You are in the bottom of a powerful new steamship, shoveling coal into the firebox of a boiler. It's hot, dirty, exhausting work. The average temperature in this dusty, loud room is 110 degrees F. You start by breaking up giant lumps of coal the trimmer drops off into smaller, fist-sized pieces. Then, with a slice bar, you break up the white-hot clinkers that didn't burn right and scrape them off the fire-grates. Only then can you shovel more coal onto them.

You have to do all this within the time set by the Kilroy's Patent Stoking Indicator. It sets the pace of the stoking cycle, ringing as often as once every eight minutes. The faster the speed of the ship, the faster the entire stoking work cycle for each furnace, and the harder you work.

You work four hours straight, keeping three furnaces going. You are part of the "Black Gang", because you are always covered with sweat and coal dust. You breath so much of it in, you will ultimately die of a respiratory illness. Without you, the steamship simply would not run.