Since Corby became the site of a new iron, steel & tube works in 1933, the village of 1,500 has grown into a new torn of 60,000. Many of the families that arrived came from north of the border and Corby became known as 'Little Scotland'. Almost 30 million tons of steel were produced in the forty-six-year life of what was once the largest plant of its type in Europe. The cost of producing steel from low-grade local ore spelled the end of the works once British Steel Corporation had built large plants with deepwater docking facilities, using high-grade imported ore. Once the shutdown was complete, work soon began on demolishing the plant and changing the face of the town that was, until 1980, totally reliant on one industry. The regeneration of the area, with the help of many millions of pounds from the Government, has been Corby pull itself back from becoming a possible ghost town. This book is a collection of images from inside The Works, showing scenes that could not be generally seen by the public. It provides an inside look into the works and is a record of an industry that is no more in the Northamptonshire countryside.

The invasion of AD 43 began the Romans'' settlement of Britain. The Romans brought with them a level of expertise that raised iron production in Britain from small localised sites to an enormous industry. Rome thrived on war and iron was vital to the Roman military establishment as well as to the civil population. In their pioneering work, David Sim and Isabel Ridge combine current ideas of iron making in Roman times with experimental archaeology. This book stretched far beyond dry theory and metallurgy alone; it covers all stages of this essential process from prospecting to distribution and describes the whole cycle of iron production. Clear photographs and line drawings illustrate the text well enough to allow keen readers to reproduce the artefacts for themselves. Fascinating to the general reader and all those with an interest in Roman history, this book in invaluable to students of archaeology and professional archaeologists alike. Dr David Sim is an archaeologist who ha combined studies of the technology of the Roman empire with his skills as a blacksmith. Dr Isabel Ridge is a mechanical engineer with a special interest in ancient technology.

This book examines the industrial ecology of 200 years of ironmaking with renewable resources in the Salisbury district of northwestern Connecticut.

Best remembered today for his fierce opposition to labor, especially during the Homestead Strike of 1892, Henry Clay Frick was also one of the most powerful and innovative industrialists of the nineteenth century. Kenneth Warren is the first historian to be given unrestricted access to the extensive Frick archives in Pittsburgh. Drawing on Frick's personal and business papers, as well as the records of the H. C. Frick Coal & Coke Company, the Carnegie Steel Company, and the U.S. Steel Corporation, Warren provides a wealth of new insights into Frick's relationship with such contemporaries as Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, Charles Schwab, and Elbert Gary. He describes and analyzes the key decisions that formed labor and industrial policy in the iron and steel industry during a period of growth that remains unparalleled in American business history. Not only an industrial biography of a driving force in American industry and the organization of American business, Triumphant Capitalism makes a major contribution to our understanding of the history of the basic industries, the shaping of society, locality, and region - and thereby of laying the foundations for the value systems and landscapes of present-day America.

The activist reign of the Emperor Wu-di (140-87 BC) saw major changes in the government of the Chinese state, its relations with foreign powers, and its economy, including the role of the government in the economy. In 117 BC, several state monopolies were established, and thus began an immense upheaval in the Chinese economy which has remained a matter of controversy through the centuries. This text brings both literary and archaeological evidence to bear in an investigation of the history of the Han state iron monopoly, with special consideration of the reasons for its establishment and for the intense opposition which it provoked.

The Firth Brown company was formed in 1930 after the amalgamation of Thomas Firth & Sons and John Brown & Co. Known throughout the world, their products were exported to all five continents. Both companies were at the forefront of technological development and they combined to form one of Sheffield's largest employers.

Drawing upon case studies of firms in the steel industry, authors show that companies competing internationally can pool their strengths to offset their individual weaknesses, enabling them to build economically successful entities more easily than if each company tried to go it alone in competition with rivals. In doing so they show how the world steel industry emerged into a group of international joint ventures and how in each of these transnational marriages the whole became greater than the sum of its parts. Among the authors' main points are: cultural conflicts are minimized by economic success but magnified by failure; expertise and commitment can overcome national differences, and even failing international joint ventures can be rehabilitated. Important reading for professionals in all areas of international business and for their colleagues in the academic community.

Included in each case study is a history of the firms and the emerging joint venture. Authors described the condition of facilities, the rehabilitation and construction of new facilities, the financial relationships between firms and the sources of funding, and their corporate structures. Cultural differences between firms and their impact on the success of the relationship are examined closely, with particular emphasis on personnel selection, training supervision, labor relations, retention and promotion policies and policies on tenure and layoff. Authors look at labor productivity and the use of participative management and other team approaches, relating them to such measurable variables as product quality, corporate profitability, and indeed the ultimate survival of each newly created firm. From there the authors show how the experiences of the steel industry and the lessons learned from its transnational alliances can be applied to other industries and to their own joint ventures.

The knowledge and use of metals has played an important role in the evolution of many African cultures. This bibliography brings together, in one volume, publications on the origins, spread, mining, smelting, smithing, use, functions, aesthetics, significance, and impact of various metals and their alloys on African cultures. Covering African metallurgy from the African Iron Age to the present, this guide is a useful reference tool for archaeology, anthropology, ethnology, history, art, and religion.

Arranged geographically by country, the volume is fully annotated and includes both printed and electronic sources.

This is a detailed account of the British and German steel industries' performances during three decades that were marked by radical changes in technology, in sources of raw materials and in product markets. Relying on governmental and corporate archives as well as on the contemporary trade literature, Professor Wengenroth has drawn a meticulous picture of how managements in the two countries met strategic problems raised by these changes. The author does not however, merely trace technological developments; rather he uses them as a backdrop for a contribution to the long-running debate on Britain's relative industrial decline in the late nineteenth century. Was this the result of massive entrepreneurial failure or was it merely the by-product of evolutionary changes that bestowed automatic competitive advantage on latecomers such as the Germans? The author argues a detailed case for the latter scenario and, in doing so, makes a major contribution to the debate on the 'Great Depression'.

Named one of the fifty best books of 1992 by Publishers Weekly More than a century has passed since the infamous lockout at the Homestead Works of the Carnegie Steel Company. The dramatic and violent events of July 6, 1892, are among the mst familiar in the history of American labor. And yet, few historians have adequately addressed the issues and the culture that shaped that day. For many Americans, Homestead remains simply the story of a bloody clash between management and labor. In The Battle for Homestead, Paul Krause calls upon the methods and insights of labor history, intellectual history, anthropology, and the history of technology to situate the events of the lockout and their significance in the broad context of America's Guilded Age. Utilizing extensive archival material, much of it heretofore unknown, he reconstructs the social, intellectual, and political climate of the burgeoning post-Civil War steel industry. The Battle for Homestead brings to life many of the individuals -both in and outside Homestead- who played a role in the events leading to July 1892. From the inventor of the modern Bessemer steel mill to the most obscure immigrant workers, from Christopher L. Magee, the "boss" of Pittsburgh machine politics, to Thomas A. Armstrong, the tireless editor of the National Labor Tribune, from the "Laird of Skibo" himself (Andrew Carnegie) to the labor leader and mayor of Homestead, "Old Beeswax" (Thomas W. Taylor), Krause shows how all these lives became intertwined, often in surprising and unpredictable ways, as the drama of the lockout unfolded. As the nineteenth century was drawing to a close, the Homestead Lockout dramatized the all-important question: Can the land of industry and technological innovation continue to be "the land of the free"? Can material progress, with its inevitable social and economic inequities, be made compatible with the American commitment to democracy for all? Twentieth-century history has demonstrated all too clearly the intesity of this dilemma. In addressing some of the thorniest issues of the last century, The Battle for Homestead demonstrates the enduring legacy and relevance of Homestead over a century later.

"For years I have been convinced that there is not an honest bone in your body. Now I know that you are a god-damned thief," Henry Clay Frick reportedly told Andrew Carnegie at their last meeting in 1900, just before J. P. Morgan bought the Carnegie Steel Company and founded United States Steel.
Three years later, James Bridge, who had served as Carnegie's personal secretary, published this book. In it he recounted the events that led up to the final confrontation between two of America's most powerful capitalists. The book created a sensation when it appeared in 1903. Not only did it describe the raw emotions of Carnegie and Frick, those most brilliant and uneasy of business partners, it also told of the history and inner workings of the industrial giant, Carnegie Steel.
Bridge was an open partisan of Frick, and the portrait of Carnegie that emerges from this book is not flattering. But he was an experienced journalist, and he uses sources carefully. His book remains a striking insider's narrative of the American steel industry in the last decades of the nineteenth century-as well as the most revealing account of the emotions of some of its major owners.
The introduction by John Ingram places the book in perspective for both the historian and general reader.

Business genius and hedonist, Charles Schwab entered the steel industry as an unskilled laborer and within twenty years advanced to the presidency of Carnegie Steel. He later became the first president of U.S. Steel and then founder of Bethlehem Steel. His was one of the most spectacular and curious success stories in an era of great industrial giants.

How did Schwab progress from day laborer to titan of industry? Why did Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan select him to manage their multmillion-dollar enterprises? And how did he forfeit their confidence and lose the preseidency of U.S. Steel? Drawing upon previously undiscovered sources, Robert Hessen answers these questions in the first biography of Schwab.

When Charles Martin Hall patented the process for refining the metal in 1886, it was far from self-evident that the new technology would be a business success. Problems involving the technology had to be solved. Capital and a labour force were needed. The most pressing entrepreneurial dilemma was the need to develop markets for what was then a novelty product. George David Smith examines how Alcoa met these problems, with special attention to innovation, from Alcoa's beginnings through its development into one of the most successful monopolies in American history. By World War II, no other American corporation had developed its industry's markets more dramatically and then dominated them more completely. The book then analyzes the undoing of Alcoa's monopoly by war and antitrust, and examines how the firm adapted to evolving forms of oliogopolistic and global competition.

This biography of Andrew Carnegie emphasizes the economic dimension of his career in industry. It examines his life as a dynamic innovator during the period when the steel industry rapidly expanded and the United States became a major industrial power. Carnegie rose from a poverty-stricken Scottish childhood to a position of international industrial leadership, philanthropy, and peace advocacy, by means of intelligence, entrepreneurship, ambition, tenacity, guile, and ruthless determination. It is shown that Carnegie excelled as an economic actor. His alertness to expected profit opportunities, and success in coping with the uncertainties of the marketplace, made him a major influence on the growth of many of the most important industries of late-nineteenth century United States and world economies. His contribution to the better coordination of the actions of both demanders and suppliers in those industries by managerial, technological, and institutional innovations is emphasized. It is also argued that those profit-seeking actions and innovations occurred in the context of political policies and social institutions that produced a tremendous mal-investment of resources. This mal-investment was a result of protective tariffs, the stimulus and waste of war, and government subsidization of the railroad industry. Carnegie's role in this massive diversion of resources from other uses to those from which he personally benefitted is also emphasized. Lastly, Carnegie's actions in giving away the great personal fortune that he accumulated as he built his business empire are examined and their economic implications assessed.

Veins of iron run deep in the history of America. Iron making began almost as soon as European settlement, with the establishment of the first ironworks in colonial Massachusetts. Yet it was Great Britain that became the Atlantic world's dominant low-cost, high-volume producer of iron, a position it retained throughout the nineteenth century. It was not until after the Civil War that American iron producers began to match the scale and efficiency of the British iron industry. In "Mastering Iron", Anne Kelly Knowles argues that the prolonged development of the American iron industry was largely due to geographical problems the British did not face. Pairing exhaustive manuscript research with analysis of a detailed geospatial database that she built of the industry, Knowles reconstructs the American iron industry in unprecedented depth, from locating hundreds of iron companies in their social and environmental contexts to explaining workplace culture and social relations between workers and managers. She demonstrates how ironworks in Alabama, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia struggled to replicate British technologies but, in the attempt, brought about changes in the American industry that set the stage for the subsequent age of steel. Richly illustrated with dozens of original maps and period art work, all in full color, "Mastering Iron" sheds new light on American ambitions and high-lights the challenges a young nation faced as it grappled with its geographic conditions.

Steel companies were at the birth of the modern business corporation. The first billion dollar corporation ever formed was US Steel in 1901. By the mid-Twentieth Century the steel mill and the automobile plant were the two pillars upon which the Twentieth Century industrial economy rested. Given the scale of capital and operations, vertical integration was seen to be pivotal, from the raw materials of iron ore and coal on one end of the supply chain to the myriad of finished products on the other. By the end of the century, however, things had dramatically changed. The dominance of the steel industry by the United States was being challenged by competitors abroad. Perhaps conceding defeat, U.S. Steel companies spun off assets and businesses in order to focus on core operations. Even more critical, a common assumption had arisen by then that, moving into the new millennium, the growth of the U.S. economy would be less reliant upon manufacturing and more reliant upon services and information. It was widely perceived that the country was moving from an industrial age into an information age, driven by high technology.That process is now being reversed. It now appears that the death knell of the manufacturing economy in the United States was premature. A rejuvenation of the steel industry is underway and that rejuvenation is of global proportions. For the first time, steel companies exist that are truly global in scope; and because steel and manufacturing are inseparable, the fate of the North American steel industry depends on whether the United States and Canada conclude that manufacturing matters. At the center of the current financial crisis is the imbalance between the trade surplus countries (China and Germany) and the deficit countries (most everybody else). The financial uncertainty persists. What is certain is that a rebalancing of the world economy will require a rejuvenation of advanced manufacturing.The proposed book will offer a concise history of the steel industry; a presentation of the economics of the industry; an overview of how the industry operates and the environment in which it operates; a discussion of regulation of the industry; a documentation of the reasons why a rejuvenated steel industry will be critical to the economic health of the United States and Canada; and a rationale for the reemergence of the steel industry in particular, and manufacturing in general, as a vital force in the North American economy of the new millennium.

From a farming background in Cumbria, John Wilkinson's remarkable abilities and ambitions ensured his rise to pre-eminence among the gifted pioneers of the industrial revolution. His colleagues and friends were similarly talented characters, including James Watt, Josiah Wedgwood, Richard Crawshay and Thomas Telford. Wilkinson achieved great leaps in the iron industry and munitions, including the first use of sound castings and accurate boring for cannon manufacture, but he was also influential in the development of steam railway engines, waterways, and copper refining, and worked extensively with lead and chemicals. But while Wilkinson's technological triumphs were admired by his contemporaries, his personal affairs were complicated and sometimes tragic. This well-informed and readable book, based on research by the author born of a fascination with Wilkinson after living at his family home, gives a unique insight into the character and thinking of the man Telford named 'King of the Ironmasters'.

Cowboy spurs are a pure form of American folk art. Like the cowboy himself, the way spurs developed was molded by their use and the environment of the range, along with a generous dose of individualism and pride. "Cowboy Spurs and Their Makers" tells for the first time the fascinating story of this western art and the artisans who professional historians, and westerners and valuable reference for identifying spurs used by riders of Texas and the Southwest.
A visit with contemporary spur maker Jerry Lindley, with pictures of him at work, traces the process and mechanics of hand forging spurs and decorating them by the overlay method. Individual chapters are devoted to the most prominent makers of cowboy spurs--manufacturers Buermann and North & Judd, the spur and bit companies of Crockett, Shipley, and Kelly, and hometown blacksmiths such as Bianchi, Causey, and the Boone clan. In lively detail their histories unfold, along with helpful descriptions of their techniques and most representative spurs.
Eighty-five black-and-white photographs and twelve color plates lavishly illustrate the spurs and their makers. An appendix lists many other artisans, past and present, with the locations of their shops and the identifying characteristics of their products. This book will become a standard reference for students, historians, and general readers alike--for everyone who values the important contribution of the cowboy to our cultural heritage and of the blacksmith who shaped the cowboy's badge of honor, his spurs.

James Moore Swank (1832 1914) was a US expert on iron and steel, and wrote widely about the industry. In 1873 he became secretary of the American Iron and Steel Association. This second edition (1892) of his influential book on iron manufacture was significantly expanded compared to the 1884 original, with 132 more pages, 15 extra chapters, and revisions throughout the text. Swank aimed to move away from the highly technical approach and European focus that had dominated previous works. Instead, he would emphasise names, dates, facts and results, and give special attention to the growth of the industry in the United States while providing an international context. He includes every country and US state that produced iron. The book is organised chronologically, and provides a fascinating account of the manufacture of iron from the ancient Egyptian period through early modern Britain to late nineteenth-century America.

Presented in a straightforward, non-technical manner, this book describes how one strategic industry has adapted to powerful technological and structural changes, ushering in a new phase in the global steel business.--Daniel Madar is a professor of political science at Brock University and the author of Heavy Traffic: Deregulation, Trade, and Transformation in North American Trucking.--"Big Steel explores an industry that has been in near continual transformation for a generation or more and captures the shape and structure of these changes. Perhaps even more significantly, it makes the case that developments in the new millennium denote a new phase in the global steel business, which portends even more dramatic changes of behaviour and performance." - Peter Clancy, author, Micro-Politics and Canadian Business: Paper, Steel and the Airlines.

Having come of age during a period of vibrant union-centered activism, Jack Metzgar begins this book wondering how his father, a U.S> Steel shop steward in the 1950s and '60s, and so many contemporary historians could forget what this country owes to the union movement. Combining personal memoir and historical narrative, Striking Steel argues for reassessment of unionism in American life during the second half of the twentieth century and a recasting of \u0022official memory.\u0022 As he traces the history of union steelworkers after World War II, Metzgar draws on his father's powerful stories about the publishing work in the mills, stories in which time is divided between \u0022before the union\u0022 and since. His father, Johnny Metzgar, fought ardently for workplace rules as a means of giving \u0022the men\u0022 some control over their working conditions and protection from venal foremen. He pursued grievances until he eroded management's authority, and he badgered foremen until he established shop-floor practices that would become part of the next negotiated contract. As a passionate advocate of solidarity, he urged coworkers to stick together so that the rules were upheld and everyone could earn a decent wage. Striking Steel's pivotal event is the four-month nationwide steel strike of 1959, a landmark union victory that has been all but erased from public memory. With remarkable tenacity, union members held out for the shop-floor rules that gave them dignity in the workplace and raised their standard of living. Their victory underscored the value of sticking together and reinforced their sense that they were contributing to a general improvement in American working and living conditions. The Metzgar family's story vividly illustrates the larger narrative of how unionism lifted the fortunes and prospects of working-class families. It also offers an account of how the broad social changes of the period helped to shift the balance of power in a conflict-ridden, patriarchal household. Even if the optimism of his generation faded in the upheavals of the 1960s, Johnny Metzgar's commitment to his union and the strike itself stands as an honorable example of what a collective action can and did achieve. Jack Metzgar's Striking Steel is a stirring call to remember and renew the struggle.

By the end of the 1980s, the once mighty U.S. steel industry seemed on its last legs. More than a quarter of a million jobs had been lost, and communities like Pittsburgh and Bethlehem were devastated. Yet today, the industry again stands as a world-class competitor. In The Renaissance ofAmerican Steel, Roger Ahlbrandt, Richard Fruehan, and Frank Giarratani illuminate the forces behind this remarkable comeback, drawing valuable lessons for managers not only in the steel business but in any business now battling the global marketplace.
Citing evidence from a wide range of companies in the U.S., the U.K., and Japan, and clearly explaining the basics of steel production, the authors show how the industry's rebirth resulted both from the downsizing of big companies and the rise of minimills capturing markets from the larger companies. They describe how large, traditional firms--including U.S. Steel, British Steel, and Nippon Steel--recognized that they had to reduce the scope of their operations and reorganize to become more competitive. U.S. Steel CEO Tom Graham, for instance, closed plants and refocused the firm's resources on the market for flat-rolled products. The book also examines how minimills--such as Nucor, Birmingham Steel, Oregon Steel, Tokyo Steel, and Co-Steel Sheerness--have redefined the industry's structure and competitive dynamics. Nucor, in particular, has emerged as the leader among the minimills--the largest electric furnace-based steel company in the U.S., with annual sales exceeding $3 billion. The reader learns how CEO Ken Iverson, recognizing the opportunities to be seized if Nucor moved beyond traditional products (such as steel joists and rebar), created the most innovative steel mill in the world, with a consistent record of investing in new technologies to lower operating costs and to move into sophisticated, value-added products. Throughout the book, the authors offer sharp insights into the steel industry in the U.S. and abroad--but more important, they highlight the lessons to be learned for managers in all industries. The authors conclude, for instance, that success for both large and small steel producers depends on a critical interplay of factors that touch on leadership, new technologies, and decentralized management. Effective leaders, the authors find, don't micromanage; they set a goal for the company and communicate it broadly to gain employees' commitment. High-performing companies aggressively seek technical know-how, even if it means purchasing it from foreign competitors or securing joint agreements. And finally, successful companies decentralize, empowering employees far down in the organization to handle daily decisionmaking.
This in-depth analysis of a radically changed industry speaks volumes about the value of flexibility in business. It is an essential resource for any manager working in today's global economy.

Much of the more than 30 million tons of asbestos used in the United States since 1900 is still present as insulation in offices and schools, as vinyl-asbestos flooring in homes, and in other common products. This volume presents a comprehensive evaluation of the relation of these fibers to specific diseases and the extent of nonoccupational risks associated with them. It covers sources of asbestiform fibers, properties of the fibers, and carcinogenic and fibrogenic risks they pose.

From prehistoric times until late in the twentieth century iron was vital to the livelihood of those who lived and worked in the Forest of Dean. From Roman times onwards iron from the Forest was also vital to the national economy. This is the story of the Forest's iron industry.