The day the Eiffel Tower opened – level 2

06-05-1889

When a competition for the dominant structure of Paris was published in 1886, over 100 designs came. One of the designs was very special. It was a tower that was 324 meters high. The structure was designed by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel. He won the competition.

250 workers started to put together 18,000 pieces of steel. However, when they started to work at a height of 200 meters, they went on strike. They wanted to lower the working hours from 12 hours to 9 and demanded a higher salary because the work was dangerous. Eiffel had to agree to their demands.

On May 6, 1889, the Eiffel Tower was opened to the public for a fee of 5 francs. The costs returned in 6 years.

Difficult words: competition (a situation when people try to be better than the others), strike (a situation when people stop the work because they want more money or better work conditions ), demand (to ask strongly for something), public (normal people).

What other concessions did Eiffel make to the workers in order to keep his project going?

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