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<td style="padding-bottom: 1em;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
style="color: blue;"
href="http://www.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=114189">Manual labor
is main focus of Albright class</a><br>
<font size="-1"><font color="#666666">Reading Eagle -
Reading,PA,USA</font><br>
Ronning got the idea for the hands-on lesson in 2007 when his wife gave
him a Father's Day gift of a <b>glass-blowing</b> class at <big><big><big><b>GoggleWorks
Center for the Arts</b></big></big></big>. <b>...</b><br>
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<div class="ArticleDateIssue">11/17/2008</div>
<h1 class="ArticleHeadline">Manual labor is main focus of Albright
College class</h1>
<div class="ArticleByline">By Rebecca VanderMeulen</div>
<div class="ArticleBylineAffiliation">Reading Eagle</div>
<br>
<div class="ArticleBody">Students in one Albright College course aren't
just learning about America's working class - they're getting a chance
to make products that are part of the nation's industrial past.<br>
<br>
"The people that we study in this class are manual workers, the people
who are engaged in making products, the people who make things with
their hands," said Dr. Gerald Ronning, an Albright history professor.<br>
<br>
Ronning got the idea for the hands-on lesson in 2007 when his wife gave
him a Father's Day gift of a glass-blowing class at GoggleWorks Center
for the Arts.<br>
<br>
Pennsylvania and other Appalachian states were major
glass-manufacturing areas until about the 1920s, he said.<br>
<br>
While standing in front of a 2,100-degree furnace at the GoggleWorks,
he thought of the people who did that work for a living.<br>
<br>
"It's searingly hot," Ronning said. "It melted the hair off my arms,
literally."<br>
<br>
This semester, Ronning decided to add some class time at the
GoggleWorks to give students a taste of the early American industrial
experience.<br>
<br>
"It's just a way to translate intellectual learning into physical
experience," Ronning said. "Is it hard work? Is it scary? Does it smell
bad?"<br>
<br>
So far, Albright students have made tables in the GoggleWorks wood shop
and dishes in the ceramics studio.<br>
<br>
During one recent class, 13 students met in the hot-glass studio for a
tutorial on glass blowing.<br>
<br>
Artist Helen M. Tegeler showed them how to take the glass pipe from the
furnace, dip it into water and blow through a pipe to make a bubble out
of the melted material at the end. <br>
<br>
If students didn't get a bubble, they had to return the tube to a
reheating chamber, take it out and try again.<br>
<br>
Freshman Mikael K. Ozment said that before Ronning's class he had no
idea how glass blowing worked. The experience made him think about what
it must have been like to do the manual labor that's required.<br>
<br>
"It definitely really immerses you in the working-class history and the
time and the work," Ozment said.<br>
<br>
Junior Alex J. Bolaski, who is studying history and art, agreed.<br>
<br>
"Would I really want to do this 16 hours a day, six days a week, not
getting paid very much and no compensation when I get hurt?" Bolaski
wondered.<br>
<br>
Sophomore Cindy M. Karupnik said some of the work, such as feeding wood
into a machine in the wood shop, was so tedious that it was easy to
lose focus.<br>
<br>
"After a while you'd forget that your hands were above the saw," she
said.<br>
<br>
And sophomore Christina A. Williams said it was difficult to make
dishes in the ceramics shop that looked just like the models the
students were shown. It made her appreciate the efforts of American
immigrants whose livelihoods depended on making identical dishes every
day.<br>
<br>
"I couldn't imagine the fear," Williams said. "You would be fired. Your
family would starve."<br>
<br>
Williams also was glad for the windows at GoggleWorks, which provided
an open view to the outside to break the monotony. She recalled
learning in Ronning's class about workers who went on strike when
factory bosses painted the windows dark.<br>
<br>
"I definitely needed the window," Williams said. "Doing the work is
interesting, but the tedious stuff was putting me to sleep."<br>
<br>
<img src="cid:part1.05030507.04030905@glassblower.info"
style="opacity: 1;" id="lbImage" height="304" width="500"><br>
<br>
<span id="_ctl0_ContentPlaceHolder1_lblArticleData">Albright history
professor Dr. Gerald Ronning watches junior Alex Bolaski, 21, of
Springfield, Vt., put molten material on a blow tube during a class at
GoggleWorks Center for the Arts.</span><br>
<br>
<img src="cid:part2.09070400.04010505@glassblower.info"
style="opacity: 1;" id="lbImage" height="339" width="500"><br>
<br>
<span id="_ctl0_ContentPlaceHolder1_lblArticleData">Junior Eden Young,
20, of Fuquay Varina, N.C., attempts to blow a bubble under the
instruction of GoggleWorks glass artist Helen Tegeler.</span><br>
<br>
<img src="cid:part3.08010204.09050200@glassblower.info"
style="opacity: 1;" id="lbImage" height="367" width="500"><br>
<br>
<span id="_ctl0_ContentPlaceHolder1_lblArticleData">A student heats the
glass on the end of the blow tube.</span><br>
<br>
<img src="cid:part4.06010205.02030004@glassblower.info" alt=""><br>
<br>
<span id="_ctl0_ContentPlaceHolder1_lblArticleData">Freshman Mikael
Ozment, 20, of Reading practices the blowing technique with a balloon
before moving to molten glass.</span><br>
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