The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-05-12
S|XTEEN-Y -YEAR-OLO
GIRL A BLACKSMITH
Shoes Horses and Builds
Wagons, Just Like a
Man.
PREFERS ANVIL AND FORGE
TO WORK IN HOUSE
Does Get Tired Some Time, but
Always Healthy, and Likes
Employment.

Working from morning till night in
her fathers blacksmith shop, where she
shoes horses and builds wagons with
the skill of an experienced craftsman,
10 the occupation of a 16.year old St.
Louis girl, who believes that women
can do manual labor, and whose sole
ambition is to become one of the great.
est blacksmiths in the United States.
Miss Minnie Hagman, the young
woman who has chosen blacksmithing
as her life work, is skilled IN the use
of tools and from years of labor has
earned muscle sufficient to enable
her to handle the most refractory of
horses
Taken from her dolls and childish
play TO help In her fathers shop. the
girl has grown to like the work so well
that she says she would not change
places with any girl she knows. She
is a great lover Of horses and lavishes
her affection on the animals that come
10 her to be shod. She has no matri-
ulonial aspirations. but is content to
work beside her father at the forge.
Three years ago her father, LorenZ
Hagmann. who had been working as a
iorneyman blacksmith, was taken with
an ambition TO have a shop of his own
and so purchased place on the Olive
street road Just outside the city limits
In buying the shop and necessary tools
and machinery Hagmann was forced to
60 IN debt and so was unable to keep
o helper. His daughter Minnie volun:.
teercd to aid her father and so entered
the shop as helper.
The girl readily learned how TO heat
and bend a shoe on the anvil and soon
picked up the knowledge of shoeing.
Not content with knowing how to make
shoe and put it on horse, she began
TO build every part of buggy or
wagon. The girl is proud of her ability
and nothing pleases her more than to
The father is proud of his daughter
and says he would rather have her
about the shop than any man he knows.
He SAYS the girl knows more about
hIacksmithing and wagon building
than the average worker and has more
interest In her father IS business than
hired man could possibly have. The
girl not alone helps her parent IN the
shop but also takes care of the books
and collects the bills. The book work
is done at night after long days
work in the shop, for the Hagmann
shop begins work shortly after sunrise
and continues until sunset.
The girl, has a pony of her own,
which she calls Fawu and on which she
rides when returning shod horses to
their owners and in collecting bills.
During the busy season, when the shop
has been open late into the night, this
girl mounts her pony and takes horses
home as she would during the day. She
has no fear of the night and her father
says that she would be the equal of
any man because of the strength she
has gained from her labors.
''T would much rather work in the
blacksmith shop with father said the
girl, i" than do housework. I am always
healthy and feel good all the time, al
though 1 do get tired some days. When
we are not very busy in the shop [
help mother with the housework, and
on Sundays I have chance to rest and
go to church and Sunday school,
A,4-year-old sister of the girl black
smith. is seen about the shop all day,
asking questions of her father and
patting the horses. This sister says she
wants TO be blacksmith, and the
father says he will teach her the trade
when she gets older if she wishes to do
the work.
Hagmann says his daughter can stop
work whenever she pleases, but says he
would hate to see her leave the shop,
because of the difficulty he would have
in getting competent workman to
take her place.