Daily AncestorIronworker
An ironworker put up the steel and iron frames of buildings and bridges; in older use the word also meant a worker in an ironworks.
Wiktionary gives two senses. The modern one is a construction worker who assembles the metal frame of large buildings. The archaic one is a person employed to make and shape iron, or do related labor, in an ironworks.
Ironworkers also set reinforcing bars in concrete and repair old structures. Historically they worked mainly with wrought and cast iron. An ironworker is not the same as a blacksmith, who forges and tempers iron by hand.
As seen in a recordOccupation and industry columns of the 1910 to 1940 census
Joseph Tewatha, 32, Ironworker, Bridge construction
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Ironworker." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/ironworker. Last checked 2026-10-12.