Steel Worker Photo Badge, Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp. Watervliet, NY

In considering how to explain why this c. 1960s-70s photo badge struck me, it occurred to me that driver's licenses and employee badges are a bit like modern portrait miniatures, and perhaps the most enduring portraits of ourselves most of us have. And, in thinking about the history and future of factory labor in this country, the employee badge of young male worker at the Allegheny Steel Company c. late 1960s/early 70s feels pretty poignant. (He looks a bit like a Raging Bull/Taxi Driver era Robert DeNiro, too.) The Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp was formed via the merger of Ludlum Steel of Watervliet, NY and the Allegheny Steel Company of Pittsburgh, PA in 1938, and went on to employ about 1,000 workers, with the Watervliet location specializing in manufacturing steel which was used for airplane motors. (The corporation was sold to Al-Tech Specialty Steel in 1976, which later closed, leaving the factory empty.) In recent years, many laborers who worked at the Watervliet plant  in the 60