This Floor Ain't Big Enough For the Five of Us

Ryan Kushner Headshot
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The perfect Texan wood flooring pic doesn't exi—oh, here it is. This 1890 gem taken at the "Dick Coons House" in Austin, Texas, was recently discovered by Central South Carpenters Regional Council Rep Sean Forkner while going through old boxes at the Carpenters Union Hall in Austin. Comments written on the back of the photograph shed insight on the trade's history: "The first 8-hour job in Austin. Carpenter work was daywork $2.50 to $3.00 per day for 8 hours work, which was the prevailing wage for union men on all 10-hour jobs at the time." The semi-annoyed facial expressions of the floor planers in the photo, which boasts a composition to rival Gustave Caillebotte's famed "The Floor Planers," seem to shed even more insight for onlookers, namely: "Quit gawking and let us get back to work."

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