Let's not rewrite history.

[MADhouseTelephone]

Forklifts and mechanical handling didn't really get started until the 30s. Before that everything was hand stacked onto carts to move from place to place. The best you could hope for was an endless chain system you could connect your  cart to and send it on its way.

[Greg G.]

...
One thing that strikes me as odd in the photo above is the way that the various machine operators just have the parts piled on the floor, either stacked neatly as is the case with the men further down the line, or just tossed in a pile as is the case with the guy in front.  ...

I love old pictures like this.  Hard to say if the guy closest to the camera is doing the same job as the rest of them, or what that pile really is.  That could very well be a reject pile, who knows.  In the 80s I worked for a small business who manufactured some sort of metal cast part that had a hole that needed to be deburred around the inside edge.  It was done by hand with a deburring knife that had a triangular shaped blade.  My "in" pile looked a lot like that one, only taller.  I didn't stay very long in that job.