none of the workerswho were killed
in capitolconstruction accidents had children. their names were not collectedin any one place, and they were neverpublicly acknowledged, not until workers'memorial day ceremonies on the capitol groundsin 2011 and 2012 finally recognized the sacrificethese tradesmen made. - today we are hereto recognize also five individualsthat lost their life
building the people's houseover 100 years ago. narrator: there was little financialor legal responsibility on the part of the employeror the government for the consequencesof accidents. the costs of workplace injuriesand deaths were left mainly to individualworkers and their families. stonemason eric isaacson hada disabling accident in 1917. - he went to workfor butler construction
until he fell from scaffoldingand broke his back. his daughter lillianmust have been about 15 or so, and she wentto johnson high school. she had to leave johnsonand go to work, because he couldn't work anymorewith a broken back. and i know butler didn't haveany insurance for them, so there wasn't any insurancefor bricklayers in those days, unfortunately. narrator: to ease the impactof illness, accident, or death,
many workers joined togetherin unions, fraternal organizations, andethnic mutual benefit societies. members pooled their money and helped one anotherwhen misfortune struck. marvin's grandfather appliedhis experience in his trade and in his union when he left st. paulto return to chicago. - he knew what he wanted to do,and he did it. and he wasan extremely strong man.
he worked right into his 60sin chicago, where he had formed the black bricklayers'association in chicago. narrator: marvin's niecejennifer became intrigued about her great-grandfatherernest and dug into his storyfor an article she wrote. - this man was an enigma to me, and so the more i found outabout him, the more i wanted to knowabout him.
here's a pictureof my great-grandfather, and he's got a headdress on. he's half cherokee, i believe,and half african american. this is my ancestor,and i'm so proud of him. i mean, it's just--it gives me strength. narrator: the contributionsof the builders to creating such an iconicminnesota landmark have continued to reverberate through generationsof their families
in very personal ways. - i have always feltthis very special connection to my great-grandfather. - you know,you know that somewhere, in amongst all the woodworkingthat was done at the capitol, he was there. he was responsiblefor some of it. so we have this connection not only with himand the work that he did
but with the capitol. it's a gift. narrator: marvin andersonbecame an attorney and the minnesota statelaw librarian. - we had an officein the state capitol, so i'm walking throughthis building every day. i'm wondering if i'm hearing the echoes of my grandfatheror not. he worked on this building.
my mother was very, very proudof it, you know. "papa did this.papa did that," you know. "you're working where papa..." "papa helped buildthat building." i mean, of course, accordingto my mother and aunt mary, he was probably the only masonon the whole building. nobody--no one else had anythingto do with it except papa. narrator: the capitol building has been at the centerof public life
for the people of the statesince the cornerstone was laid. this is the placewhere minnesotans come together to express their opinionsand their remembrance. - the very intentionfor the building to be put up was to be a place--the housefor the people and for celebratingour civic ability and our society and our civilized abilityto come together to create a place for everyoneto come together and meet.
narrator: glen johnson supervised the liftingof the quadriga, the golden horse statue, when restoration workwas necessary to preserve it. - i rememberwhen i was a little kid, i came up here for--when we were in grade school and got to touch these things. and to get a chance to comeup here and work on them, that was fabulous.
i think we just kind of take itfor granted, the craftsmanship that was putinto these buildings, and i don't thinkwe could afford to build this today,not like this. so the craftsmanship in here,it's just--it's unbelievable. and you can think of the hoursand the years it took to put this thing all togetheris just-- it's just unbelievablethat it's still here and it's this good of shapestill, after 100 years.
things wear out,and they break down, and the weatherin this country's harsh, and you got to take careof what you own. and this is the people's. it belongs to the people. narrator: the minnesotastatehouse is admired throughout the stateand across the nation. the beauty and significanceof this minnesota jewel is all the more profound
when we rediscoverand remember the men and womenwho built our capitol. [classical piano flourish]