A Child of Toil: The Life of Charles Snow, 1831-1889

xiv, 315 pp. Charles Snow grew up in Pulaski, New York, where his father owned and operated an iron foundry. He became an apprentice molder at an early age and was a journeyman molder by his late teens. In 1853, married and a father, Snow moved his new family to Ottawa, Illinois, to work in the burgeoning iron works to help supply a young nation's demand for railroad car wheels, plows, tools, and even window sash weights.