Young boys in the front of the group are holding baseball bats. This image appeared on page 32 of HISTORY OF THE AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN ALABAMA: WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES by W. H. Nixon.
Sloss founded the Sloss Furnace Company in Birmingham, Alabama, in the early 1880s. This image appeared on page 128 of the book THE STORY OF COAL AND IRON IN ALABAMA by Ethel Armes, published in 1910.