The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Until its closure in 2003, it was one of the world's largest steel-producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its success and productivity, the company was a symbol of American manufacturing leadership in the world, and its decline and ultimate liquidation in the late 20th century is similarly cited as an example of America's diminished manufacturing leadership.[citation needed] From its founding in 1857 through its 2003 dissolution, Bethlehem Steel's headquarters were based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the United States. Its primary steel mill manufacturing facilities were first located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and later expanded to include a major research laboratory in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and plants in Sparrows Point, Maryland, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Lackawanna, New York, and its final and largest site in Burns Harbor, Indiana.
Bethlehem Steel played an instrumental role in manufacturing the U.S. warships and other military weapons used in World War I and later by the Allied forces in ultimately winning World War II. Over 1,100 Bethlehem Steel-manufactured warships were built for use in defeating Nazi Germany and the Axis powers in World War II. Historians cite Bethlehem Steel's ability to quickly manufacture warships and other military equipment as decisive factors in American victories in both world wars.[1]
Bethlehem Steel's roots trace to an iron-making company organized in 1857 in Bethlehem, which was later named the Bethlehem Iron Company. In 1899, the owners of the iron company founded Bethlehem Steel Company and, five years later, Bethlehem Steel Corporation was created to be the steelmaking company's corporate parent.
Bethlehem Steel survived the earliest declines in the American steel industry beginning in the 1970s. In 1982, however, the company suspended most of its steelmaking operations after posting a loss of $1.5 billion, attributable to increased foreign competition, rising labor and pensions costs, and other factors. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and final dissolution in 2003 when its remaining assets were sold to International Steel Group.
In 1857, what ultimately became Bethlehem Steel was launched as the Saucona Iron Company in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania by Augustus Wolle.[2] That same year, the Panic of 1857, a national financial crisis, halted the company's further organization. But the organization subsequently restarted, its site was moved elsewhere to South Bethlehem, and the company's name was changed to the Bethlehem Rolling Mill and Iron Company.[2] On June 14, 1860, the board of directors of the fledgling company elected Alfred Hunt president.[2]
On May 1, 1861, the company's title was changed again, this time to the Bethlehem Iron Company.[2] Construction of the first blast furnace began on July 1, 1861, and was operationalized on January 4, 1863. The first rolling mill was built between the spring of 1861 and the summer of 1863 with the first railroad rails being rolled on September 26, 1863. A machine shop, in 1865, and another blast furnace, in 1867, were completed. During its early years, the company produced rails for the rapidly expanding railroads and armor plating used by the U.S. Navy.
The company continued to prosper during the early 1880s, but its share of the rail market began to decline in the face of competition from growing Pittsburgh and Scranton-based firms, such as the Carnegie Steel Company and Lackawanna Steel. The nation's decision to rebuild the Navy with steam-driven, steel-hulled warships reshaped Bethlehem Iron Company's destiny.
Following the American Civil War, the U.S. Navy quickly downsized after the end of hostilities as national energies were redirected toward settling the West and rebuilding the war-ravaged South. Almost no new ordnance was produced, and new technology was neglected. By 1881, international incidents highlighted the poor condition of the U.S. fleet and the need to rebuild it to protect U.S. military capabilities, trade, and prestige.
In 1883, U.S. Secretary of the Navy William E. Chandler and U.S. Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln appointed Lt. William Jaques to the Gun Foundry Board and Jaques was sent on several fact-finding tours of European armament makers. On one of these trips, he formed business ties with the firm of Joseph Whitworth of Manchester, England. He returned to the United States as Whitworth's agent and, in 1885, was granted an extended furlough to pursue this personal interest.
Jaques was aware that the U.S. Navy would soon solicit bids for the production of heavy guns and other products such as armor that would be needed to further expand the fleet. Jaques contacted the Bethlehem Iron Company with a proposal to serve as an intermediary between it and the Whitworth Company, so Bethlehem Iron could erect a heavy-forging plant to produce ordnance.
In the spring 1886, Congress passed a naval appropriations bill that authorized the construction of two armored second-class battleships, one protected cruiser, one first-class torpedo boat, and the complete rebuilding and modernization of two Civil War-era monitors. The two second-class battleships, the USSTexas and the USSMaine, both had large-caliber guns with 12-inch and 10-inch, respectively, and heavy armor plating. Bethlehem secured both the forging and armor contracts on June 28, 1887.
Between 1888 and 1892, the Bethlehem Iron Company completed the first U.S. heavy-forging plant. It was designed by John Fritz with the assistance of Russell Davenport, who joined Bethlehem Iron in 1888. By fall 1890, Bethlehem Iron was delivering gun forging to the U.S. Navy and was completing facilities to provide armor plating.[3]
During the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, Bethlehem Steel provided the iron used in the creation of a 45.5[4]-foot steel axle to support the world's first Ferris wheel, a 264-foot (80m) structure. The iron was manufactured in Bethlehem Steel's blast furnaces and represented the largest single steel forging ever constructed at the time.[5]
In 1898, Frederick Winslow Taylor joined Bethlehem Steel as a management consultant in order to solve an expensive machine shop capacity problem. Taylor and Maunsel White, with a team of assistants, applied a series of management principles established by Taylor, which would later come to be known as scientific management and was used in increasing mass production.
The Bethlehem Iron Company was very successful and profitable, and the corporate management of the Bethlehem Iron Company believed that it could be even more profitable. To accomplish that goal, the corporate ownership of the Bethlehem Iron Company switched to steel production, and the company's name was formally changed to Bethlehem Steel Company.
Bethlehem Steel Company
In 1899, Bethlehem Steel Company was established. This was the first company to carry the name Bethlehem Steel. Bethlehem Steel Company, also then known as Bethlehem Steel Works, was incorporated to take over all liabilities of the Bethlehem Iron Company.[6][7][8] The Bethlehem Iron Company and the Bethlehem Steel Company were separate companies under the same ownership. The Bethlehem Steel Company leased the properties that were owned by the Bethlehem Iron Company.
20th century
A preferred share of Bethlehem Steel Corporation, issued July 6, 1911Naval artillery being assembled at Bethlehem Steel, c.1918The Bethlehem Steel mill in 1930Bethlehem Graveyard and Steel Mill, a famed Great Depression-era photo of St. Michael's Cemetery in Bethlehem (foreground) and the smokestacks of Bethlehem Steel (background) in 1935 by Walker EvansA 1942 photo of USSMassachusetts, built at Bethlehem Steel's Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts during World War IIBethlehem Steel constructing two World War II warships, HMSCalder (left) and USSFoss (right) in 1943 during World War IIA Bethlehem Steel plant at Lake Erie in Buffalo, New York in 1973The BETHCON trademark, which was used on Bethlehem Steel's HVAC ductingBethlehem Steel was one of the world's leading steel manufacturers for most of the 20th century. In 1982, it discontinued most of its operations, declared bankruptcy in 2001, and was dissolved in 2003.
In 1901, Charles M. Schwab (no relation to the stockbroker Charles R. Schwab), purchased the Bethlehem Steel Company and made Samuel Broadbent its vice president.[9][8] During this time, the company's lease with the Bethlehem Iron Company came to an end as the Bethlehem Steel Company gained control of all properties from the Bethlehem Iron Company and the Bethlehem Iron Company ceased operations.[8]
Schwab transferred his ownership of the Bethlehem Steel Company to the U.S. Steel Corporation, the company of which he was president. This period was brief; Schwab repurchased Bethlehem Steel Company, then sold it to the United States Shipbuilding Company. The United States Shipbuilding Company owned Bethlehem Steel Company only a brief time. The United States Shipbuilding Company was in turmoil; its subsidiaries, including the Bethlehem Steel Company, contributed to the United States Shipbuilding Company's problems. Schwab again became involved with Bethlehem Steel Company through the parent company, the United States Shipbuilding Company.[9][8]
The United States Shipbuilding Company planned in 1903 to reorganize as the Bethlehem Steel and Shipbuilding Company, which would be the second company to use the name Bethlehem Steel. However, the United States Shipbuilding Company was not reorganized as the Bethlehem Steel and Shipbuilding Company; instead, a plan was drawn up for a new company to be formed to replace the United States Shipbuilding Company. The new company was initially to be named Bethlehem Steel and Shipbuilding Company. In 1904, it instead assumed the name Bethlehem Steel Corporation.[9]
After its formation, the Bethlehem Steel Corporation purchased the Bethlehem Steel Company and its remaining subsidiaries from the United States Shipbuilding Company.[9][8] The Bethlehem Steel Company became a subsidiary of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, though the Bethlehem Steel Company also had subsidiaries of its own. Bethlehem Steel Corporation became the second largest steel provider in the United States. Both the Bethlehem Steel Company and the Bethlehem Steel Corporation existed simultaneously after 1904 until the 1960s, when the two companies were merged into the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.
From 1906 until it was de-listed in 2002, Bethlehem Steel was traded on the NYSE under the two letter symbol BS.[10]
Bethlehem Steel Corporation installed the Gray rolling mill and produced the first wide-flange structural shapes to be made in the United States. These shapes were partly responsible for ushering in the age of the skyscraper and establishing Bethlehem Steel as the leading supplier of steel to the construction industry.
During World War I and World War II, Bethlehem Steel was a major supplier of armor plate and ordinance to the U.S. armed forces, including armor plate and large-caliber guns for the U.S. Navy, and was influential to U.S. victories in both wars. Bethlehem Steel "was the most important to America's national defense of any company in the past century. We wouldn't have won World War I and World War II without it", historian Lance Metz told The Washington Post in 2003.[1]
In the 1930s, the company also manufactured the steel sections and parts for the Golden Gate Bridge and built for Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF), a new oil refinery in La Plata, Argentina, which was the tenth-largest in the world. During World War II, as much as 70 percent of airplane cylinder forgings, one-quarter of the armor plate for warships, and one-third of the big cannon forgings for the U.S armed forces were turned out by Bethlehem Steel.
Sourcing Minerals to Make Steel in the 20th Century
Steel is an alloy made up of iron and carbon, with additional minerals added depending on its use. In the 20th century, sourcing the necessary minerals in the United States was significantly more expensive than supplying them from elsewhere.
Bethlehem Steel is just one of several U.S. companies to have sourced iron from Latin America. Bethlehem Steel held a presence in Latin America for roughly a century (1880s - 1980s).[12] As such, the company profited greatly from the United States’ economic control over the region. “In a single year, 1960, U.S. Steel and Bethlehem Steel realized a greater than 30 percent profit on their Venezuelan iron investment, and this profit equaled all the taxes paid to the Venezuelan state in the decade since 1950” [13]
Bethlehem Steel also relied on Latin American mines for manganese, an additive for tensile strength. During President Eurico Dutra’s presidency in Brazil (1946 - 1951), Bethlehem Steel received 40 million ton of manganese “for 4 percent of the income of exporting it.” [13]
World War II
Bethlehem Steel ranked seventh among U.S. corporations in the value of wartime production contracts during World War II.[14]Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation's 15 shipyards produced a total of 1,121 ships, more than any other builder during the war and nearly one-fifth of the U.S. Navy's two-ocean fleet. Its shipbuilding operations employed as many as 180,000 persons, the lion's share of the company's total employment of 300,000.
Eugene Grace was president of Bethlehem Steel from 1916 to 1945, and chairman of the board from 1945 until his retirement in 1957. Grace orchestrated Bethlehem Steel's World War II wartime efforts. In 1943, Grace promised U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt that Bethlehem Steel would manufacture one ship per day, and he ultimately exceeded that commitment by 15 ships.[15]
World War II, however, drained Bethlehem Steel of much of its male workforce. The company hired female employees to guard and work on the factory floor and in the company offices. After the war, female workers were promptly fired in favor of male counterparts.[16]
In 1946, Bethlehem Steel signed a contract with mining company LKAB to contribute to the recovery of the post-World War II recovery of the iron ore industry in northern Sweden.[17]
Following end of World War II, the Bethlehem Steel plant continued to supply a wide variety of structural shapes for the construction trades. Galvanized sheet steel under the name BETHCON was widely produced for use as duct work or spiral conduit.[18]
The company also produced forged products for defense, power generation, and steel-producing companies.[19]
From 1949 to 1952, Bethlehem Steel had a contract with the U.S. federal government to roll uraniumfuel rods for nuclear reactors in Bethlehem Steel's Lackawanna, New York plant. Workers were not aware of the dangers of the hazardous substance and were not given protective equipment. Some workers have since attempted to receive compensation under a year 2000 radiation-exposure law. The law required the U.S. Labor Department to compensate workers up to $150,000 if they developed cancer later in life, provided their work history involved enough radiation exposure to significantly increase their cancer risk. Bethlehem Steel workers have not been awarded this compensation because the radiation dose involved in processing fresh uranium fuel is low and produces a small risk relative to the baseline risk.[20][21] The larger danger in processing uranium is chemical poisoning from the heavy metal, which does not produce cancer.[22]
The steel industry in the U.S. prospered during and after World War II, while the steel industries in Germany and Japan lay devastated by allied bombardments. Bethlehem Steel's success reached its peak in the late 1950s and early 1960s as the company began manufacturing 23 million tons of steel annually. In 1958, the company's president, Arthur B. Homer, was the highest-paid U.S. business executive, and the firm built the first phase of what would become its largest plant, Burns Harbor between 1962 and 1964 in Burns Harbor, Indiana.
Aerial view of the world's first 160" Plate Mill at Bethlehem Steel's Burns Harbor plant circa 1964. Note the other sections of the plant under construction in the back right of the image. High sand dunes and Lake Michigan in the background.
In 1967, the company lost its bid to provide the steel for the original World Trade Center. The contracts, a single one of which was for 50,000 tons of steel, went to competitors in Seattle, St. Louis, New York and Illinois.[23]
U.S. global leadership in steel manufacturing lasted about two decades during which the U.S. steel industry operated with little foreign competition. Eventually however, foreign firms were rebuilt with modern techniques such as continuous casting, while profitable U.S. companies resisted modernization. Bethlehem experimented with continuous casting but never fully adopted the practice.
Meanwhile, the age of Bethlehem Steel workers was increasing, and the ratio of retirees to workers was rising, meaning that the value created by each worker had to cover a greater portion of pension costs than before. Former top manager Eugene Grace had failed to adequately invest in the company's pension plans during the 1950s. When the company was at its peak, pension contributions that should have been made were not. As a result, the company encountered difficulty when it faced rising pension costs combined with diminishing profits and increased global competition.[24]
By the 1970s, imported foreign steel was proving cheaper than domestically produced steel,[25] and Bethlehem Steel faced growing competition from mini-mills and smaller-scale operations that could sell steel at lower prices.
In 1982, Bethlehem Steel reported a loss of US$1.5 billion and shut down much of its operations. The company's profitability returned briefly in 1988, but restructuring and shutdowns continued through the 1990s.[16] In the mid-1980s, demand for the plant's structural products began to diminish and new competition entered the marketplace. Lighter construction styles, due in part to lower-height construction styles, such as low-rise buildings, did not require the heavy structural grades produced at the Bethlehem plant.
In 1991, Bethlehem Steel Corporation discontinued coal mining it had been conducting under the name BethEnergy and the company exited the railroad car business two years later, in 1993. In 1992, the Johnstown plants of the Bethlehem Steel, which had been founded in 1852 by The Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown and were purchased by Bethlehem Steel in 1923, were forced into closure.
By the end of 1995, Bethlehem Steel closed steel-making at its main Bethlehem plant. After roughly 140 years of metal production in Bethlehem, Bethlehem Steel ceased its Bethlehem operations. Two years later, in 1997, Bethlehem Steel Corporation ceased shipbuilding activities in an attempt to preserve its steel-making operations. In 2001, however, Bethlehem Steel filed for bankruptcy and, in 2003, the company dissolved.
In 1998, after denied pension benefits, a lawsuit was filed in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. The case, Lawrence Hollyfield, Fiduciary to the Estate of Collins Hollyfield v. Pension Plan of Bethlehem Steel Corporation and Subsidiary Companies, was settled in favor of Hollyfield in 2001. It led to a class action lawsuit filed by Bethlehem Steel's workers union soon thereafter. This settlement led to PBGC assuming all Bethlehem Steel pension obligations, representing the largest such pension liability assumption in U.S. history.[26]
21st century
The still preserved but now dormant steel stacks of Bethlehem Steel at the company's former Bethlehem, Pennsylvania manufacturing headquarters. In 2007, much of the former headquarters was acquired by Sands Bethworks, a casino later sold and renamed Wind Creek Bethlehem.
In 2001, Bethlehem Steel filed for bankruptcy, becoming the 25th American steelmaking company in the span of four years between 1998 and 2001 to file for bankruptcy protection.[27] In 2003, the company was dissolved with its remaining assets, including six plants, acquired by the International Steel Group. International Steel Group, in turn, was acquired by Mittal Steel in 2005, which then merged with Arcelor to become ArcelorMittal in 2006.
Despite closing its local operations, Bethlehem Steel tried to reduce the significant economic and social impact on Bethlehem and the Lehigh Valley area, announcing plans to revitalize the south side of Bethlehem where its headquarters and primary plant had existed since the mid-19th century. The company hired consultants to develop conceptual plans on the reuse of the massive property, and a consensus emerged to rename the 163 acres (66ha) site Bethlehem Works and to use the land for cultural, recreational, educational, entertainment, and retail development. The National Museum of Industrial History, in association with the Smithsonian Institution and the Bethlehem Commerce Center, consisting of 1,600 acres (650ha) of prime industrial property in Bethlehem would be erected on the site along with a casino and a large retail and entertainment complex.
In 2007, the Bethlehem Steel property was sold to Sands BethWorks, which planned to build a casino where the plant once stood. Construction began in fall 2007, and the casino was completed in 2009. Due to a global steel shortage at the time, the casino had difficulty finding the 16,000 tons of structural steel needed for construction of the $600 million casino complex.[28]
The site of the company's original plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is home to SteelStacks, an arts and entertainment district. The plant's rusted five blast furnaces were left standing and serve as a backdrop for the new campus. SteelStacks currently features the ArtsQuest Center, a contemporary performing arts center, the Wind Creek Bethlehem casino resort, formerly Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, a gambling emporium, and new studios for WLVT-TV, the Lehigh Valley's PBS affiliate.[29] The area includes three outdoor music venues: Levitt Pavilion is a free music venue featuring lawn seating for up to 2,500 people, Air Products Town Square at Steelstacks, and PNC Plaza, which hosts outdoor concerts.[30] Levitt Pavilion and the casino resort are connected via the Hoover-Mason Trestle linear park.
On November 9, 2016, a warehouse being used as a recycling facility that was part of the Bethlehem Steel complex in Lackawanna, New York caught fire and burned down.[31]
On May 19, 2019, Martin Tower, Bethlehem Steel's former corporate headquarters building in West Bethlehem, was demolished.[32]
From 1923 to 1991, Bethlehem Steel was one of the world's leading producers of railroad freight cars following their purchase of Midvale Steel, whose railcar division was located in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Bethlehem Steel Freight Car Division pioneered the use of aluminum in freight car construction. The Johnstown plant was purchased from Bethlehem Steel through a management buyout in 1991, creating Johnstown America Industries.
Also in 2012, the song "Bethlehem Steel" by Nanci Griffith, one of the tracks on her album Intersection, mourned the company's closure.
In 1982, Billy Joel released "Allentown", a song depicting the lives of steelworkers in the twin cities of Allentown and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. "The subject of the song is the demise of the manufacturing industry in the United States. With the closing of Bethlehem Steel a generation of people were left jobless and depressed, wanting to leave but still clinging to the glory their parents were able to achieve."[38]
In 1996, Grant Lee Buffalo released the song "Bethlehem Steel”, off the album Copperopolis (album). It referenced the eponymous steel company in its lyrics.
Sports
Bethlehem Steel F.C. (1907–1930), sponsored by the Bethlehem Steel corporation, was one of the most successful early American soccer clubs.
In February 2013, the Philadelphia Union of Major League Soccer unveiled a third uniform that honors and harks back to the original Bethlehem Steel F.C.[39][40][41] The kit is primarily black with white trim and features a sublimated Union emblem and a Bethlehem Steel FC jock tag.[42][43]
Bethlehem is a city in Northampton and Lehigh Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, Bethlehem had a total population of 75,781, making it the second-largest city in the Lehigh Valley after Allentown and the seventh-largest city in the state. Among its total population as of 2020, 55,639 were in Northampton County and 19,343 were in Lehigh County. The city is located along the Lehigh River, a 109-mile-long (175 km) tributary of the Delaware River.
Joseph Wharton was an American industrialist. He was involved in mining, manufacturing, and education. He founded the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, co-founded the Bethlehem Steel company, and was one of the founders of Swarthmore College.
Charles Michael Schwab was an American steel magnate. Under his leadership, Bethlehem Steel became the second-largest steel maker in the United States, and one of the most important heavy manufacturers in the world.
The Lehigh Valley is a geographic and metropolitan region formed by the Lehigh River in Lehigh and Northampton counties in eastern Pennsylvania. It is a component valley of the Great Appalachian Valley bounded to its north by Blue Mountain, to its south by South Mountain, to its west by Lebanon Valley, and to its east by the Delaware River and Warren County, New Jersey. The Lehigh Valley is about 40 miles (64 km) long and 20 miles (32 km) wide. The Lehigh Valley's largest city is Allentown, the third-largest city in Pennsylvania and the county seat of Lehigh County, with a population of 125,845 residents as of the 2020 census.
Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Division was created in 1905 when the Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, acquired the San Francisco-based shipyard Union Iron Works. In 1917 it was incorporated as Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Limited.
Lewis Nixon was a naval architect, shipbuilding executive, public servant, and political activist. He designed the United States' first modern battleships, and supervised the construction of its first modern submarines, all before his 40th birthday. He was briefly the leader of Tammany Hall. He started an ill-fated effort to run seven major American shipyards under common ownership as the United States Shipbuilding Company, and he was the chair of the New York City commission that began construction of the Williamsburg Bridge.
Eugene Gifford Grace was the president of Bethlehem Steel from 1916 to 1945, and chairman of the board from 1945 until his retirement in 1957. He also served as president of the American Iron and Steel Institute, and sat on the board of trustees for Lehigh University.
Sparrows Point is an industrial area in unincorporated Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, adjacent to Edgemere. Named after Thomas Sparrow, landowner, it was the site of a very large industrial complex owned by Bethlehem Steel, known for steelmaking and shipbuilding. In its heyday in the mid-20th century, it was the largest steel mill in the world. The site of the former Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard and steel mill is now renamed Tradepoint Atlantic in a revitalization program to clean up the environment and make it one of the largest ports on the East Coast of the United States. Today Sparrows Point is home to many distribution centers, fulfillment centers, training lots, storage lots, and the like, including those operated by Under Armour, Amazon, Home Depot, Volkswagen, and McCormick & Company.
The Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a major producer of iron and steel that operated independently from 1852 to 1916. The company adopted many innovations in the steelmaking process, including those of William Kelly and Henry Bessemer.
Before 1800 A.D., the iron and steel industry was located where raw material, power supply and running water were easily available. After 1950, the iron and steel industry began to be located on large areas of flat land near sea ports. The history of the modern steel industry began in the late 1850s. Since then, steel has become a staple of the world's industrial economy. This article is intended only to address the business, economic and social dimensions of the industry, since the bulk production of steel began as a result of Henry Bessemer's development of the Bessemer converter, in 1857. Previously, steel was very expensive to produce, and was only used in small, expensive items, such as knives, swords and armor.
Midvale Steel was a succession of steel-making corporations whose flagship plant was the Midvale Steel Works in Nicetown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The mill operated from 1867 until 1976.
The Lackawanna Steel Company was an American steel manufacturing company that existed as an independent company from 1840 to 1922, and as a subsidiary of the Bethlehem Steel company from 1922 to 1983. Founded by the Scranton family, it was once the second-largest steel company in the world. Scranton, Pennsylvania, developed around the company's original location. When the company moved to a suburb of Buffalo, New York, in 1902, it stimulated the founding of the city of Lackawanna.
The United States Shipbuilding Company was a short-lived trust made up of seven shipbuilding companies, a property owner and steel company. Its stocks and bonds were unattractive to investors, and several of its member shipyards were overvalued, conditions which brought down the company less than a year after it was formed in 1902. The company was replaced by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation in 1904.
Archibald Johnston was a mechanical engineer who, favored by Bethlehem Iron Company management and senior Bethlehem Steel Company president Charles M. Schwab, became president of Bethlehem Steel Company. He was subsequently appointed as first vice president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation in charge of foreign sales. While first vice president, he led a municipal consolidation campaign to create the modern city of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, from the boroughs of Bethlehem and South Bethlehem.
The US iron and steel industry has paralleled the industry in other countries in technological developments. In the 1800s, the US switched from charcoal to coal in ore smelting, adopted the Bessemer process, and saw the rise of very large integrated steel mills. In the 20th century, the US industry successively adopted the open hearth furnace, then the basic oxygen steelmaking process. Since the American industry peaked in the 1940s and 1950s, the US industry has shifted to small mini-mills and specialty mills, using iron and steel scrap as feedstock, rather than iron ore.
The National Museum of Industrial History, abbreviated NMIH, housed in the former facility of Bethlehem Steel in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is a museum affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution that seeks to preserve, educate, and display the industrial history of the nation. It holds a collection of artifacts from the textile, steel and iron, and propane gas industries.
Bethlehem Transportation Corporation of Cleveland, Ohio was a shipping subsidiary of the Bethlehem Steel Company founded in 1924 as Bethlehem Steamship Company, the name changed in 1927. Bethlehem Steel Company acquired a fleet of lake freighter ships managed by Herbert K. Oakes. Herbert K. Oakes started as a lawyer with offices in Detroit and Cleveland. His legal work started in 1896 with the firm of Shaw, Warren, Cody & Oakes of Detroit. He departed the firm on May 7, 1911, to manage the shipping of iron ore for companies. He became the manager of Franklin Steamship Company in 1906, Fremont Steamship Company in 1908, Cadillac Steamship Company in 1912, and Beaver Steamship Company in 1916. The ship of these companies were acquired by Bethlehem Steel in 1924 when Herbert K. Oakes started working for Bethlehem Steel and formed Bethlehem Steamship Company in 1924.
Bethlehem Key Highway Shipyard started as William Skinner & Sons in downtown Baltimore, Maryland in 1815. In 1899 the shipyard was renamed Skinner Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company. Also at the site was Malster & Reanie started in 1870 by William T. Malster (1843–1907). In 1879 Malster partnered with William B. Reaney (1808-1883). In 1880 Malster & Reanie was sold and renamed Columbian Iron Works & Dry Dock Company. Malster & Reanie and Skinner Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company merged in 1906, but remained as Skinner Shipbuilding. In 1914 the company was renamed Baltimore Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Company. Baltimore Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Company sold to Bethlehem Steel in 1922, becoming part of Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. Bethlehem Steel operated the shipyard for ship repair, conversion and some ship construction. Bethlehem's main ship construction site was across the harbor at Bethlehem Sparrows Point. Bethlehem Key Highway Shipyard was known as the Bethlehem Upper Yard located north-east side of Federal Hill. Bethlehem Fort McHenry Shipyard located on the west side of Locust Point peninsula was known as the Lower Yard, near Fort McHenry.
Bethlehem Beaumont Shipyard was a shipyard in Beaumont, Texas that opened in 1948. The yard is located on an island in the Neches River and upstream of the Sabine Pass that grants access to the Gulf of Mexico. The deep-water port shipyard was founded in 1917 as the Beaumont Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company. Beaumont Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company started as a World War I Emergency Shipbuilding Program yard.
1 2 3 4 Davis (1877), "Bethlehem Iron Company", History of Northampton County, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and Reading: Peter Fritts, Chapter XLV, p. 212–213
↑ Larson, Erik (2003), The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, New York, USA: Crown, ISBN978-0-609-60844-9, p. 193.{{citation}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
↑ Henretta, James A.; Edwards, Rebecca; Self, Robert O. (2011). America's History Vol. 2 (Seventhed.). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. p.925. ISBN9780312387921. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
Hall, P. J. (1915). "History of South Bethlehem, Pa." Semi-centennial, the borough of South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1865–1915. Quinlan Printing Co. pp.12–13.
Further reading
Ennis, Ron W. " 'A Seething Cauldron' The 1941 Bethlehem Steel Strike and The Future of Labor Organizing." Pennsylvania History 88.1 (2021): 30-55. doi.org/10.5325/pennhistory.88.1.0030
Hessen, Robert. "The Transformation of Bethlehem Steel, 1904-1909." Business History Review 46.3 (1972): 339-360. doi.org/10.2307/3112743
Hessen, Robert. "Charles M. Schwab, President of United States Steel, 1901-1904." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 96.2 (1972): 203-228. online
Hessen, Robert. "The Bethlehem steel strike of 1910." Labor History 15.1 (1974): 3-18.
Kennedy, Michael D. "Rewriting the death and afterlife of a corporation: Bethlehem Steel." Biography 37.1 (2014): 246-278. excerpt
Nelson, Daniel. "Taylorism and the workers at Bethlehem Steel, 1898-1901." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 101.4 (1977): 487-505. online
Perelman, Dale Richard. Steel: The Story of Pittsburgh's Iron & Steel Industry, 1852–1902 (Arcadia Publishing, 2016) online.
Rogers, Robert P. An economic history of the American steel industry (Routledge, 2009) online.
Temin, Peter. Iron and Steel in Nineteenth Century America: An Economic Inquiry (1964)
Warren, Kenneth. Bethlehem Steel: Builder and Arsenal of America. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008. ISBN0-8229-4323-9online
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