Matthaeus worked as a lumberjack. Lumberjacks are workers in the logging industry who perform the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to a bygone era (before 1945 in the United States) when hand tools were used in harvesting trees. Because of its historical ties, the term lumberjack has become ingrained in popular culture through folklore, mass media and spectator sports. The actual work was difficult, dangerous, intermittent, low-paying, and primitive in living conditions, but the men built a traditional culture that celebrated strength, masculinity, confrontation with danger, and resistance to modernization. Some of the tools that he might of used:
- Up until the 1880s, lumberjacks felled trees with axes. The custom of using the cross-cut or "misery whip" saw began in Pennsylvania and spread from there. The unhappy name for this tool comes from the difficulty and frustration of using a saw that they could not keep sharp enough. Misery whips came in a variety of sizes, depending on the tree to be cut down. The saws ranged from the one-man saw (which could be as short as three feet) to the two-man saw (which could be as long as 16 feet). Felling saws were the flexible and relatively light saws lumberjacks used for cutting the trees down. Bucking saws were the heavier and less-flexible saws used for cutting logs on the ground.
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