Samuel Yellin's Legacy Transcript
I love the iron; it is the stuff of which the game of earth is made and you can make it say anything you will. It eloquently responds to the hand at the bidding of the imagination.
---Samuel Yellin, Philadelphia 1925
- [Francis] At that time, Yellin was at his absolute prime. The Federal Reserve Bank job was the largest commission of this century in this country, 400,000 pounds of wrought iron. And Yellin used to go down to Ellis Island and meet the immigrants and ask if there were any blacksmiths. The Federal Reserve Bank was such a large job. I can remember the job number, 2182, and I think there were 120 drawing sheets for that work.
- [Worker] There's a lot of surface rust, but I don't poke through anywhere.
- I'm Clare Yellin and these lights were made in my shop. These lights are coming back to my shop. You know, it would be interesting to take a look at it on the other one 'cause I just found out today that this light came down about five years ago and someone else restored it.
- [Worker] Right underneath the fixture, there's a strap. Pull it up to the top and go down and put some soft padding underneath it.
- That took most of the productivity of Yellin's for the time I was there. I was only there for a year. I was 15. I told my father I had had enough school learning. I wanted to do something with my hands. My father was editor of the Journal of the American Institute of Architects. He know York and Sawyer, who were the architects for the Federal Reserve Bank, and he also know that Yellin had this tremendous commission for the work on the Federal Reserve Bank, so he got me the opportunity to work at Yellin's. Yellin was a master in every way. He was a master of his craft. He was a master at handling his workmen. He was a master in handling his clients. A rare combination. And a good businessman. He was a very dynamic person, friendly, firm, conscientious, humorous. The name for Yellin when he came to this country was the devil with a hammer in his hand . He was a wizard. He had the architects where every smith would love to have them, wrapped right around his little finger. I think he's influenced American blacksmithing more than anyone in the 20th century.
- For me, Yellin has always been like a God. I don't know, I mean, from the first references I heard of Yellin through Francis Whitaker, and then the first time I got my hands on a brochure of Yellin, I was just totally mystified by this person and his work, and he still to me, his work is just without peer, even in the world. And I've been to Europe on several occasions and seen some of the finest work they have over there and Samuel Yellin's work is still something really, really special, that it's just very unique and it's very inspirational to me. It's almost intimidating, actually, which is maybe not good, but I hold it in great, great reverence.
- [Clare] My grandfather was born in 1885 in Galicia, Poland, an area near Krakow. He showed an interest in metalwork at a very early age and he became a master blacksmith at the age of 17, though he came from a Jewish family of scholars, not people who liked to work with their hands. After his apprenticeship, he traveled through Europe studying with master craftsmen in different cities. There he got to see firsthand the architecture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. When he was 21, he moved to Philadelphia, where his mother and sister had emigrated. Even though in Europe he had already been a trained craftsman, and a master craftsman at that, the only work he was able to get in this country was simple fabrication work in a factory making brass beds. But after only three years, he had saved enough money to open his own shop in Philadelphia. Two years later, he got his first big break when he went to the office of Frank LaFarge, a well-known architect in New York City. LaFarge had just ordered some large gates for a client that were going to be made in England. LaFarge was so impressed with the sketches and the samples that my grandfather showed him that he canceled the order on the spot for the gates and gave the commission to my grandfather. It just so happened that LaFarge's client was J.P. Morgan. After that, the business grew very fast. In 1915, he moved the business into a building on Arch Street, which was built for him by architects Mellor and Meigs. This is the shop in 1927. There are 198 people in this photograph, but the shop actually employed around 270 men at that time, many of them recent immigrants from all over Europe. In the 1930s, there was much less demand for ornamental metalwork, both because of the Depression and because of changing architectural styles. The shop gradually got much smaller in those years. My grandfather died in 1940. He was only 55 years old.
- I call the union and union came over and say, "I have a good place for you." The owner, he came from Polond and he more understandable that maybe those people over there. And he send me here to talk to Harvey Yellin . So when I come in, I talk to Harvey and he say, "Well, I need a welder very bad." Galicia, that's where Sam Yellin came from when he was a young fellow. And soon I mentioned that to Harvey, his son. And he said, "Well, that's where my father came from." He said, "I'll be glad to have you working here." It was a good place to work in here. Harvey was on it before Mrs. Yellin take over and Mrs. Yellin and Clare is terrific boss, let's put this way.
- [Clare] We'll have a little bit of a diagram saying-
- Good idea.
- [Clare] That this is the curved section here that needs doing. So I figured-
- Where was this?
- [Clare] Oh, this was one of the-
- [Worker] Was it a drawing?
- [Clare] This is one of the original drawings. This is one of the side elevations.
- Okay, now, that's a nice idea.
- So I figured that this would make it very clear.
- This would show exactly-
- What we're doing. That this part was missing.
- That's the only thing that won't show, and you will have to say.
- Sure, underneath. And we have the Polaroid shots for that. A large project that we're working on right now is the complete restoration of the lights at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City. Several months ago, we got an emergency call saying that parts were falling off the lights onto the sidewalk. The lights had to be completely disassembled. Many of the parts had to be refabricated and reforged. Things that had to be reforged were new leaves, new rosettes, and they were all made out of mild steel because wrought iron is just not available these days.
- I would like to see this thing when it was built because there was a lots of work to and they have to have a pretty good man to shape those things and those leaf like they did and making those acorns and the flower here. That's been quite a good job. We could do that too but it'd probably take us twice maybe as long as they did it 'cause, actually, we don't have a good blacksmiths too many any more. We got some in the shop, not bad. Bob over there, he gonna be a blacksmith one of these day, and George is a blacksmith. Chris downstairs, he gonna be good blacksmith one of these day. So gonna take a little while for those guys to catch it up. That's... Now, when I get over like that, I gonna tack another bar over here and then go ahead and just weld about an inch and a half down and underneath and then swing down and put in this fella here and that's going to be the job.
- I never met Samuel Yellin. Samuel Yellin had been dead three years when I met his son Harvey. Harvey and I were married in 1946. I met my mother-in-law after I'd had about three dates with my husband at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel, not the dates with Harvey at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel, but my mother in-law was at a banquet that night, and we went down to, Harvey was picking her up and taking her back home, and I immediately liked her and she apparently immediately liked me, which she told me later. We got along very well. We drove home from the Benjamin Franklin Hotel to her house and we stopped in front of the shop on the way home and she told me all about what the shop meant to her and to Harvey and to Samuel and what it meant being able to carry it on. And we had a wonderful, wonderful conversation, we just really did, and she told me how she was trying to hold up the business and how important it was and she instilled in me the love of the business that night. She was really the one who did. My father in-law died, Samuel Yellin, died in 1940, in October and my mother in-law took over running the business shortly after he died. And she had never had anything to do with the business. She was a typical women of her times. Leah was very active in all kinds of organizations and all. She didn't care too much about learning about the business and neither did her husband care about teaching her anything about the business. But she came in here and the shop had not too much work. There were about 30 people working at the shop. There were some jobs they were finishing up, but no more new jobs, ornamental metal jobs, had come in to the shop for several years. She then was approached by four of the men at the shop, the four top men, saying that they wanted to buy the business. She told these men that she didn't need 48 hours to tell them. She and Samuel had worked hard to keep the business going, and for Harvey, who would be graduating from college in a few months, and she was going to run the business until he could take over. And she ran the business, she had to let about 12 of the men go, but she kept a staff of around 12 people here and they went out immediately to get Navy contracts from the Navy yard in Philadelphia and all from that time until the war was over, from 1941, early 1941, until the war was over, they had many Navy contracts. And sometimes during those years, they had two shifts working here, and she made a profit every year, not much but she kept the shop going.
- They look great.
- Yeah, they look really nice.
- [Worker] I'm sure he'll be happy.
- There's something though, the glass that came in here was a combination. There were some large plexiglass globes. There were some large glass globes. Also, all the small wall sconces had. I started working at the shop in June of 1987. And several months prior to that, we got a large job for a private home called Elm Court. This estate contained a lot of original Yellin metalwork. The shop is currently restoring much of this work, both inside and outside. We are also fabricating new work to match the style of the old Yellin metalwork. The house was built in 1929 in the Collegiate Gothic style. It was just a wonderful learning experience, not only to learn about the different types of metals that we're using here, but also in the different designs and the different art styles. For example, learning about architects. This house was designed by Benno Janssen, and Benno Janssen was an English Gothic, but he also then went into Art Deco, did a lot of work for the Kaufmans. And Janssen had a conflict of design style with Frank Lloyd Wright.
- [Worker] Just tucking it in with lead wool and then tying that all back in to make it a solid fit.
- [Clare] There was an exhibit in Pittsburgh, a traveling Yellin exhibit, and the owner who had recently purchased Elm Court was fascinated with iron and found out that there was the exhibit and met my father. And from what I hear, I've heard stories from my mother tell me and other people that when the two men met, my dad and the owner, that there was a love of metal, of how beautiful it is. They just shared that. And from there, it was brought to the architects' attention that, yes, if you want to do other metalwork similar in the style that was done when this house was completed in 1929, that there is a metal shop that made the original iron in this house that is still in business and still doing the same quality work and that's how, and we were contacted by the architects. This was around 1986.
- The architect of this house had used Samuel Yellin quite extensively. This is something we've learned over the years. And Samuel Yellin was very used to working with architects of this period and just sort of complementing the architecture, and I think as you walk through the house, it's quite evident the architect and the metalworker worked in conjunction. The designs work very well with the whole house. Every room had its own theme down to the doorknobs, the light fixtures. I mean, there was a real theme going in every room and Samuel Yellin took that kind of an idea and it seems like the architect just sort of went along with it and their creativeness is very evident today.
- You can turn the corner and look at a window you never saw and see a view or a carving or a little metal detail. It's just amazing to see the variety, the imagination that went into every little detail. Well, you learn a lot about how materials can be used. You learn a lot about what can be done. And it doesn't really matter about the aesthetic, whether it's modern or Gothic or classical. The way you use material and what can and can't be done, and that's what we really learned on this job. Just what's possible. So we started with Yellin in just adding new light fixtures at the second level to complement the original ones on the first level. And then as things went on, all the hardware, all the new doors, the doorknobs, the hinges, the switch plates, the railings, and the grilles. And so it slowly expanded to where the new Yellin work has probably eclipsed the original in volume. And really, because it went so slowly, I think it gave the Yellin shop a chance to really come back to that same level that they had originally. That as it was starting out, they weren't really used to doing this type of work anymore. But each fixture and each grille, each time we had a new thing to work on, we learned more from it and really-
- [Worker] The client was very happy and was willing to continue with them and to allow them to continue the way the original house did just doing all the metalwork.
- [Clare] What this house represents to the shop was the, as far as from the past and the present in my grandfather's time, this was typical of the type of work that he did that made him well-known all around the country. And to know that we are continuing that style and moving on and doing our own work and yet it's side by side with work that was done in 1929, it's a feeling of continuity. It's a feeling of, yes, I can see my grandfather nodding and saying, "Yes, I'm glad that this is carrying on." The Curtis Institute of Music is a well-known music school located in Philadelphia. We were commissioned to make new grilles for their front door. Curtis is undergoing a major restoration. Much of the other metalwork and ironwork at Curtis was made at the shop during my grandfather's time. When Hy came to the shop on the 17th and he met with with mom and George and Lou and me and we went over some ideas and then George and I met Hy down at Curtis to go over some onsite design.
- And that's when we talked about the exit bar and that stuff, yeah.
- That's it.
- What you're all referring is the basic preliminary design considerations, the floral geometry, keeping the theme of the other doors intact, and also with the considerations of keeping the space open so as not to obscure much light. Basically took these concepts of the crossed scrolls, rotated them as in that one side door, and where these scrolls are more geometric, these terminate in a floral, whereas this center is more floral, this is geometric. So it's a basically a mixture of the two doors.
- Right. What I like about these doors is the relationship of the openness there to the openness in the doors. That's a good thing. On the other hand, both sides I'm looking at, my first feeling about the panels were that they were too big in scale. I mean, the three panels. And that seemed like the scale was too big, especially when you open the door and you walk through this scale and the very next scale is minute in comparison.
- The quatrefoil, right.
- Quatrefoil. So I feel looking at this design for the very first time, and I'd like to go look at it in the field again with a sketch, is that that scale differentiation is too severe. But I, again, like the opening because this is gonna be open. So I don't know if we can keep the openness and just reduce the scale just a bit. But I do like the relationship of that design to this openness. And I think you're right, picking up the side motif as an idea and bringing this motif across is certainly a good way. And I like that concept.
- Those are the lines you're making. Okay.
- I got it.
- [Worker] What is?
- [George] Ooh, it is. That's what I thought would happen. This is not working.
- [Clare] It's still.
- [Worker] Clare, is .
- [George] This is gonna only be here for a few minutes
- [Worker] They're very pretty. Or they would be very pretty.
- They will be very pretty.
- They will be.
- [Worker] They will be very pretty .
- [Clare] If you need to go in the door, you can.
- I think it's quite good.
- [George] Make my day.
- [Clare] Yeah, good idea.
- [Worker] Because the overlays will blow away.
- We're talking about this.
- Yeah. Excuse me.
- That top will be straight.
- Oh, yes, yes, yes.
- I like it, Hy, because it still keeps sort of the open look.
- Yeah, exactly, yeah.
- It's a beautiful design.
- And I like it because I'm looking at this and then that. The sketches in iron, I think, are very important to see next. So if we could get, you know, a corner that would show that attachment, the perimeter attachment, these attachment, this attachment.
- [George] So they can make from this side of this bar to this side of this bar.
- Yeah, that would tell us a real story about every connection.
- [George] It does. It gives you all the elements and all the joinery.
- So I think you need that sketch in iron, and that's kind of the last major element before you go into production.
- [George] Sounds good to me.
- In Samuel Yellin's time, the material was wrought iron. Today it's steel. The difference is that wrought iron is basically pure mineral iron that's been forged repeatedly until its structure has been refined so that it can be used for delicate work. In commercial work, such as bridges, industrial work, the wrought iron was of a less finer grade. It had not been worked as much before it was actually considered to be a merchantable bar. Samuel Yellin's time they used what was called triple refined wrought iron, which had been worked repeatedly in a factory sense until it was ready to be worked in an ornamental sense. Today's steel is stronger, less expensive, and cleaner to produce. As a result, there's not enough ornamental demand for wrought iron. Wrought iron was not made anymore after, commercially after the war. Wrought iron, again, going back to it being a pure mineral iron as opposed to an alloy like steel, can be taken to a much higher temperature before it'll burn. As a result, it's more plastic at a higher temperature. Steel has carbon in it. That's what makes iron steel is the addition of carbon and carbon burns at a little over 2,000, 2100 degrees. So as a result, you cannot take the steel to a temperature that is as high as the iron, hence it's not as plastic. So as a result, it's harder to work. What we're in the process of making is one of the 32 Florentine leaves that are the primary decorative element in the two panels we're doing for the Curtis doors. Each subsection of the panel has four of these leaves set in opposition with a rosette in the center and we're in the process of drawing the leafy aspect, if you will, of the piece out using fullers to spread the material. As we work the bar from a 5/8 square out into the different cross-sections that form this Florentine leaf, we have to be very attentive to the heating 'cause we've changed the cross-section in some places from 5/8 of an inch square down to as much as, as little rather, as an 1/8 of an inch. It's very easy in the process of heating a thick part to burn off a thin one. Chris controls the amount of energy that's imparted as well as helping to control the direction of the tool by changing the aspect of his hammer so that when I lay the fuller at an angle, he strikes from that angle. He has a lot more to do than simply drive the tool. He has to pay attention to what I'm doing with the angle of the tool, what part of the piece we're working on, how thick it is. It'd be very easy for him to, not paying attention, drive the tool completely through a thin piece. I went to the one workshop that I had the opportunity to go to in northern Minnesota when I was trying to learn this work and a man there had a book that had just been published called "The Edge of the Anvil," which was a book on blacksmithing written by a man who is one of the designers here, Jack Andrews. In the back of that book was a section of photographs of work by a Samuel Yellin and I was thoroughly amazed. I'd never seen work of that complexity or scope in my life. Totally intimidated by it also. Figured, "I'll never do that." And then in about six or eight years, to have come full circle, to be working with Jack Andrews in the shop of Samuel Yellin with the museum full of pieces that were the subject of the photographic study in the back of the book is nothing short of amazing to this kid. Well, from seeing the photos of the work and at that same time having aspirations to be a blacksmith, but having the economic reality of having to do metal fabrication to make a living in the part of Minnesota I was from, I figured that it would be very difficult to ever get to that point. But eventually I closed my fabrication business and went back to college. And in the evenings going to school, I practiced ornamental metalwork with a gas torch in my basement until such time as I got a commission to do a coffee table. I made the coffee table. People said, "Have you ever built a coffee table?" Not ever having built one, I said, "You bet," because I wanted the work. And from there, built the coffee table, borrowed it back from them, put it into a show the Artist Blacksmith Association had in Birmingham, Alabama, about four years ago. The Yellins were there, they were in need of a head blacksmith at that time, and they called about two, three months later and my wife came out to the little garage shop I had and told me that the Yellins were on the phone. And I knew that Samuel Yellin had died in the '40s and I thought that all this was was a museum along the lines of Williamsburg. So I didn't believe her. And when I didn't come into the house, she ran back out and dragged me in and it turned out for sure they were on the phone. They offered me the job of head blacksmith. They flew me out for a week to see about the job. We liked each other and sold the house, packed up my wife and children, and moved to Rome, also known as Philadelphia. By rocking it as I hammer it, I can true it up so that each point's making contact underneath the point of impact. When I set out to design this, I thought primarily about the criterion that the client had set, and one was that it be aesthetically pleasing and match the basic tenor of the front doorway, which had quite a bit of floral work carved in the stone settings around it, and also that it reflect some continuity with the existing Yellin work that is on the building. In that case, there were rectilinear grilles that had an X pattern of scrollwork and I thought that if we were to take and do an X pattern based on floral work, that would then tie in the basic geometry of the Yellin work and the floral aspects of the stone work that were around the building. As a result, we came up with this floral grid that they like so I assume that it achieved both of their criterion. There was no period in blacksmithing where they stopped, looked at themselves, and said, "We are tradition. We're not gonna go further with anything." And in that sense, Samuel Yellin incorporated oxyacetylene cutting and welding, which was a technique that was only about 30 years old at that time. He incorporated electric welding as it came on where appropriate and utilized forge welding traditional techniques where they were appropriate. Now, he skewed far more towards the traditional techniques because he had men who were trained for it, he had materials that responded to it. It takes me maybe half an hour to get a fire going to where I have good temperature, and if I have a small piece to do, that half an hour gets billed against that piece. Whereas if I have a torch with a high-intensity flame on it, I can be hot 30 seconds after I think about it, and as a result, the work can be done with the benefit of that budget and have the look. Those are the kind of trade-offs that electric welding, gas torches, allow us to make.
- My dad was a blacksmith. Dad worked here for over 40 years. He worked for Samuel Yellin. He also worked for Harvey Yellin. This was the only job that my father ever had when he came over from Italy. My dad used to come to work dressed every day, came with a business suit, his straw hat, neck tie. Our neighbors, they did not know what my dad did really. I guess he was kind of ashamed because he got so dirty doing what he did, you know? And when he came home from work at night, you know, people thought that my dad worked in a bank really. So he didn't bother to explain to them what he did. He was quite satisfied for them to believe that he had an office job or something like that. Always came dressed. But I know my dad loved his work, for him to work here that many years. One odd thing, my father never talked much of what he did, never bragged to say, "Wow, you know, I did this and we worked on this." There were a few jobs that I remember when I was quite young. He had taken my brother and I and my mom down to Washington and showed us the cathedral and the work that they had done there. And he had quite a big hand in most of that work. I worked with my dad for about a year or a year and a half, in the same shop. I never worked with him down on the forge. I'm fortunate to have some of the old timers that were here that I've learned a lot from. And I try to pass on what I know to some of the younger fellas today. My title is manager and this all came about after Harvey Yellin became ill and I was running between Harvey's house and the shop. That's really how it all came about. I got along pretty good with Harvey.
- [Receptionist] Samuel Yellin Metalworkers.
- [Lou] But it's been a pleasure working with Clare and Mrs. Yellin.
- When my very precious husband died in July of 1985 and I came to the shop and there were five people here, Lou and Pete and Robert and Fred and Jack Andrews, and I gathered them around and said, "You know, we don't have much work. We just have one contract that Harvey signed about two weeks before he went into the hospital and it's a job for the Brooklyn Borough Hall that we don't know much about. It's the kind of work we've never done before, but at least it's a job and it's a signed contract and it's for around $77,000. So that will keep us going." And I said, "I'm going to keep the shop going. I'm gonna run the business. That's what Harvey wanted me to do." And I think that they were a little shocked and I hope they were a little pleased that I was going to run the business. I did tell the men that I didn't have much money because Harvey didn't leave me much money. He left me lots of iron but not much money. And if I did have to sell some of the museum pieces, I would sell them. And Lou became very upset at that and he said to me, "Well, that will be the end of the shop if you have to sell the pieces." And I said, "No, it won't be, and I'll only do it at last resort." And they were all talking, saying, "No, I hope you don't sell any." And I somehow or rather came out of my mouth these words that just be glad I was the first and only wife of Harvey Yellin because if I were the second wife, I would've sold everything and cleared out the shop yesterday afternoon. So they laughed and that really, from then on, I had such support. I had wonderful support.
- And Yellin came up with this wonderful handle, very strong and very firm, but yet with the musical designs on it, the violin, the musical notes, the flute, all making it very Curtis-like. And then the openness lets the doors seem to be open, Curtis the school seem to be open, and that's really a quality we were looking at. And yet we have this wonderful decorative motif in place, which also serves a purpose in terms of hitting the doors with instruments and protecting the doors themselves. We've also heard from the students and the faculty that a lot of people like that. And that's something that's been happening lately. People have come back to liking ornament on building. Now, in the restoration field, of course, with which we deal all the time, ornament has always played an important part and people have always appreciated it. But seeing new elements come on older buildings and working with them is something that people really have begun to enjoy. And new elements on new buildings is something else that's happening. So you're gonna get more and more ornamental work. People have really rediscovered it. And finding this kind of ornamental work, which combines a feeling of great technical ability on the part of Yellin and artistic ability, those two together, the artistic and the technical, to really take iron to its maximum, which Samuel Yellin really created and which continues in his shop. His designers, his blacksmiths, just like George, are able to do that, but yet have all the technical abilities.
- You know, as I look back and I see how hard Samuel Yellin worked to get it started, how he rose to fame very quickly, and he actually only put in 23 years of working at this shop and did so much. And I know how hard my husband worked in the 40 years he ran the shop in very difficult times when there wasn't much but fabrication work, very little ornamental metalwork. One job a year probably in ornamental metalwork. And then I look back at what my mother-in-law and what I did and what Clare did and I think that we can be very proud of the three women that have carried on the tradition of this company. And I'm sure that Samuel, who may be wandering around this room right now, would be clapping for us.
- Certainly, a lot of this is overwhelming. It can be intimidating, especially someone that's just starting out, doesn't even have an anvil. And I know that there was one man who, some different people have looked at this and say, "I'm giving up, I'm giving up." And there are other people that say, "Oh, I can do it. This is something that I really want." But one of the things that, there are all levels, there are all types of smithing in all styles. And what you're gonna find here at the California Blacksmiths Conference are people who are hobbyists and who are very professional, I mean, and earn their living at this, and some people who don't do forging at all but just like being around metal and wanting to talk about it. I mean, I'm not a blacksmith. I mean, I have difficulties just even making an S hook and I have a last name of Yellin .
- As you well know, I've been hounding you and hounding you to get some of this out here so the other people that could see it, these other smiths could see it. And they've really, I think it's been one of the more profitable conferences that we've had, the fact that Yellin's work has been here at this time.
- Okay, my name's George Dixon. I'm the head blacksmith at Samuel Yellin Metalworkers, which is an old established firm in Philadelphia. It's done traditional metalwork since the 19-teens. A lot of people have kind of assailed me for being into traditional motifs as strongly as I am, but using things like this to get them. And I guess my response to that is that we're cutting into the 21st century. We have a totally different economic environment. If you wanna do this kind of work, you've gotta take shortcuts where you can, which is why forge welding is nice. And there's some effects here that are forge welded that I don't think could be gotten without the forge welding process. There are other effects here that combine: the closures on all these little rosettes and trefoil things are forge welded, it's wrought iron wire. The assembly is TIG, 'cause it would be quite a challenge, quite a pain, to forge weld all of these together. So this way, what the customer sees has the look and what the boss has to pay us to do fits the budget. I've run into the type that have the opinion that if you have a telephone and electricity, you're not a blacksmith. And I don't think there ever really was a halcyon day of blacksmithing when fine metalworkers looked at each other and said, "This is it. We're done. No new tools." Whenever something came along, they grabbed it. They forged welded not because they didn't like their TIGs, just 'cause they didn't have them. I think a TIG salesman in Medieval Germany would have just cleaned up.
- Oh, George is an excellent demonstrator. He is very careful to explain why he's doing what he's doing, to work slow enough so that people can see what happens, to show the various stages of development of the design. The organization felt that the Yellins had the most to offer in terms of that rich tradition of ornamental work that is very hard to sell, but once people see it, they very seldom want anything less than that. And the Yellin family has been instrumental in preserving that kind of tradition, especially here in the United States where it's not built in. In Europe, it's a thousand years old, and people who build houses for themselves and their family, they want to have that kind of work. But in America, people are just beginning to realize that this richness of ornamentation that you can live with and enjoy day after day for the rest of your life is available and that there are men and women capable of delivering this kind of work. And the work that Yellin does is intricate in the sense that it isn't one shot through and here you have it. It's layer upon layer of work that ends up being something as rich as chocolate cake.
- [George] The thing I liked about the work that came out of the Yellin shop in the '20s and the '30s was the high degree of ornamentation since they worked the entire stock before they built the piece, either to transform it radically into a shape or just to texture it subtly. Everything about it has a soft quality. Edges are broken. They're not harsh and sharp. They've been hammered. The material has been heated and worked. And when iron is taken up to a high temperature and struck hard enough, the displacement is a wave, almost like water running through it. And you get bulges on the sides when you hit the top. And that kind of softness is something that people are very responsive to today, but hardly anybody does it. Nobody knows to do it.
- He was the greatest iron worker in this country by far. Nobody could strike a match to his work. It's just a shame that he was taken so early in his life. He had so much to give to the craft art of working iron. And then Harvey dying so fairly young too. With Clare's mother taking over there and there was some question for a while there, according to my accounts over in this , whether they would even stay open. But Clare came along and took on the running of the shop. She seems to be filling in there and they're doing some rather remarkable things. I'm just pleased as I can be to see they are carrying on the Yellin tradition.
- [Clare] "Dear everybody at Samuel Yellin shop, as you know, I am leaving at the end of this month to regain my health. There is hardly any kind of work which comes under the heading of ornamental work for which I did not provide some sort of sample and other information. No one will expect of you Samuel Yellin's work, but they will expect of you work which would be at least as good as any other shop would do. I feel sure that if you will combine all the efforts of everybody, that things will work out right. Now, let us not talk about great artists or even for a while about any kind of artists, but just about good work. Do not try to do things the way Mr. Yellin does them for it only takes Mr. Yellin to do them that way. Try to do them the best way you know how and remember the traditions, the teachings, and the standards of the place. Your affectionate teacher, Samuel Yellin." That was a letter my grandfather wrote in 1931 to the men of the shop. This is a letter I wrote in September 1992 to the blacksmithing community. "Samuel Yellin Metalworkers Company has been going through many changes over the past several years. Recently, I have taken a long, hard look at the future of my grandfather's and father's business. Samuel Yellin Metalworkers will always be a part of the blacksmithing community. However, we can no longer afford to operate at the West Philadelphia Studio."
- [George] "Samuel Yellin Metalworkers 1992 had to exist in an economic environment. Philadelphia Union Shop, an old building that's not laid out for modern economics, is a very tough place to make a living."
- [Clare] "The building will close before the end of this year, 1992. If you believe that the legacy of Samuel Yellin is more than the stucco and brick of 5520 Arch Street, then you will begin to believe, as I do, that the tradition will continue. Sincerely, Clare L. Yellin."
- [George] "It's my intention to continue to work strictly in the style of Samuel Yellin's interpretation of European iron work. The period from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance that he reworked and made his own represents the kind of work I really want to pursue. Sam's work as an inspiration, as a point of reference, as an educational tool, as a research tool, is gonna be the rest of this kid's life."
