Means of Transportation

161

Transportation by man at points of transshipment. Along the waterfront
 and in the freight houses of cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia,
 St. Louis, and Seattle, thousands of longshoremen and freight
handlers transship goods from one means of transportation to another.
If a strike in New York causes them to cease pushing their slender
trucks and lifting the countless boxes, barrels, bales, bags, crates, and
kegs, freight may be held up all over the country and even in foreign
ports, and factories may have to shut down for lack of raw material.
Man power for transportation in factories. In the factories new
materials and parts of unfinished articles are continually being carried
from workman to workman. In a shoe factory at Lynn or Brockton,
for example, some men carry piles of leather on their shoulders, others
push little trucks loaded with soles, and still others shove racks filled
with shoes. The modern factory does as much of this work as possible
by means of elevators, belts, endless chains of buckets, small motor
trucks, and other devices, but even these have by no means done away
with the necessity for man power.
Man power for transportation to the consumer. Lastly, man carries
all sorts of products on the last lap of their journey and thus delivers
them to the consumer. Whether we buy a piano, a new hat, or a
squash, somebody’s muscles are used to bring it into the house.
Examples of cities where man power is used. Although man depends
 upon his own strength for transportation everywhere, this use
is particularly noticeable in certain regions. For instance, at the

Fig. 119. The * American coolie’ is the small motor truck, which factories and warehouses use
io great advantage for the work that formerly required a number of porters.