Funny Ironworker Hats

Ironworkers call themselves the Marines of the building trades, and the nickname the public knows is Cowboys of the Sky. The trade has deep roots: the International Association was formed in 1896, apprenticeship is described as extended and rigorous, and work is seldom steady. Mohawk raising gangs built skyscrapers including the Goldman Sachs Tower. Members work steel, not iron, despite the name, which is fair joke territory. The most famous ironworker image of all, Lunch Atop a Skyscraper, was photographed on September 20, 1932, showing eleven men on a beam of the RCA Building, roughly 850 feet up. It was a staged publicity stunt, which has never stopped anyone from claiming the lunch-on-a-beam life. These funny ironworker hats take that pride and that nerve and put them on a dad hat. COWBOY OF THE SKY is the trade's own phrase, set in the first person, and gets a second colorway along with I EAT LUNCH ON A STEEL BEAM, a wink at the 1932 photograph. Others cover walking high steel, doing your own stunts, commuting by crane, and treating the floor as optional. Two plain badges, IRONWORKER and STRUCTURAL IRONWORKER, anchor the search terms, and STEEL ERECTOR names the job plainly. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat. Give one to the ironworker in your family or wear it up the next column yourself.