Figure 1.--Here we see what appears to be steelworkers in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, probably in the 1890s. Such pictures appear in Americn history textbooks, usually to leave the impession that workers and immigrants were oppressed in America. Of course comparing the conditions of these wirkers to modern workers is a shocking violation of basic scholarly historical opriunciples. Rarely do the textbooks point out that valid histiorical comprisons need to be with contemporary workers in other countries at the time. Nor do the textbooks normally raise the obvious question, if working conditions were so poor in America, why did European workers emigrate to America by the millions. In fact, American workers were the best paid and nost prosperous in the world.

The development of the American iron steel industry has played a central role in modern world history. With the Industrial Revolution, Britain became the world's greatest producer of iron and steel. The nascent American iron and steel industry was dependent on developments in Europe, especially Britain. One of the principal early developments was the degree to which the British had felled their great forests to build shipping, both naval shipping and merchant shipping. Iron production was still very basic throughout the 18th century. Technological development in Europe reached America through immigration in the first half of the 19th century. The railroads revolutionized the iron and steel industries in Europe and America, but the rails were especially important in America because if the huge distances involved. And distance, especially in land transportation meant potentially insurmountable costs before the railroads. It was hugely expensive to transport both iron ore and fuel--charcoal/coal. This meant that commercial production was only possible only in the few places where iron and and fuel (wood meaning charcoal or coal) occurred in close proximity. America had vast untapped forests (meaning charcoal/wood), but the new railroads made led to even American producers changing from charcoal to coal for the ore smelting (early-19th century). Production gradually shifted from iron to steel. In the mid-19th century, the English Bessemer process was adopted and improved. This led to the rise of very large integrated steel mills. Men like Scottish immigrant Andrew Carnegie made the American steel industry the most advanced in the world with American corporations now leading in technological and managerial advances. He adopted the Bessemer process and the vertical integration of the steel industry. He also be befitted from the huge and expanding America market. Often overlooked because of socialist ideological bias was the American capitalist system. No other country adopted the free market system to an extent comparable to the United States. Carnegie's reputation has been tarnished because of his treatment of workers, but often unsaid in this examination is the fact that American workers were the best paid in the world. The inconvenient truth for those pushing socialism is that European workers migrated to America in the millions and the major reasons was the higher wages earned by American industrial workers. A turning point in modern history was when American steel production exceeded that of Britain, until that time the world's leading producer (1889). And Carnegie's holdings were a large part of American production. At the turn-of-the 20th century, an investment group headed by Elbert H. Gary and J.P. Morgan bought Carnegie’s steel company and combined it with their holdings to create the Federal Steel Company--the predecessor of the U.S. Steel Corporation--the world's leading steel producer at the time. America was producing about 40 percent of the world's steel (1900). Henry Ford and the mass production of automobiles helped take the American steel industry to the next level. This turned America from the leading country into an industrial giant. American steel production would rise to 60 percent of the world's output (1910s). Thus basic statistic would in large measure determine the history of the 20th century, most importantly the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II.Technology continued to advance which meant the open hearth furnace. The next major step was the basic oxygen steel-making process. The American steel industry peaked with the post-World War II economic boom (1950s). In fact, it fell significantly below that of the Soviet Union during the Cold War (1970s). Often not reported at the time, however, was that Soviet production was not profitable, meaning that the inputs that went into production exceeded the value of the steel produced. Which was the case for other Soviet industries as well. This simple fact helps explains the the West's victory in the Cold War and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Unpin (1991). The basic oxygen furnaces and continuous casters produced steel using a fraction of the work, energy and manpower required by the open hearth furnaces the industry developed in the 19th century. The American industry shifted to small mini-mills and specialty mills, commonly using readily available iron and steel scrap as the feed stock, instead of iron ore.

The 17th century

World iron production was very limited in the 16th century. And steel production negligible. (We are not sure about China and India which at the time were on a tecnological par with Europe.) What was proiduced at least in Europe occurred in Sweden. whicht the time was a great power, playing an important role for examole in the Thirty Years War fought largely in Germany (1618-48). Sweden had a vey small population, hardky conveying great power status. Iron prodyction was a factor in achieving its great power status. At the time siugnifuicant iron production was only possible where iron ore could be found in close promximity to fuel. Sweden had vast iron ore deoosits. (Swedush iron iore would supply much of irib that the German war machine in both World War I and II nedded to wage war.) And Sweden not obkly had iron ore deposits, it had vast forrests in close proximity to the iron ore that could be tuned into the charcoal needed to smelt iron ore. The oroximity was vtal. Land transport at the time made itunecinomical to trans prt bulky itend=s like irib ire o=r charcoal any significant distance. And throiughout the 17th century the proximity of iron ore and fuel meant Sweden. The great powers (Austria, England, France, the Netherlands, Prussia, Russia, and Spain) all imported much of the iron they needed from Sweden. Before the Industrial Revolutin, the quntities were limited, but not unimportat. Iron was needed for noth tools and weapons. Sweden would contunue to be the major iron producer throughout the 17th century and into into the 18th century. English colonies in North America began to be founded (1609). These colonies were almost entirely agricultural. Thec olonists did niot find the gold and and silver they hoped for and had to turn to agriculture. Iron production was minimal. Tools and weaoons requiring iron and other metals were imported from Britain. This included the axes and plows needed to clear and farm the land.

The 18th Century

Colonial Ameriuca

Iron production manufacture in the 18th century still required charcoal and in large quabtities. Britain's once-vast forests were being depleted by construction of Royal Navy and mnerchgabt shipping as well as building and home heating and cooking. Britain at the time was not plantung forests, it was harvesting the exuting firests. A Royal Navy man-of-war requiredb enormous quantity of timber. Britain's increasingly deleted forests could not longer fully supply the charcoal needed for iron smelting, even the limited quantitiess needed in the early-18th century. This is why Sherwood Forest is now an interchanbge of the M-1 near Nottingham. And it is why Britain like othr European countries were being forced to import iron from Sweden--a sometimes adversary. Britain or more correctly, the free market, came up with a sollution. To supplemenbt its own iron prodyction, the country looked westwrd to its American colonies where irion ore deposits had been discovered and the vast, largely untouched primneval forrests of North America. British investors constructed an iron furnace near Perryville, Maryland which began shipoment to Bruitain (1718). The investors success, prompted more such projects. Most were sited around the Chesapeake Bay. These early producers exploited bog iron ore, which was widespread in the aeea. By mid-century, Virginia and Maryland iron producers were exporting 2,950 tons of pig iron to Britain annually. While this may not sound like a lot, in the pre-industrial era, iron or for that matter, metal usage was a tuny fraction of modern usage. The American iron some 15 percent of British iron production of about about 20,000 tons annually. [Pounds and Parker, p. 22.] And British demand was about to explode. This was the very time that the Industrial Revolution began and notably it occured first in Britain. Notice how much of the early machinery inviolkved wood parts. This would quickly change nd escalate the demand for iron. The Chesapeake Bay iron furnaces were primarily for export back to Britain, but iron was also needed by the American colonists. As a result we vbegin to see iron furnaces being constructed throughout the American colonies to supply the domestic consumption. These furnaces had gto be established along rivers to both fir water wheekls to supply power and fir trabsoort. Roads at the tiumewere rudimentary at best and land transport very expensive. Also the iron poducers needed forests to priduce charcoal, iron ore, and limestone for flux. This is why at the time of the revolution (1776), the American colonists were producing iron. They were not, hiowever, producing cannon. British business interests inflential in Parliamennt were divided on colonial iron production. British manufacturers purchsing increaing qunatities of iron liked the lower-priced American imprts which also drove down domestic iron prices, but the British iron industry opposed the Americn iron imports which drove down their proifits. The Westminister Parliament after studying the matter reached a compromise--the Iron Act of 1750. This ended the import tariffs on colonial pig iron, but it also progibited the manufacture of steel or iron plate in the colonies. The law was to a large degree had little impact on the colonists and their legislatures, but not entiurely ignored. Such discrimory British lgislation was one of the major issues changing perceptions toward the Mother Country and making the Revolution inevitable. But it was also part of the reason that the Colonists had to fight the Revolutioary War without American manufactured cannon. At the time of the Revoution there were some 80 iron furnaces throughout the American colonies. Production can only be estumated. we have noted assessments that the Colonists were producing roughly the same quantity of iron as Britain itself. One estimate of 30,000 tons of iron annuly would make thge colonie the world's third-largest iron producer (after Sweden and Russia). Brutush productioin would soon Swesush abd Russun is is bout the time Other estimates put Amnerican priduction lower, about half of Brirain. Even so, it is ckear that the nacent United States was a already a major iron producer at the time of the Revolution.

Early republic

The scholarly focus on early Ameruca industry is commonly on the available resources, but there is something of importance too often ignored--capitalism. This is largely fo ideological reasons, the socialist and anti-western bent of modern academia [Diamond] In the same year that the Fiundung Fathersdeclared independence, a Scottish economist published The wealth of Nations (1776). And until the pst-world war II era, no other country applied Smith's free market princiiples as asidulously as the new Americavan Republic. And the results were spectacular. This is not to say that resources were not lso importnt. The definitely were. The primary resources determining the location of iron furnaces mneaning smelters were iron ore deposits. YThis is bcause the forrests needed were essentially everyhere in the Esstern United States which at the time was the ebtite country. . The bog iron ore deposits mined in the colonial era were also widespread, but vthese deposits were generally small, and soon exhausted if exploted to any degree. As a resultv the entreprebneuers smelting ion re moved away from the swapy areas of the Cesapoeake Bay to the larger deposits found further inland The inland sites also allpwrd athe smelts to fgind locations close to limestone deposits for the flux needed for the smelting pocess. The arger ore deposits meantb that larger, more permanent iron smelters could be developed han those built in the colonial era. [U.S. Geological Service] Cannon production only after the Revolutionar War. this ws imprtntb not only for nationl defense, but because the tchology involved in producing wepiny in general hs ll kinds of civiin economuc applications. The first Federl arsenal was opened duiung the Revolutionart War (1777), lgly bdcue of its locaion along riuvers and in safe areas cintolled by the Colonists. The Bitish did not venture into Masschusetts sgsain and the blood letting at Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill (1775-76). The second Federal Arsenal was opned at Harpers Ferry (1796). Theite was locted at the head of the Shenandoh Valley. Many iron smelting furnaces had been appeared in the Valley to exploit the irnon ore and limestone deposits. The Potomac River and Canal led to tranport east before the railroad arrived. Moat of the early American iron smelting as the industry sevelopod occured near iron deposits in eastern Pennsylvania, New York, and northern New Jersey. [Brown, pp. 2-4.] New Jersey was the first beyond he Chesapeak that iron smelters appeared. Much of Pennsylvania snd norher Mew York were still frontier reas. New Jersey's principal iron ore district was located at Dover. Iron smelting negan here (1710), but exponded fter the Revolution. The Cornwall Iron Furnace in Pennsylvania was established next to an important iton ore deposit. The Adirondack iron ore district of notthern New York was slso developed for iron smelters. [Carr and Dutton, pp. 66-67.]

The 19th Century

Everything changed in the 19th century. America was transformed and much of that change was fostered by the steel industry and the railroads it made possible. America began the century producing small quantifies of pig iron from essentially artisanal orations little different from ancient producers to producing massive quantities of the highest grade steel in he most modern steel mills in the world. American producers continued using charcoal into the 19th century. Technological development in Europe reached America through immigration in the first half of the 19th century. Even so, the movement away from charcoal began a little later in America than Britain. As a puddling furnace in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania started using anthracite coal (1827). The railroads made this transformation possible. American Blast furnaces continued to use only charcoal for the fuel as well as the reducing agent. Coke from coal only began replacing charcoal (about 1840). [Swank, p.247.] The railroads revolutionized the iron and steel industries in Europe and America, and the rails were especially important in America because of the huge distances producers confronted. Before the railroads, distance, especially in land transportation, meant potentially insurmountable costs. It was hugely expensive to transport both iron ore and fuel--charcoal/coal. This meant that commercial production was only possible in the few places where iron and and fuel (wood meaning charcoal or coal) occurred in close proximity. The railroads changed this, opening up the exploitation of huge iron ore deposits located at great distances from the coal fields. . America had vast untapped forests (meaning charcoal/wood), but the new railroads made led to even American producers changing from charcoal to coal for the ore smelting (early-19th century). Coal had many advantages, but the primary one was cost. It was a lot cheaper to mine coal than the laborious process of cutting down trees and producing charcoal. It also changed the map of the industry. Early smelters were located where the iron ore was found. The coke produced from coal had a higher crushing strength than charcoal. This permitted larger, more efficient smelting furnaces. [Dennis, pp. 79-80.] This also meant that iron making required far more coal than iron ore. As a result, rather than being built close to the iron ore mining, the smelters began to be built close to the coal mines. This reduced transport costs which were a major factor in iron production. This was now possible with the advent if the railroads. Iron ore deposits were discovered on the Marquette Range around Lake Superior. (1844). Mining on a small scale soon followed (1848). Mining activity around Lake Superior expanded after the opening of the ship canal at Sault Ste. Marie, This made inexpensive water transportation from the mines to the lower Great Lakes. The Lake Superior iron deposits were the most important ever discovered in the United States They soon dominated American mining. The Lake Superior fields were located far from coal deposits. So the ore had to be shipped to ports on the southern Great Lakes from which the ore could be shipped to the coal mines of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Despite the many advantages of coal, there was a serious problem. Coal contained many impurities, especially sulfur. This affected the quality of iron produced and was an even greater issue with steel. Coke produced from coal quickly came to dominant iron-smelting. Even so, charcoal was still being used to make high grade steel. Some 10 percent of American iron and steel was still smelted with charcoal (late-19th century). Production also gradually shifted from iron to steel. This all began in the Pennsylvania's Lackawanna Valley which had huge rich in anthracite coal deposits as well as iron deposits. Brothers George W. Scranton and Seldon T. Scranton moved to the Valley to found what was called an iron forge (1840). The area was still lightly settled. [Yeomans] The most common processes at the time for creating steel (blister and crucible) was both slow and hugely expensive. The Scrantons chose a new 'hot blast method' that had been developed in Scotland (1828). [Yeomans] This partially solved the problem of impurities from the coal produced coke. It burned off the impurities. The Scrantons also pioneered the use of low low-sulfurous anthracite to make steel. [Lewis] Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, surrounded by large coal deposits and at the junction of three navigable rivers, was an ideal location for steel-making and Pittsburgh would become the steel making capital of the world. After mid-century, Englishman Henry Bessemer fundamentally changed the steel industry. He invented the Bessemer process (1856). This made th mass production of steel from molten pig iron possible. It reduced the cost of steel by more than 50 percent. It essentially ended small-scale artisanal production. (This is what Mao attempted to reintroduce a century later in the Great Leap Forward.) American industrialists proceeded ti adopted and improve the English Bessemer process. This led to the rise of very large integrated steel mills. The first American steel mill to adopt the Bessemer process was constructed in Troy, New York (1865). Edgar Thomson built a much larger steel mill, using the Bessemer process !875). It was financed by industrialist Andrew Carnegie. Pennsylvania was very important, but large integrated steel mills were built in many American cuties in what became known as the industrial Midwest. This included Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Gary, to handle the Lake Superior ore. Men like Scottish immigrant Andrew Carnegie made the American steel industry the most advanced in the world with American corporations now leading in technological and managerial advances. He not only adopted the Bessemer process, but pioneered the vertical integration of the steel industry. He also be befitted from the huge and expanding America market. Often overlooked because of socialist ideological bias was the American capitalist system. No other country adopted the free market system to an extent comparable to the United States. Carnegie's reputation has been tarnished because of his treatment of workers, but often unsaid in this examination is the fact that American workers were the best paid in the world. The inconvenient truth for those pushing socialism is that European workers migrated to America in the millions and the major reasons was the higher wages earned by American industrial workers. A turning point in modern history was when American steel production exceeded that of Britain, until that time the world's leading producer (1889). And Carnegie's holdings were a large part of American production. The huge and growing American market was a great assett to Amerucan oroducers, a major pircaser was the ruikoad compnies lying lines ceating the largest rail system in the world. other large puchasers was construction. American cities were burstung at the seems. So the builders began building up. The result was sky scrapers. The purpose was to redice housing costs and allowing more people to live in city centers. The first was the Home Insurance Building in Chicagone (1885). We are not sure why this primarily occurred in America. A reader writes, "That is a great question and I do not know the actual reason as I never thought about it before. Some of it such as China (had height limits as the Emperor's palace was the tallest building etc. and that was I believe 8 stories tall. But outside of that, I don't know." We know for a fact tht was the cse in London. City plnner did not want any building towerung over St. Pul's cthedrl. But we have no idea about other cities and countries.

The 20th Century

At the turn-of-the 20th century, an investment group headed by Elbert H. Gary and J.P. Morgan bought Carnegie’s steel company and combined it with their holdings to create the Federal Steel Company--the predecessor of the U.S. Steel Corporation--the world's leading steel producer at the time. America was producing about 40 percent of the world's steel (1900). Henry Ford and the mass production of automobiles helped take the American steel industry to the next level. This turned America from the leading country into an industrial giant. American steel production would rise to 60 percent of the world's output (1910s). Thus basic statistic would in large measure determine the history of the 20th century, most importantly the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II.Technology continued to advance which meant the open hearth furnace. The next major step was the basic oxygen steel-making process. The American steel industry peaked with the post-World War II economic boom (1950s). In fact, it fell significantly below that of the Soviet Union during the Cold War (1970s). Often not reported at the time, however, was that Soviet production was not profitable, meaning that the inputs that went into production exceeded the value of the steel produced. Which was the case for other Soviet industries as well. This simple fact helps explains the the West's victory in the Cold War and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Unpin (1991). The basic oxygen furnaces and continuous casters produced steel using a fraction of the work, energy and manpower required by the open hearth furnaces the industry developed in the 19th century. The American industry shifted to small mini-mills and specialty mills, commonly using readily available iron and steel scrap as the feed stock, instead of iron

The 21st Century

Sources

Brown, John S. "Ore deposits of the northeastern United States" in John D. Ridge (ed.) Ore Deposits of the United States, 1933-1967 (New York: American Institute of Mining Engineers, 1970).

Carr, Martha S. and Carl E. Dutton. Iron-Ore Resources of the United States, Including Alaska and Puerto Rico Bulletin 1082-C (U.S. Geological Survey: 1959).

Dennis, W.H. 100 Years of Metallurgy (Chicago: Aldine, 1963).

Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel. Dianond'd insughtful book is an imprtant, imsiughtful work, but notice how he ignores the realm of ideas in history and deconomics-- most primently political freedom (democracy) and economic freedom (capitalism). Also notable is hiow he ignires china because it woukd complicate his central thesis.

Lewis, W. David. "The early history of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company: A study in technological adaptation," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (October 1972).

Pounds, Norman J.G. and William N. Parker. Coal and Steel in Western Europe (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1957). 22.

Swank, James M. "The manufacture of iron and steel in the United States," in Mineral Resources of the United States, 1883 and 1884 (U.S. Geological Survey: 1885).

U.S. Geological Service. "Silent Reminders," Geologic Wonders of the George Wasgington and Jefferson National Forests," No. 3. (2001).

Yeomans, Matthew. "36 Hours: Scranton, Pa.," New York Times (November 1, 2002).

Created: 7:14 AM 8/29/2022
Last updated: 7:15 AM 8/29/2022