Brickmaker

Fired bricks are among the oldest and longest-lasting building materials. Making them was hard, staged work: mixing clay and water into a thick paste, packing it into wooden frames of a standard size, drying the shaped bricks and then burning them in a kiln.

In a well-known account of brickmaking in Ming China, judging the kiln's heat was the master's skill, while mixing and molding fell to laborers. A brickmaker in a census may likewise be either the owner of a brickyard or one of its hands.