The Industrial Revolution in America: Iron and Steel, Railroads, Steam Shipping (Industrial Revolution in America)

Industrial Revolution in America

Industrial Revolution in America IRON AND STEEL Edited by Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom

Santa Barbara, California • Denver, Colorado • Oxford, England

Copyright © 2005 by Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The industrial revolution in America : iron and steel, railroads, steam shipping / edited by Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-85109-620-5 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-85109-625-6 (e-book) 1. Industrial revolution—United States. 2. Industries—United States—History. 3.Industrialization—United States—History. I. Hillstrom, Kevin, 1963– II. Hillstrom, Laurie Collier, 1965– HC103.I675 2005. 330.973'05—dc22 2005004599 08 07 06 05 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, Inc. 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Series Introduction Introductory Note Notes on Contributors

Origins and Development

vii xi xiii

1

Innovations and Inventions

27

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

45

Lives of the Workforce

97

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

129

Environmental Impact

157

Immigration’s Impact

183

Societal Impact

211

Gilded Age Art and Literature

241

Iron and Steel in the Modern Era

269

Index

293 v

Series Introduction

T

he Industrial Revolution was a transformational era in U.S. history, ushering in a host of major technological and socioeconomic changes that continue to define the nation’s political, social, and environmental landscape today. Indeed, the rise of the industrial age changed all facets of American life—often in decisive and far-reaching ways. Prior to the advent of railroads, industrial factories, telegraph systems, mechanized agriculture, and the automobile, the United States was a nation with an overwhelmingly rural character and a subsistence-oriented economy. The changing of the seasons governed all aspects of daily life in the preindustrial era, and towns, cities, and states that lay a mere hundred miles distant seemed nearly as foreign and exotic as those of Europe or the Far East. The Industrial Revolution changed all that. As railroad networks, steam shipping routes, textile factories, telegraph and telephone lines, steel foundries, and mechanized harvesting machines blossomed across the land, they transfigured American life. Major metropolitan centers sprang up across the land, even in areas of the interior that had been wholly unsettled a mere quarter century before. Subsistence economies gave way to vibrant commercial economies based on national and international trade, and the land’s natural bounty was exploited with near-religious zeal. American culture and self-identity underwent similarly profound changes, nurtured by the seeming fulfillment of the Manifest Destiny doctrine, spiraling tensions between workers and employers, and dawning awareness of the nation’s ever-growing influence and stature on the global stage. vii

viii

•

Series Introduction

In recognition of the profound impact that the Industrial Revolution had on the United States and the wider world, ABCCLIO has created The Industrial Revolution in America. This ninevolume series covers all aspects of the American Industrial Revolution, from the introduction of steam-powered engines to the emergence of the automobile. In the process, the series provides a wealth of fascinating, detailed information on the historical impact of various industries on the nation’s workers, families, and communities. It also casts a discerning eye on the various ways in which these industries shaped U.S. politics, corporate practices, philosophies of naturalresource use and stewardship, and cultural development. Coverage in The Industrial Revolution in America is broken down into the following subject-specific volumes: Iron and Steel. These are the most formidable of all the manufacturing industries that transformed American life in the second half of the nineteenth century. Steel production provided the United States with the infrastructure necessary to transform itself into an industrial superpower. Railroads. The rise of the so-called Iron Horse drove the nation’s breathtaking economic and geographic expansion, providing Americans with the means to harvest and market the continent’s remarkable bounty of natural resources. In the process, it became an iconic image of the American conquest of the frontier. Steam Shipping. A uniquely American contribution to modern technology, steam shipping was the first major transportation innovation that facilitated economic expansion across the United States in the nineteenth century. Textiles. When textile production began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the northeastern United States— boosted in large measure by abundant cotton crops from the Deep South—it marked the nation’s first successful parlay of technological innovation into mass production. Mining and Petroleum. U.S. extraction of coal, iron ore, gold, silver, oil, copper, and other minerals became increasingly sophisticated and profitable during the late nineteenth century, providing industries with the raw materials they needed to dramatically expand production. Automobiles. The last of the great technological innovations of the American Industrial Revolution, the advent of the automobile

Series Introduction

•

ix

wrought enormous changes in U.S. commerce—and even greater changes in the country’s social fabric. Agriculture and Meatpacking. As America’s transportation infrastructure expanded and improved, it created an environment in which farmers could deliver goods to lucrative marketplaces that were beyond reach only a generation earlier. The existence of this network, coupled with the rapidly expanding U.S. population, turned farmers, ranchers, and meatpackers and other commodity packagers into cornerstones of the emerging U.S. empire. Communications. The introduction of the telegraph and the telephone revolutionized the dissemination of information across the United States. This technology, which provided for the virtually instantaneous transfer of information from one end of the United States to the other, radically altered many aspects of American culture and business enterprise. Industrial Revolution Overview. This volume provides readers with an introduction to the Industrial Revolution in general and assesses the impact of various industries on each other and on the nation as a whole. Each of these volumes is divided into the following topical chapters: • • • • • • • • • •

Origins and Development Innovations and Inventions Major Entrepreneurs and Companies Lives of the Workforce Labor Organizations and Reform Movements Environmental Impact Immigration’s Impact Societal Impact Gilded Age Art and Literature The Modern Era

Other valuable features included in each volume of the Industrial Revolution in America series include: • Attribution and referencing of primary sources and other quoted material to help guide users to other valuable historical research resources.

x •

Series Introduction

• Photographs of the leading figures and major events discussed in the text. • Extensive bibliography of works consulted. • A subject index.

Introductory Note

F

rom its modest origins in the American colonies in the midseventeenth century, the iron and steel industry grew into a major economic force in the United States by the Civil War era. At that time, the introduction of new technologies—combined with dramatic upgrades in the speed and efficiency of national transportation networks that gave steelmakers greater access to the natural resources needed for their foundries—vaulted the U.S. industry to the forefront of world production and scientific innovation. This ascension paralleled the explosive growth of the U.S. economy, and in fact the steel industry and the national economy fed off each other to their mutual benefit throughout the last decades of the nineteenth century. In addition, the explosive growth of the steel industry contributed to a number of tectonic changes in American society. For example, the greater availability and higher quality of iron and steel products paved the way for the construction of towering office buildings that fundamentally altered the appearance and functionality of U.S. cities. It also facilitated the transportation revolution that changed the face of American life, providing the railroad industry and the nascent automobile industry with the materials essential to their rise. The U.S. steel industry was also the birthplace of the modern corporation. The leading steelmakers of the industrial age evolved management structures and integrated methods of operations that became the models for American business. Of these forerunners of the modern U.S. corporation, none wielded greater power than xi

xii

•

Introductory Note

Carnegie Steel, the creation of controversial tycoon Andrew Carnegie. In fact, Carnegie’s empire became the principal building block in the 1901 creation of U.S. Steel, the world’s first billiondollar corporation.

Notes on Contributors

Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom have authored and edited award-winning reference works on a wide range of subjects, including American history, international environmental issues, and business and industry. Works produced by the Hillstroms include the six-volume The World’s Environments series (2003), Encyclopedia of Small Business, 2d ed. (2001), the four-volume American Civil War Reference Library (2000), the four-volume Vietnam War Reference Library (2000), and The Vietnam Experience: A Concise Encyclopedia of American Literature, Films, and Songs. Mr. Hillstrom also edited the first edition of Encyclopedia of American Industries. Jacqueline M. Cavalier is a Professor of History at the Community College of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh. A social historian, Cavalier has authored two other works with a nineteenthcentury U.S. focus: Hunting for an Identity: The Civic Contributions of a Nineteenth-Century Small Town American Retailer (2000) and A Remedy for Every Malady: The Patent Medicine in Nineteenth Century America (2002). Jeffrey J. Hill is a freelance writer and editor based in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Defining Moments: Prohibition and has contributed to a variety of historical and literary reference works, including The Persian Gulf War, Biography Today, and Short Stories for Students. In addition, his travel-related writing has been published by Lonely Planet, Travel Weekly, and Weissman Travel Reports. Rob Kerby has authored, ghostwritten, or been the principal editor of about fifty books published in the United States, England, xiii

xiv

•

Notes on Contributors

Germany, Finland, Nigeria, Brazil, Indonesia, and Australia. He has also been a contributor to a host of reference works. He received his B.S. in journalism from the University of Tulsa and has done postgraduate work there and at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He has been a featured speaker at conferences around the United States on the subject of the effective utilization of community coalitions to provide substance-abuse interventions. Leigh Kimmel holds degrees in Russian language and literature, library and information science, and history. She has studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Illinois State University. She has held positions as a librarian at Illinois Central College and Moraine Valley Community College. Her articles have appeared in numerous ready-reference sources. Jonathan Rees is an associate professor of history at Colorado State University at Pueblo. He is the author of Managing the Mills: Labor Policy in the American Steel Industry during the Nonunion Era (2004) and coeditor of The Voice of the People: Primary Sources on the History of American Labor, Industrial Relations, and Working-Class Culture (2004). Diane Telgen is a freelance writer based in Michigan with more than fifteen years of experience in reference publishing. She graduated with highest distinction from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor with concentrations in English and Spanish. Projects she has edited include Notable Hispanic American Women, Something about the Author, Children’s Literature Review, Novels for Students, and Jr. DISCovering Authors CD-ROM. David Treviño is a middle and high school history teacher and freelance writer in Boca Raton, Florida. He has a B.A. in history from the University of Texas at San Antonio and an M.A. in history and politics from Texas A&M University at Kingsville. He has taught U.S., European, and Latin American college history classes in Ohio, Texas, and Florida. Mr. Treviño has published in numerous publications and has presented academic papers in history, politics, and sociology at conferences throughout the United States. Charles E. Williams is a scientist, writer, and environmental historian whose research focuses on forest ecology, landscape history, and human-environment interactions. In 2003 he was a Fulbright Scholar in Environmental History at the University of Iceland. He is currently Professor of Ecology at Clarion University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches ecology and environmental

Notes on Contributors

•

xv

history. He has published more than 100 popular and technical articles on ecology and environmental history and is past editor of the Natural Areas Journal. He is currently writing a reference work on colonial American environmental history.

Origins and Development Kevin Hillstrom

F

rom its modest origins in the American colonies in the midseventeenth century, the iron and steel industry had grown into a major economic force in the United States by the Civil War era. At that time, the introduction of new technologies—combined with greater access to the natural resources needed by manufacturers of steel—vaulted the U.S. industry to the forefront of world production and scientific innovation. This ascension paralleled the explosive growth of the U.S. economy, and in fact the steel industry and the economy fed off each other to their mutual benefit throughout the last decades of the nineteenth century. “The beginning of the 1870s was precisely the right time in the industrial development of the United States for the appearance of a steel industry,” wrote one historian. “Iron had served its purpose in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, but the infrastructure for the next great leap— railroads, bridges, factories, and office buildings—required a stronger, less malleable material” (Hoerr 1988). Feeding America’s prodigious appetite for iron and steel products also required the industry’s leading members to evolve into corporations with deeply integrated operations. Of these corporations, commonly cited as the forerunners of the modern U.S. corporation, none wielded greater power than Andrew Carnegie’s Carnegie Steel. In 1901 Carnegie sold his business to financier J. P. Morgan, owner of Federal Steel. Morgan then combined these enterprises with other interests to create the giant trust U.S. Steel, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation. 1

2

•

Iron and Steel

Iron Making in Colonial America The first attempt to establish a commercially viable iron-making business on American soil dates back to 1619. At that time, British investors intrigued by reports of vast stores of iron and timber (the latter of which was necessary to produce charcoal for furnaces) founded an ironworks called the Virginia Company at Falling Creek, Virginia. But the fledgling operation was snuffed out—and its workers killed—by Indian attacks in 1622. More than two decades later, John Winthrop Jr. founded a more enduring iron-making venture in the colonies in Braintree, Massachusetts. But although he recruited skilled ironworkers from Europe to operate his plant, the site lacked sufficient waterpower for some of its operations. Winthrop subsequently withdrew from the business, to be replaced by Richard Leader, who established an entirely new facility on the shores of the Saugus River. Despite the more advantageous location, this plant also fell short of investors’ expectations. Still, these early efforts were responsible for luring a number of skilled ironworkers to the shores of the New World. These men eventually spread throughout the colonies to practice their craft, often taking on apprentices who absorbed their lessons in preparation for launching their own ironworks (slaves were another significant labor source for the colonies’ fledgling iron industry, but their legal status precluded them from opening their own establishments). Historians estimate that by 1700, the American colonies were producing about 1,500 tons of iron annually—approximately 2 percent of estimated world production at the time and about 10 percent of estimated British production. This steady if unspectacular growth in the colonies’ iron production has been commonly attributed to the persistent British demand for iron to fuel its own industrial expansionism. In 1724 a group of British investors launched the Principio Company, an iron-making firm based in Virginia that became one of the largest industrial operations in the colonies. Other well-financed outfits, such as Maryland’s Baltimore Company, followed in its wake. By the 1730s, furnaces and forges were operational in every colony, supplying settlers with crude but effective iron stoves, nails, farming tools, and household implements. Ironworks of this era were intriguing to investors for a number of reasons. Start-up costs in the colonies were modest, there were vast

Origins and Development

•

3

Artist’s rendering of the Principio ironmaking company of Virginia. (Library of Congress)

tracts of easily accessible timber for charcoal production in the New World, and the field was not crowded with competitors. Moreover, demand for iron products seemed unlikely to abate in Britain. In fact, iron was often accepted by British merchants in lieu of money as a way of settling debts (Paskoff 1983). Yet many ironmasters were content with meeting the demand of the bustling colonial communities of which they were a part. The majority of the midcentury furnaces and forges in the Pennsylvania colony—which was already, at this early date, emerging as a center of iron production—were owned by individuals or two-member partnerships rather than larger firms with significant British stakes in the enterprise (Bining 1973). As a result, their operations were mostly modest in scale and unconcerned with making exporting inroads. These colonial enterprises employed ironworking methods that were nearly identical to those used in the mother country. In the first stage, pig iron (raw iron ready for forging into finished products) was created out of iron ore in blast furnaces that melted the metal using charcoal and limestone. Wrought-iron products, mean-

4

•

Iron and Steel

while, were forged out of pig iron by blacksmiths who used large bellows and water-driven hammers to bend the substance into various tools and implements. Steel products, created from highly refined iron, were the rarest of iron ore–based products, both in Britain and in the colonies. To make steel, ironmasters had to produce a liquid mass of nearly pure iron, almost entirely cleansed of carbon, before carefully reintroducing a controlled amount of carbon. The process required such great amounts of heat and such careful work that it took a week of diligent attention to make even a small batch of steel. As a result, steel remained a rare material that was used primarily in the creation of expensive and finely crafted swords, bayonets, cutlery, sharp-edged medical instruments, and similar goods (Smith 1977).

The 1750 Iron Act In 1750 the British Parliament passed the Iron Act. This act (and amendments to it passed in 1757) was a tacit admission that the colonial ironmasters were emerging as a meaningful economic force. It called for the duty-free import of American pig iron (raw iron ready for forging), a nod to the persistent demand for raw materials for British industries. But it also included a remarkable stipulation that no ironworks that produced finished goods could be built in the colonies after June 24, 1750. The latter measure was a transparent attempt on the part of Britain to corner the fast-rising colonial market for nails, steel furnaces, and other iron products for its own ironmasters, but the bid never amounted to much. The colonists simply ignored the law. Eager to get their hands on iron products that were used for a variety of household, transportation, and agricultural purposes, they faithfully patronized their local ironmasters, who were similarly dismissive of the Iron Act’s anticompetitive provisions. Many of the ironmasters maintained modest operations during this period, but some enterprises of this era that were flush with investment capital grew into veritable iron plantations, complete with housing for laborers, gardens and stores for workers, and thousands of acres of timber that could be harvested to feed the voracious furnaces. Some historians have touted these operations as forebears of the “company towns” created and maintained by the steel giants of the late nineteenth century.

Origins and Development

•

5

By 1775 the North American colonies were churning out an estimated one-seventh of the world’s iron, surpassing the combined output of England and Wales. This production, which was sufficient to make the colonies the third-largest producer of raw iron in the world with as much as 15 percent of global output, was centered within a broad arc from northern New Jersey to central Virginia, with ironrich Pennsylvania serving as the arc’s center (Bezís-Selfa 2004; Bining 1933).

The Iron Industry in Postrevolutionary America In 1775 colonial America’s profound unhappiness with British tax demands, trade controls, and political machinations finally erupted into an all-out war of independence. Eight years later, the Americans’ victory was completed, and the new nation began the arduous and exhilarating process of creating a democratic government and way of life in the United States. Despite the bitterness of the war, Great Britain maintained a major trade relationship with its former North American colonies, and socioeconomic developments on one side of the Atlantic inevitably had repercussions for the nation perched on the other shore. Technological advances in the British iron industry in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, for instance, had a major impact on American furnace and forge owners. The cornerstone of Great Britain’s leap forward was its successful implementation of coke as a blast-furnace fuel. These coal-fired forges generated higher temperatures than charcoal, which enabled ironmasters to burn off a greater percentage of carbon and thus produce iron products of greater strength and durability. This innovation dramatically improved British competitiveness in the industry in a number of important respects. In addition to creating a superior product, the switch to coke lessened ironmasters’ dependence on charcoal—created from forests that were rapidly being depleted across the kingdom (and much of western Europe, for that matter)—and reoriented the industry on a foundation of coal, of which the country had an abundant supply. It also made steel production a somewhat less painstaking process—though it remained a far cry from the swift steelmaking processes that took root a century later. Within a few years, then, Britain’s iron industry became much

6

•

Iron and Steel

Iron’s Role in the American Revolution Iron mining and smelting began in British North America almost as soon as the first colonies were established. Jamestown had a forge in 1621, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony established an ironworks on the Saugus River in 1646. By the mid-1700s, the production of pig iron (raw iron ready for forging) was increasing rapidly in the colonies. About 15 tons of American pig iron were shipped to Britain in 1723. Over the next fifty years, however, discoveries of large deposits of ore in Virginia and Maryland resulted in the colonies’ production of pig iron surpassing that of Great Britain. Exports of American pig iron increased to 5,000 tons in 1771. By 1776, forges in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were turning out 30,000 tons of pig iron annually, which accounted for 14 percent of the world’s production. Such rapid increases in American pig-iron production prompted the British Parliament to take steps to control the emerging industry in its colonies. The British Iron Act of 1750, and amendments passed in 1757, eliminated import duties for American iron in order to encourage colonial producers to ship their pig iron to England. But the act also forbade the construction of new iron mills and made it illegal to refine pig iron in the colonies. Pig iron is made by heating the ore to the melting point. Liquid iron—still filled with impurities—is then cast into ingots, called pigs. Pig iron could then be further refined into either cast iron or wrought iron. The Iron Act required that all such

more profitable and productive. Indeed, the nation became a net exporter of iron after years of being a net importer. The United States, meanwhile, experienced a decisive reversal of fortune in the iron trade. Despite the introduction of tariffs designed to stem the flow of iron into the states from Britain, America quickly became a net importer of iron after years of being a net exporter. Yet its furnace and forge owners continued to employ the old charcoalbased technology that the British had left behind. Many U.S. iron-making enterprises were able to get away with this outdated loyalty to charcoal because of the heady pace at which the nation’s population was growing and pushing across the frontier. Simply put, the domestic demand for iron goods was so high (and the country’s protective tariffs were so formidable) that industry participants were not forced to maximize the efficiency of their operating

Origins and Development

•

7

refinement of pig iron take place in Britain. In this way, Parliament tried to reserve the growing American market for finished goods— iron products used for household, transportation, agricultural, and industrial purposes—for British ironmasters. As one of the first trade restrictions imposed on the American colonies, the Iron Act is frequently mentioned as one of the grievances that sparked the American Revolution. Widespread colonial resentment over British tax demands, trade controls, and political maneuverings finally erupted into war in 1775. Once the colonies won their independence from Great Britain, large numbers of American iron forges and mills sprang up, producing nails, hinges, plows, and other finished products. Despite the bitter war, however, the United States maintained a close trading relationship with Great Britain in the nineteenth century, and technological advances in the British iron industry had a major impact on U.S. producers. Sources Bezís-Selfa, John. 2004. Forging America: Ironworkers, Adventurers, and the Industrious Revolution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Bining, Arthur Cecil. 1933. British Regulation of the Colonial Iron Industry. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hogan, William T. 1971. Economic History of the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States. Lexington, MA: Heath.

practices. Instead, they were free to stick to their old, inherited means of creating the household goods (stoves and hollowware), agricultural tools (edge tools and hand tools), machinery (firearms and hand tools), construction pieces (nails, pipes, and bolts for buildings and bridges), and transportation equipment (fittings for wagons and ships) for which the American people were clamoring (Temin 1964). Statistical data on the U.S. iron industry in the first four decades of the nineteenth century are fragmentary and sketchy, making it difficult to chart its growth during that period in exact terms. But it has been estimated that annual U.S. iron production had reached about 54,000 tons by 1810 (total U.S. steel output that same year has been estimated at less than 1,000 tons). Twenty years later, domestic iron production had quadrupled its output to somewhere around 200,000 tons annually—despite its continued reliance on outdated industry

8

•

Iron and Steel

technology that was markedly inferior to technology that had thoroughly infiltrated the operations of British competitors. Taking stock of this situation, some observers warned that the U.S. iron industry’s seemingly robust health was predicated almost entirely on the continued existence of tough tariffs on imported iron. They cautioned that if those tariffs were ever removed, much of the U.S. iron industry would be reduced to cinders and ashes by the resulting onslaught of British-made steel.

The 1830s—an Industry Turning Point In the 1830s a segment of the U.S. iron industry finally roused itself to incorporate new technologies into its operations, a move that paid immediate and dramatic dividends for ironworks willing to take the plunge. At this time, some iron-making enterprises began to substitute mineral coal for charcoal to produce their pig iron. The use of this mineral coal (consisting of bituminous coal, a soft coal that can be treated to create a denser product called coke, and anthracite coal, a hard coal often characterized as a “natural coke”) was particularly beneficial to Pennsylvania, which had significant anthracite deposits in its eastern reaches and commercially valuable concentrations of bituminous coal deposits in the western half of the state (Temin 1964). On the whole, companies that embraced the switch to mineral coal in the production of pig iron enjoyed greater output and greater profits than their charcoal-bound brethren, and their production is credited as being a major factor in a near doubling of U.S. pig-iron production during the 1840s. Yet an estimated 75 percent of the pig iron made in the United States as late as 1847 was still made with charcoal (ibid.). In many respects, however, the 1840s was a tumultuous decade for the iron industry. With the notable exception of the cotton-growing South, most of the country was buffeted by boom-and-bust economic trends that left even the steadiest managers uneasy. Ironworks had always been particularly susceptible to economic downturns, and this period proved to be no exception. Industry representatives lobbied hard for new protective tariffs that would turn aside the more technologically advanced British firms that were pounding on the doors of U.S. business, but they received only modest satisfaction. As a result, British exports, which were of superior quality and increasingly com-

Origins and Development

•

9

Artist’s rendition of a blacksmith seated with hammer, anvil, and other tools of the ironmaking trade, ca. 1870. (Library of Congress)

petitive price, came to claim a greater and greater share of the domestic industry’s clientele—most notably the railroads, which were laying rails across the continent with dizzying speed. This intensely competitive environment claimed traditional and modern iron-making enterprises alike. But as one historian noted, the modern sectors had responded to these adverse conditions in a manner significantly different from that of the traditional sectors of the industry. The forces of competition destroyed the weaker firms in both sectors, but in the former the losses were more than offset by new firms entering the industry. Thus the anthracite furnaces and the rolling mills emerged from the 1840s in larger firms and in robust health. . . . There were reasons for optimism in 1850. The domestic market was growing very rapidly, and the future looked brighter as the rails pushed into the West. (Paskoff 1983)

10

•

Iron and Steel

Glimpses of the Corporate Age to Come By midcentury, the U.S. iron industry was undergoing a discernible metamorphosis from traditional small partnerships and individual producers to larger organizations with a recognizably corporate structure. These corporate entities emerged largely in response to “the unprecedentedly severe requirements for capital and organizational control over production imposed by the U.S. railroad industry’s demand for rolled-iron products, especially rails and boiler iron. Production on the scale necessary to serve the railroad’s appetite for large quantities of iron at prices competitive with those charged by British producers generally surpassed the capabilities of firms owned by individuals and small partnerships” (Paskoff 1983). This competitive environment was shaping the industry in other ways as well, most notably in driving participants to build integrated structures with iron-ore mining, transport, and rolled-iron manufacturing components. This trend was especially evident among firms that were heavily dependent on demanding railroad clients (which were themselves enmeshed in what had become, since the 1840s, a feverishly competitive industry). Rails accounted for more than onethird of total iron consumption (including iron produced domestically and that exported from overseas) in the United States by 1856, and they continued to account for one-third or more of the country’s rolled-iron and steel products for the next quarter century (Temin 1964). Indeed, rails became the dietary staple of a nation prodigiously hungry for new land and economic opportunities. The rails generated by the iron and steel industry enabled settlers to rush westward to the Pacific like a wildfire, burning up forests and prairies and leaving farms, ranches, and communities sprouting in their wake. When the American Civil War erupted in 1861 after years of sectional tensions, the iron industry of the North was much further along in its evolution toward integrated corporations capable of large-scale production than the industry of the South, which remained bound to traditional practices predicated on slave labor. It was also beginning to make the switch to coke as a blast-furnace fuel, while southern operations remained dependent on less effective charcoal. The disparate capacity of the regions’ iron-making resources proved to be a significant factor in the conflict. The ironworks of the North generated huge amounts of armaments and other supplies for the Union forces, whereas those of the South proved wholly inade-

Origins and Development

•

11

quate to provide the same services for the Confederate army. As the war progressed, the North leveraged its superior industrial capacity in a multitude of ways, and by 1865 the Confederacy was no more.

The Bessemer Steelmaking Process When the guns and cannons of the Civil War finally fell silent, the iron industry stood poised on the cusp of a new and exciting era—an era of dramatically greater steel production. Unbeknownst to most of its membership, the iron industry was on the verge of becoming the iron and steel industry. In 1860, total American steel output stood at less than 12,000 tons, whereas iron production exceeded 920,000 tons (Hogan 1971). As had been the case since colonial times, steel remained an expensive, specialized product that was used in dollops, usually for prairie plows, swords, and fine-edged tools where durability and strength were prerequisites. But then the Bessemer steelmaking process was introduced, and with it came a sea change in the business priorities and operations of U.S. metallurgy. This technological advance was actually made independently and virtually simultaneously by two men, Sir Henry Bessemer of England and ironmaster William Kelly of Kentucky. In the 1850s both men began experimenting with the idea of removing excess carbon from molten pig iron by blowing air throughout it. This step, they discovered, caused carbon and other impurities in molten iron to combine with oxygen and burn off. At that point, measured amounts of carbon and other materials could be added to the iron to create steel. This innovation almost miraculously reduced the time needed to process five tons of steel from one day to fifteen minutes. By the mid-1860s, each man had sold his patent (Kelly secured a U.S. patent, and Bessemer received an English patent) to companies in the United States. In 1866 the two groups—which, significantly, included executives from many of America’s most powerful railroad companies—combined their operations to form the Bessemer Steel Association. One year later, on May 26, 1867, the first commercial railroad track using the Bessemer process was manufactured, for the Pennsylvania Railroad. By the close of the year, the company had produced more than 1,000 tons of steel, most of it for the nation’s rapidly expanding rail networks. Within months of their installation, it was

12

•

Iron and Steel

Illustrations depicting the Bessemer steel manufacturing process, ca. 1876. (Library of Congress)

clear that these early steel rails were vastly superior to the iron tracks that had been laid over the previous few decades. The Bessemer process quickly spread, prompting an explosion in steel output. In 1870 U.S. steel production reached 42,000 tons, more than triple the amount produced a mere decade earlier. But it was in the ensuing decade that production really jumped. By 1880, the fortuitous convergence of popular demand, technological know-how, and entrepreneurial gusto had driven the industry’s steel output to an amazing 1.2 million tons. Of this total, nearly 970,000 tons took the form of steel rails—twice the iron-rail volume of 494,000 tons (Hogan 1971). The revolution in steel production triggered a corresponding revolution in the size and character of industry participants. In essence,

Origins and Development

•

13

it accelerated the trend toward incorporation and large-scale production that had first emerged in the 1850s. “The minimum economic size of a Bessemer plant was far larger than anything known before, a development which led to a different industrial structure in the production of steel than had prevailed in the making of iron,” wrote historian Peter Temin. By the beginning of the 1880s, he added, the Bessemer steel firms “were very much alike. One of their common attributes was their degree of integration: they all combined the operations of smelting and refining iron. As the transformations of iron ore into pig iron and pig iron into wrought iron had been largely conducted by different firms before 1865, we may attribute the integration present in steel firms to the effects of the Bessemer process” (Temin 1964).

Pittsburgh Reigns as a Steelmaking Center The advent of the Bessemer steelmaking process also solidified the status of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as the nation’s steel capital. Pittsburgh and the larger Monongahela Valley were ideally suited in most respects for large-scale iron and steel production. The region contained significant investment capital, navigable rivers and extensive rail networks for transportation, and a large number of skilled and experienced tradesmen in the metallurgical arts. Most important of all, the region boasted significant deposits of coal (which had emerged as the industry’s preferred fuel), limestone, and iron ore, the raw materials integral to nineteenth-century iron and steel production. Finally, operators in the Pittsburgh area moved decisively to address their shortage of unskilled laborers capable of tackling the physically taxing work in the furnaces and forges. “A vast pool of unskilled labor lay only an ocean away [and] the steel mills of America soon exerted a strong gravitational pull on the European masses” (Hoerr 1988). During the 1860s and 1870s, Pittsburgh’s traditional prominence in the industry had also made it a major destination for shipments of iron ore that had been discovered in the Lake Superior region. The first of these rich iron-ore deposits had been found in the Marquette Range in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in the mid-1840s. A flurry of other discoveries in northern Michigan and Minnesota was announced in subsequent years, the most notable being the discovery of vast deposits of rich iron ore in Minnesota’s Mesabi Range.

14

•

Iron and Steel

Iron and Steel Production in the West Throughout the American Industrial Revolution, iron and steel production remained overwhelmingly centered in the eastern half of the United States. In 1900, for example, five states east of the Mississippi River produced 86 percent of the nation’s pig iron: Pennsylvania (47 percent), Ohio (18 percent), Illinois (10 percent), Alabama (8 percent), and Virginia (3 percent). The leading manufacturer west of the Mississippi at the turn of the century was Colorado, which ranked fourteenth in the nation with less than 1 percent of the national total (Britton 1991). At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the absence of an iron industry in the West was attributable to the simple fact that the region was largely unsettled but for scattered small communities along the Pacific Coast and a few outposts in the interior. By midcentury, the number of people in the West was increasing at a far greater rate than the country’s overall population growth. During the 1840s, for example, the U.S. population increased by 14.5 percent, while the populations of Oregon (39.6 percent), Washington (37 percent), and California (53.3 percent) increased at higher rates (Pomeroy 1973). Yet the industry remained virtually nonexistent. It was not until 1849, when Mormon pioneers built a forge in Salt Lake City, that the first attempts at developing a western iron industry took place. This early effort in Utah was an exceedingly modest affair, reliant on scrap metal discarded by immigrants on the trails to California and Oregon, and it ultimately failed, done in by a scarcity of raw materials and a series of devastating weather events. Entrepreneurs in the Oregon Territory were next to try their hand at iron making, but here too the industry failed to take root. Still, the existence of significant deposits of iron ore, combined with the growing regional demand for iron and steel products, con-

At the same time, major canal construction was undertaken on the Great Lakes. When the Sault Sainte Marie Canals (also known as the Soo Locks) were completed in the 1850s, joining Lake Superior and Lake Huron, shippers were free to roam throughout the Great Lakes region. These developments triggered an explosion of barge traffic. By the early 1870s, more than 1 million tons of iron ore a year were being shipped to ports on Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. Once these shipments reached their destination, they were quickly spirited away

Origins and Development

•

15

tinued to intrigue entrepreneurs. Even railroad tycoons who had amassed great fortunes with their western rail systems were not immune. Railroad baron James J. Hill of the Great Northern Railway Company, for example, strolled to the edge of major investments, only to back away at the last minute, spooked by the region’s dearth of good coking coal and the challenge of gathering investors to share the financial burden of starting up a major mill (Britton 1991). As a result, the scattered iron plants that managed to open their doors during the last quarter century were of modest scale and typically concentrated on only one aspect of the business (unlike the integrated giants farther east). “A new age of corporate capitalism also worked to the advantage of larger and longer-established eastern firms,” observed one historian. “By the end of the nineteenth century the giants of industry had created huge economic empires while effectively decreasing their competition. Strong corporate influence led to the practice of favoritism by railroads, the chief form of transportation for heavy industries, which served to cripple further the fledgling iron industry in the Far West” (ibid.). In the end, all these factors combined to preclude the western states from claiming more than a morsel or two from the East-based industry’s overflowing table of profits. Sources Britton, Diane F. 1991. The Iron and Steel Industry in the Far West: Irondale, Washington. Niwot: University Press of Colorado. Cochran, Thomas, and William Miller. 1942. The Age of Enterprise: A Social History of Industrial America. New York: Macmillan. Pomeroy, Earl. 1973. The Pacific Slope: A History of California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

to the roaring furnaces of Pittsburgh and other major steel centers in the region, most notably Youngstown, Ohio, and Gary, Indiana. This convergence of economic events made Pittsburgh the nation’s undisputed king of steel production and transformed the Monongahela River into “nature’s equivalent of an assembly line. Outfitted with bridges, locks, dams, and a nine-foot channel, its banks lined with railroads, mills, furnaces, coal mines, gravel pits, coal docks, tipples, trestles, pipelines, tanks, cranes, conveyor belts, and practically

16

•

Iron and Steel

Steel plants dominated the Pittsburgh skyline by the late nineteenth century. (Library of Congress)

every other item of industrial equipment known to man, the Monongahela enabled entrepreneurial capital to use and exploit the valley’s minerals and men on an awesome scale” (Hoerr 1988). Not surprisingly, these developments also enabled the United States to eclipse Great Britain as the world leader in iron and steel production. In 1850, British production of pig iron had been nearly four times that of the United States. Four decades later, the Americans surpassed Great Britain in pig-iron production, registering 9.2 million tons compared to the British total of 7.9 million tons, and the United States put further distance between itself and Great Britain with each passing year after that. A similar scenario unfolded in the area of steel production. In 1870, Great Britain produced more than five times as much steel as the United States. But by 1890, the U.S. total was nearly 4.3 million tons, about 700,000 tons more than Great Britain, and by 1895 the United States accounted for almost half of the steel produced in the entire world.

The Age of Carnegie Of all Pittsburgh’s steelmakers, none proved more adept at riding the crest of Bessemer technology than Andrew Carnegie. A canny and

Origins and Development

•

17

determined businessman, Carnegie became a devotee of the Bessemer process during an 1872 trip to England. He instinctively recognized that steel was the wave of the future, especially for the massive railroad industry. Upon his return to the United States, Carnegie built a large steel mill devoted exclusively to making Bessemer steel rails. This facility, the J. Edgar Thompson Steel Works, was built on the banks of the Monongahela River near the Baltimore and Ohio and the Pennsylvania Railroads, and it was an immediate moneymaker. From 1875, when it opened for business, to 1889, the mill’s output rose from less than 22,000 tons to nearly 537,000 tons. During this same period, Carnegie’s passion for efficiency and singleminded quest to cut operating expenses resulted in a dramatic reduction in production costs, with profits rising accordingly. Carnegie’s “impulse for economy,” as one historian put it, shaped the entire steel industry. “It selected and hardened the managerial ranks. Its technological and psychological consequences, finally, defined the treatment of the steelworkers. Long hours, low wages, bleak conditions, anti-unionism, flowed alike from the economizing drive that made the American steel industry the wonder of the manufactured world” (Brody 1969). Indeed, Carnegie’s mills became notorious for their reliance on cheap immigrant labor—and their zealous efforts to squeeze every last bit of work possible out of each employee (Kleinberg 1989; Krass 2002). As Carnegie’s steel empire grew through the acquisition of other mills, he and his partner, Henry Clay Frick, also took the vertical-integration concept to a new level. By 1892, when their diverse steel interests were consolidated into one large company—the Carnegie Steel Company—the men had created a “mammoth” entity that owned its own mines, dug its ore with machines of amazing power, loaded it into its own steamers, landed it at its own ports, transported it on its own railroads, distributed it among its many blast furnaces, and smelted it with coke similarly brought from its own coal mines and ovens, and with limestone brought from its own quarries. From the moments these crude stuffs were dug out of the earth until they flowed in a stream of liquid steel into the ladles, there was never a price, profit, or royalty paid to an outsider. (Bridge 1992)

18

•

Iron and Steel

In actuality, the Carnegie empire did rely on some outside railroads for the transport of some raw materials, but this was an exception. For the most part, the Carnegie Steel Company was a wholly self-sufficient monolith of manufacturing power, armed to the teeth with railroads, ore mines, coke and coal properties, steamships, and manufacturing outlets. By 1894, the company’s steelmaking capacity had surged to an incredible 1.115 billion tons annually (Brody 1969), Andrew Carnegie, one of the giants of and by the turn of the centhe American iron and steel industry. tury Carnegie Steel alone (Library of Congress) was producing more steel than the entire British steel industry. Carnegie’s rise further boosted Pittsburgh’s status as a major U.S. city. By 1900, in fact, Pittsburgh, which ranked eleventh among U.S. cities in population, ranked fifth in the amount of capital invested in manufacturing, with more than half of its assets located in iron and steel production. Bristling with 48 steel mills and nearly 300 metalworking establishments, Pittsburgh was responsible for fully 25 percent of iron and steel production in the country (Kleinberg 1989). Not surprisingly, other steelmakers, like J. P. Morgan’s Federal Steel, hurriedly patterned their own operations after those of Carnegie. Some remained enterprises of modest size, devoted only to blast-furnace operation or fabrication of a single type of finished product, like wire or pipe. But these outfits dwindled in number, as mergers pulled regional producers into national holding companies and the big steelmakers built fabrication facilities to produce finished-steel goods (Seely 1994).

Origins and Development

•

19

Iron and Steel at the Close of the Century During the last years of the nineteenth century, expansion and consolidation in the iron and steel industry continued unabated. But this expansion, driven by the demands of the Bessemer process, took the form of much larger facilities rather than more numerous facilities. In fact, the total number of blast-furnace establishments in the United States dropped from 386 to 223, whereas the number of establishments classified as steelworks or rolling mills remained steady in the mid-400 range during that period (Temin 1964). These facilities accounted for 4.8 million tons of steel output by 1890—more than triple the volume of 1880—and continued to grow steadily to century’s end, when the level of output exceeded 11 million tons (Hogan 1971). This uninterrupted growth was aided to some extent by the introduction of new mill technology. Specifically, the open hearth process (also known as the Siemens-Martin process) began to supplant the Bessemer process during this time. First introduced in the United States in the late 1860s by New Yorker Abram Stevens Hewitt, this methodology made it easier for steelworks to achieve the high temperatures needed to convert pig iron into steel. The arrival of the open-hearth process triggered a gradual downturn in the use of Bessemer steel, especially in the realm of rail manufacturing. In the early 1880s, nearly 90 percent of the nation’s steel output was Bessemer steel, but by the time of World War I, less than one-third of the steel produced in the United States was of the Bessemer variety. Another milestone in industry technology was the introduction of devices that mechanized various aspects of blast-furnace operation, which in turn enabled firms to reduce their labor costs. In the meantime, labor strife in the industry spiraled to new and bloody heights. During the 1880s, the industry’s workforce had painstakingly carved out a greater degree of power and leverage in its dealings with industry owners, thanks in large part to the emergence of craft unions such as the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers. Chafing from years of poor treatment, organized labor worked mightily to improve economic and working conditions for its membership and urged U.S. legislators to establish regulatory parameters for steelworks operations. These trends alarmed and angered the industry ownership, which maintained that the only role for government in the industry was to es-

20

•

Iron and Steel

tablish and maintain high tariffs on iron and steel imports and thus protect the domestic industry. They insisted that they be free to manage their mills as they saw fit without interference from Congress, and suggestions otherwise elicited strongly hostile responses. These convictions about “managerial prerogative” also extended to the growing unrest in the industry’s workforce, which was seen first as a nuisance and then as a potentially serious impediment to future success (Seely 1994). In 1892, however, organized labor suffered a crushing blow that decisively reestablished management authority and supremacy in the industry for the next several decades. The event in question was a workers’ strike at the Homestead, Pennsylvania, facility of the Carnegie Steel Company. This violent strike, which “took on all the dimensions of civil war” (Olson 2002), pitted the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers against Andrew Carnegie, the most powerful steelmaker in the United States. Carnegie responded to the strike with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. He refused to recognize the legitimacy of the union, cut wages 20 percent, hired strikebreakers to work the plant, and brought in 300 Pinkerton guards to protect the facility and the strikebreakers. The atmosphere turned poisonous, and on July 6, 1892, striking workers and Pinkerton guards clashed in a welter of violence that left 3 Pinkerton agents and 9 strikers dead by the end of the day. More mayhem and violence followed. One week later, the governor of Pennsylvania submitted to Carnegie’s demands and mobilized the state militia to support Homestead’s management. Then, on July 23, a Russian anarchist associated with the strikers shot and stabbed Henry Frick, Carnegie’s right-hand man. The attempted assassination curdled public support for the strikers, who were relentlessly portrayed by Carnegie and his minions as dangerous radicals. From that point on, victory for the union was untenable. After five months, the union formally ended the strike on November 20, 1892, without gaining a single one of their objectives. By the time it drew to a close, it had claimed 13 lives and wounded more than 100 others. Management was pleased with the outcome. “Our victory is now complete and most gratifying,” declared Frick in correspondence with Carnegie. “We had to teach our employees a lesson and we have taught them one they will never forget” (Krass 2002). The results of the Homestead strike eviscerated the industry’s labor movement, reducing it to a negligible factor by the turn of the century. In the meantime, Carnegie and other steel masters proved not to be

Origins and Development

•

21

magnanimous victors. Instead, they made life even bleaker for the laborers and their families. They reduced already meager wages paid to employees in the industry’s facilities and were loath to invest any money in the ramshackle company towns in which the workers raised their families. Perhaps worst of all, the owners used the union defeat to institutionalize miserable working conditions in the plants. Workers manning blast furnaces and open-hearth works were often required to spend twelve hours a A major event in U.S. labor history, the day in stifling, exhaustHomestead Strike was widely covered by media of the day. This sketch appeared on ing conditions for thirthe cover of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly, teen consecutive days July 14, 1892. (Library of Congress) before receiving a t w e n t y - f o u r- h o u r break. But even this break was slanted to management’s advantage. The day off was achieved through what was known as the “long turn.” This wrinkle required workers to transfer from the day shift to the night shift by working for twenty-four hours straight (Brody 1969; Kleinberg 1989).

The Industry in the New Century As the U.S. iron and steel industry moved into the new century, it bore all the hallmarks of a robust and stable economic machine. It had sunk

22

•

Iron and Steel

deep production roots in Pittsburgh, northeastern Ohio, and various points along the southern shorelines of Lakes Michigan and Erie, and it had emerged as a significant economic factor in myriad other communities east of the Mississippi as well, from upstate New York to the Deep South. It had also displayed a continuous trend toward mergers, especially in the 1890s, when a number of large firms desirous of economic stability organized along product lines. These included financier J. P. Morgan’s American Bridge Artist’s rendering of the iron manufacturing Company and his Naprocess. (Library of Congress) tional Tube Company; the Moore Group, which included the crude-steel producer the National Steel Company and a trio of finished-steel producers; and the Republic Iron and Steel Company, which was cobbled together out of nearly three dozen small companies in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Alabama (Seely 1994). In addition, a certain operating blueprint had become well established over the preceding decades. “No matter where people decided to make steel . . . the high fixed costs involved in assembling raw materials and labor in mills with capacities large enough to ensure profits required huge investments of money and commitment,” observed historian Bruce Seely.

Origins and Development

•

23

[In addition], patterns of production were becoming firmly fixed, so that most changes in technology after 1900 were incremental. Most of the iron ore used in steel production came from the Mesabi Range in Minnesota and the smaller ore ranges of northern Michigan; it was shipped south by boat on the Great Lakes and transferred to rail for movement to the mills. Coal from West Virginia and western Pennsylvania was turned into coke—almost pure carbon—to fuel huge blast furnaces that smelted the ore into pig iron. The pig iron was converted into steel in open hearth furnaces. . . . The molten steel was poured into ingots, which were fabricated into rails, bars, wire, pipes, plates, sheets and structural shapes in specialized rolling mills, often in separate establishments or giant forge shops. (Seely 1994)

The leading development in the industry during this period, in fact, was simply a maturation of a trend that had begun back in the 1870s and accelerated in the 1880s and 1890s. In the first decade of the twentieth century, the open-hearth furnace officially supplanted the Bessemer process as the primary means by which the steel industry created steel. By 1908, open-hearth furnaces accounted for 8 million tons of steel, whereas Bessemer furnaces produced about 7 million tons (Hogan 1971). The gap widened in subsequent years, but Bessemer facilities did not wholly vanish from the scene. Indeed, they remained essential for many years, so great was the public appetite for steel for bridges, office buildings, locomotives, and a multitude of other smaller products. By 1920, the U.S. steel industry was producing nearly 48 million tons annually, eclipsing all other international competitors by a wide margin. In 1900, the United States had claimed 37 percent of the world’s total steel output; twenty years later, it accounted for 59 percent of the global total (ibid.).

Founding of the U.S. Steel Corporation The entity most responsible for the United States’ growing stranglehold over the world steel markets during this time was the United States Steel Corporation. This industry giant was formed in February 1901, by which time Carnegie Steel and its ambitious owner had become supremely controversial, not only in the court of public opin-

24

•

Iron and Steel

ion but also in the boardrooms of its competitors. The latter saw Carnegie’s aggressive business philosophy as a potential threat to their long-term health, given their enormous capital expenditures and the industry’s long-recognized vulnerability to downturns in the larger U.S. economy. Morgan subsequently spearheaded an effort to remove Carnegie from the equation, and the industry titan proved amenable. In return for a payment of approximately $480 million, Carnegie agreed to retire and hand over his company. Carnegie Steel was subsequently combined with Morgan’s holdings to produce U.S. Steel, a truly massive holding company that included eight major and many smaller firms and some 200 plants. When it officially came into being, U.S. Steel controlled 37 percent of the nation’s pig-iron capacity, 55 percent of its open-hearth production capacity, and 74 percent of its Bessemer production capacity. Moreover, its manufacturing facilities produced at least 50 percent of every major steel product sold in the United States. Valued at more than $1.4 billion, the United States Steel Corporation, its reins firmly in the grasp of Morgan, became the first billion-dollar entity in U.S. corporate history (Seely 1994). Morgan’s triumph forced rivals such as the Bethlehem Steel Corporation to scramble to launch their own expansion schemes in order to avoid being obliterated by this newly created behemoth. Significantly, however, it also attracted the attention of lawmakers who— after decades of placid acceptance of the excesses of leading names in steel, rail, and other “big businesses”—were finally awakening to the growing public demand for regulatory reform. The Progressive Era was at hand, and its advent marked the beginning of a tumultuous and difficult century for the steel industry and its membership.

Sources Bezís-Selfa, John. 2004. Forging America: Ironworkers, Adventurers, and the Industrious Revolution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Bining, Arthur Cecil. 1933. British Regulation of the Colonial Iron Industry. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ———. 1951. “Early Ironmasters of Pennsylvania.” Pennsylvania History, no. 18. ———. 1973. Pennsylvania Iron Manufacture in the Eighteenth Century. Pennsylvania Historical Commission, 1938. Reprint, Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Bodnar, John. 1977. Immigration and Industrialization: Ethnicity in an American Mill Town, 1870–1940. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Origins and Development

•

25

Bridge, James Howard. 1992. The Inside History of the Carnegie Steel Company: A Romance of Millions. New York: Aldine, 1903. Reprint, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Brody, David. 1969. Steelworkers in America: The Nonunion Era. New York: Harper & Row. Eggert, Gerald G. 1981. Steelmasters and Labor Reform, 1886–1923. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Hoerr, John P. 1988. And the Wolf Finally Came: The Decline of the American Steel Industry. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Hogan, William T. 1971. Economic History of the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States. Lexington, MA: Heath. Kleinberg, S. J. 1989. The Shadow of the Mills: Working Class Families in Pittsburgh, 1870–1907. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Krass, Peter. 2002. Carnegie. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Krause, Paul. 1992. The Battle for Homestead, 1880–1892: Politics, Culture, and Steel. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Misa, Thomas J. 1995. A Nation of Steel: The Making of Modern America, 1865–1925. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Olson, James S. 2002. Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Paskoff, Paul F. 1983. Industrial Evolution: Organization, Structure, and Growth of the Pennsylvania Iron Industry, 1750–1860. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ———, ed. 1989. Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Facts on File. Reutter, Mark. 1988. Sparrows Point: Making Steel—the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might. New York: Summit. Seely, Bruce E., ed. 1994. Iron and Steel in the Twentieth Century. New York: Facts on File. Smith, Norman F. 1977. The Inside Story of Metals. New York: Julian Messner. Temin, Peter. 1964. Iron and Steel in Nineteenth-Century America: An Economic Inquiry. Cambridge: MIT Press. Warren, Kenneth. 2001. Big Steel: The First Century of the United States Steel Corporation, 1901–2001. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Innovations and Inventions Rob Kerby

I

ron has been a vital element in human history for about 3,000 years. Steel has been around for almost as long, but it was not until well into the Industrial Revolution that both became commonly used and economical to produce. From the mid-1600s through the mid-1700s, the main innovations in iron production involved a change in fuel from charcoal (produced from wood) to coke (produced from bituminous coal). By the mid-1800s, however, a series of technological advances transformed the iron industry and gave birth to the modern steel industry. The first major change involved the adoption of widely available anthracite coal as fuel for iron-making furnaces. Next came the introduction of the Bessemer converter, which suddenly made it possible to produce large quantities of steel quickly and at low cost. Finally, the invention of the Siemens-Martin open-hearth furnace led to significant improvements in the quality of steel, which in turn led to its substitution for iron in a growing number of products. Many of the innovations that precipitated large-scale changes in the U.S. iron and steel industry were pioneered in England. British producers switched from coal to coke in iron smelting by the end of the eighteenth century, for example, whereas American ironmasters relied on charcoal through the 1850s. Likewise, America’s small specialty steel producers could not compete with British steelmakers in terms of price or quality until they adopted the Bessemer and openhearth processes in the 1860s and 1870s. But American engineers later refined and perfected the basic innovations and built new facto27

28

•

Iron and Steel

ries to use them to maximum advantage. By the turn of the twentieth century, the U.S. iron and steel industry had become a world leader.

The Early History of Iron and Steel Human history can be divided into the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. The Stone Age dawned back in prehistory, when the first stone tool was crafted. Perhaps 12,000 years ago, some unknown innovator pounded naturally occurring raw copper into a tool, ornament, or utensil. Another 5,500 years passed before another unchronicled inventor in what is today Thailand is believed to have mixed molten tin and copper for the first time to create a much harder material—bronze. That event ushered in southeast Asia’s Bronze Age, which did not begin elsewhere until about 5,000 years ago in what are today Turkey and Greece, about 3,800 years ago in China, and 3,000 years ago in the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas. The discovery of how to refine iron from naturally occurring mineral ores in rock is what brought on the beginning of the Iron Age. The catalyst was the successful innovation of using charcoal-fired furnaces heated to extreme temperatures. The Iron Age did not commence at the same time worldwide. Widespread use of iron emerged in different cultures over a spread of several hundred years. Archaeologists have found early iron tools used in Egypt as much as 6,000 years ago. Iron objects of ornamentation may have been used even earlier. About 3,500 years ago, the Hittites of what is today Turkey discovered how to refine iron, valuing the result because it was even harder than bronze—and held a better edge. Their technological leap was brought about by mixing abundant iron ore with charcoal and achieving high temperatures by forcing air onto the fire with bellows, increasing the flame’s oxygen source and fiery intensity. The resulting metal could be rendered less brittle by reheating, pounding, reheating, and pounding—the work of blacksmiths and sword makers worldwide even today. About 3,000 years ago, the Greeks refined Hittite processes, and iron-processing technology began spreading through the classical Western world. Aristotle wrote about steel, admiring Syrian sword blades crafted in Damascus. In his book Natural History, Roman historian Pliny the Elder noted his mixed emotions about the rise of

Innovations and Inventions

•

29

iron implements: “We will now consider iron, the most precious and at the same time the worst metal for mankind. By its help we cleave the earth, establish tree-nurseries, fell trees, remove the useless parts from vines and force them to rejuvenate annually, build houses, hew stone and so forth. But this metal serves also for war, murder and robbery; and not only at close quarters, man to man, but also by projection and flight.” Over the next 500 years, the use of iron spread throughout Asia, Europe, and Africa—largely due to the fact that iron-ore deposits are so common worldwide. In fact, iron is the most prevalent element on earth, as well as the reason that the planet has magnetic poles. Even so, the Iron Age was slow in arriving in some areas. Many native civilizations of the Western Hemisphere were skilled in smithing copper, bronze, silver, and gold, but there is no archaeological evidence that any knew about iron until it was introduced by European explorers and colonists. An exception would be the Innu people of Greenland, who for centuries had made iron tools from a thirty-ton meteorite that fell to Earth in prehistoric times. Explorer Robert Peary bought it from them in the 1890s, and today it is on display in the Museum of Natural History in New York City. In ancient Sumeria, iron was called “sky metal,” and the pharaohs in old Egypt knew it as “black copper from the sky.” King Tut was buried with a little iron dagger made from meteorite iron. Archaeologists found it on his breast, leading them to believe that it was a very precious object. Indeed, almost pure raw iron is found in some meteorites. Today, iron is commonly refined from such naturally occurring minerals as hematite, magnetite, ironstone, and limonite, as well as a class of meteorites known as siderites. However, one of the most common natural iron compounds, iron pyrite or “fool’s gold,” is too high in sulfur content, making the resulting metal brittle. Countering Western claims of having first developed iron and steel, some historians cite evidence that ancient China may have pioneered iron production as well as the blast furnace that spurred Europe’s industrial revolution. Some historians also claim that the invention of steel occurred in the East through what is recorded as the “hundred refinings” method of iron processing. Chinese and Japanese blacksmiths welded steel onto iron, creating a stronger edge and a superior weapon. The finished product was highly prized throughout the Orient for its strength and ability to hold an edge on a sword.

30

•

Iron and Steel

Regardless of where the first innovations occurred, it was not until the Industrial Revolution that technology allowed iron and steel to be mass produced. For hundreds of years, iron mining, refining, forging, and working were performed by individual blacksmiths and small local operations, usually employing fewer than a dozen workers. Such small-scale operations changed, however, with the invention of steam engines, hydraulics, and electric power–driven machinery—particularly in Great Britain. There, in the 1700s, large deposits of bituminous coal were available to fuel the new steam power. An abundant labor supply mined the coal and iron and worked in the factories. The English Channel protected Britain from invasion, but was not so wide as to block international shipping and trade. Britannia ruled the seas, and British commercial ships were not only plentiful but also protected by the vast British navy. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain also possessed a worldwide empire touching every inhabited continent— with such vast territories as Canada, Australia, India, and South Africa and such influential outposts as Hong Kong, the British West Indies, and Gibraltar—giving the empire ample access to raw materials and captive markets mandated by law. As a result of these advantages, many of the technological advances driving the iron and steel industry first arose in Great Britain.

Early Innovations in Iron Processing The period just before the dawn of the Industrial Revolution saw a great revival in human innovation. One of the early visionaries of the iron industry during that period was Dud Dudley, son of Lord Dudley. In 1618 the younger Dudley left Balliol College, Oxford, at the age of twenty to take over his father’s furnace and forges at Pensnett Chase in Worcestershire. Though formerly “a mighty woodland county,” Worcestershire was rapidly being stripped of all its timber, with the result that charcoal for iron smelting was fetching premium prices. Attempts had been made before to use coal in iron manufacture—particularly in this region, because there were ample seams of coal in the area ten feet thick and veins of iron ore four feet thick under the coal, as well as plenty of limestone, also needed for smelting. However, the sulfur in the coal made the iron too brittle.

Innovations and Inventions

•

31

Unlike gold, silver, lead, and copper, which can be found in a pure form in nature, iron must be extracted. Iron is most often found in an oxide form, as a soft, sandstonelike rust-colored ore called hematite. The secret to extracting iron is to “boil off” the oxygen by melting the iron oxide. The problem is that an intense flame is needed, because the melting can occur only at the temperature of 1,535 degrees Celsius (2,795 Fahrenheit). Dudley improvised upon an existing technique used by brewers to turn coal into what he called “pit cole” or coke, using a process much like that used for turning wood into charcoal. The brewers had tried coal, but it gave their beers, ales, and stouts an unappealing sulfuric flavor. So they improvised, cooking off the sulfur. Dudley took their innovation a step further and created a new kind of furnace in which a second blast of air intensified the coke flame. In 1620 Dudley received a patent from King James for his invention. He wrote to his father that he was making three tons of good iron weekly from each furnace. He started new furnaces at Cradley and sent some of his “pit cole” iron to London, where a fowling piece made of his metal was tested and “well approved.” However, his success was resented by jealous competitor iron makers as well as the charcoal industry. Dudley had been undercutting iron prices and threatening to put the charcoal manufacturers out of business. When his smelter was destroyed in the Great May Day Flood of 1621, his enemies were overjoyed. Dudley rebuilt his forges and, in spite of violent opposition, proved that his iron was good for making muskets, carbines, anchors, and bolts for shipbuilding. But his competitors conspired against him, sued him in the courts, and succeeded in getting him evicted from his ironworks at Cradley. Dudley responded by building a larger furnace at Hasco Bridge near Sedgley, from which he reported turning out seven tons of iron a week. He opened up new seams of coal and had achieved profitability when a mob broke into the new works, cut his bellows, and destroyed his machinery. He soon went bankrupt and ended up in debtors’ prison. King Charles I took pity on him, released him, and gave him royal contracts, but then a civil war erupted. Dudley was dragged through the streets of Worcestershire and flung into jail. He was scheduled to be shot on August 21, 1648, but he and eleven other royalists overpowered the jailers and escaped to Bristol. Even so, Dudley had lost

32

•

Iron and Steel

everything. His only possession was his secret “second blast” process for making iron with pit coal, but he had no funds with which to get started in business again. Meanwhile, his former competitors tried unsuccessfully to smelt iron with pit coal—and even tried to get Dudley to help them, but he kept his secret. He died at the age of eighty-five and was buried in Worcestershire. In 1709, two decades after Dudley’s death, a series of technological innovations occurred at Coalbrookdale, England, on the Severn River. Forge owner Abraham Darby, whose firm produced brass, bronze, and iron, started to experiment with alternatives to charcoal—which was becoming more and more expensive. Born in 1678 at Wren’s Nest near Birmingham, where he was apprenticed as a metalworker, Darby was a devout Quaker who established his first major production facility, ironically, at the village Baptist Mills. Darby traveled to the Netherlands and recruited skilled brass workers in order to gain insight into the industrial secrets of brass production, particularly brass battery—the process of using waterpower to drive hammers to shape cold brass plate into utensils and hollowware. Although his advances in brass and bronze production were impressive, Darby is also credited with bringing together the existing advances in iron-casting technology and merging them with brassproduction techniques to make cast-iron items that were complex in shape and design. Among his notable innovations was casting iron in sand molds. This process made production of cast iron continuous, whereas in the past each piece had been crafted on an individual basis. Darby was also a pioneer in the development of the production assembly line, taking a first step toward factory-style mass production. His innovations increased productivity, reduced unit costs, and made produced iron goods available to a wider range of consumers— particularly in the expanding worldwide export markets. Casting in sand also allowed Darby to make more complex objects out of iron. That flexibility would prove to be vital in the distant-future production of steam engines and other machinery. However, the immediate payoff for Darby was in the kitchen-ware market. In those days, most cooking was done in iron pots over an open fire. The pots were imported, because no one in England knew how to make them. Darby changed that using his new sand-cast technology. He was granted a royal patent, which meant that only his firm had the privilege of making such pots—and soon he was making them by the tons.

Innovations and Inventions

•

33

But Darby still faced the problem of scarce charcoal. Like Dudley before him, he began to make coke, which he mixed with charcoal and peat and burned in new furnaces that, like Dudley’s, blasted the flame with a second stream of air. For this and later innovations, some credit him with the invention of the blast furnace. Darby was succeeded by his son, Abraham Darby II, and grandson, Abraham Darby III. By 1747 Coalbrookdale was making some of the best iron in England. Large cannons were cast by the Darby ironworks, which opened smelters in London, Bristol, and Liverpool, as well as coalmining operations nationwide. In 1763 Richard Reynolds came to the Darby works as manager and introduced a new “reverberatory” furnace, in which the flame was drawn by the blast of air across a bed on which the metal was laid. The iron so produced was of improved quality. Reynolds also began making iron rails in 1767, which he used to carry coal from the mines to the smelter—thus, he is said by some to be the inventor of the railroad. In 1774 John Wilkinson, known as the “great Staffordshire ironmaster,” patented a precision cannon borer that he manufactured at his father’s Beisham factory at Denbigh in Wales. Little did he know that his boring machine would be essential in one of the most important breakthroughs of the Industrial Revolution—the steam engine, invented by James Watt. Wilkinson’s boring machine made mass production of Watt’s engines possible, because it allowed for the detailed measurements needed in a steam engine’s design. Wilkinson then put Watt’s steam engines to work powering the air bellows at his furnaces—an economical and labor-saving innovation that caught on throughout Britain. By this time, Coalbrookdale’s population had grown, and the ferryboat across the Severn River could no longer handle traffic. A bridge was needed, and Wilkinson and Abraham Darby III conceived the notion of building the world’s first iron bridge. Along with Darby’s foreman, Thomas Gregory, the men tackled the project in 1777. The bridge opened for traffic four years later. It was 100 feet in length, weighed a total of 378 tons, and used joints, pegs, and keys in place of nuts, bolts, and screws. It lasted for more than a century and gave its name to the town of Ironbridge. In 1787 Wilkinson built the world’s first iron barge. He was also responsible for passing his cannon-boring technique and expertise across the Channel to France, and his factory cast all of the ironwork

34

•

Iron and Steel

needed for the Paris waterworks. Not surprisingly, Wilkinson was buried in a cast-iron coffin that he designed himself. In the meantime, advancements continued in the smelting of iron ore with coke. In 1762 a Dr. Roebuck took out a patent for working iron until it was made into a loop and drawn out into bars under a steam-powered forge hammer. The brothers Cranege in 1766 improvised an air furnace in which they produced pig iron without any air blast, turning out good malleable iron. In Wales in 1783, Peter Onions of Merthyr Tydfil patented a “puddling furnace” in which the fire was kept up until the metal became thickened, then stirred. The temperature of the resulting mass of molten iron was then boosted to a white heat, and finally it was pounded by a steam-powered forge hammer. Henry Cort published patents in 1783 and 1784 modifying the use of the air blast, adapting Onions’s puddling furnace, and improving the process of rolling out heated iron by using grooved rollers. But Cort’s greatest achievement was in advancing mass production. British iron production in the mid-1700s was about 18,000 tons. Cort’s innovations increased that total to 400,000 tons by 1820, largely because he did not keep his processes secret but instead licensed them to competitors. The quality of Cort’s iron was such that the British Admiralty in 1787 pronounced it the only material to be used for anchors and other ironwork in the ships of the Royal Navy. Cort, however, was an inept businessman and chose his financial partners unwisely. After the suicide of one dishonest partner, Cort was forced into bankruptcy, and years of poverty followed. In 1794, after a number of influential members of Parliament made an appeal on his behalf, Cort received a small annual pension. He died in 1800, broken in health and spirit, at age sixty. At the same time, those who utilized Cort’s innovations earned large fortunes. For example, manufacturer Richard Crawshay was turning out 10 tons of poor-quality bar iron weekly in 1787. Then he adopted the processes invented by Cort and greatly increased the production of his forges. In 1812 he was making 10,000 tons of bar iron yearly, or 200 tons a week. By 1820 there were at least 8,200 of Cort’s furnaces operating in Great Britain. Other major innovations of this period involved the creation of furnaces that burned anthracite coal. Wales contained a surplus of cheap anthracite coal, but iron makers there used coke made from bituminous coal, which had to be brought in by pack animal or canal

Innovations and Inventions

•

35

barge. David Thomas experimented with ways of using local Welsh anthracite, at first meeting with little success. But then he paid a visit to the Scottish engineer James Beaumont Neilson, who had patented a hot-blast system using coke. Upon his return, he persuaded mine owner George Crane to invest in an experiment. In 1836 they converted a furnace at Ynyscedwyn, Wales, to a hot-blast system using anthracite. News of this development stirred interest in America, which had large anthracite deposits in Pennsylvania. Visiting Ynyscedwyn in 1838, the directors of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company invited Thomas to develop an ironworks in Pennsylvania. He emigrated with his family in June 1839, settling in the town of Catasauqua, and established the first anthracite furnace in the United States at Pottsville by January 1840. He was so successful that he founded his own Thomas Iron Company at Hokendauqua, which soon became the biggest anthracite iron producer in North America. By 1856, half the iron produced in the United States was processed using his methods.

Innovations Leading to the Modern Production of Steel The secret to making quality steel is to lock in the carbon-iron matrix at the right temperature. This can be accomplished by sudden cooling—immersing or “quenching” the hot metal in water or oil. However, the cooling process causes tiny fractures and imperfections to form in the steel. Repeated hammering forces the microscopic cracks to close. The result can be a material so hard that it is capable of cutting and shaping almost every other substance known. Hardened steel may be made nearly as tough as diamond or so soft that it can be cut and bent into any shape, rolled into thin plates, or drawn into wire as fine as hair. Until the Industrial Revolution, the production of steel was very expensive and labor intensive, requiring massive amounts of fuel and time to create tiny amounts of finished product. The early production processes were capable of creating only thin hammered items, such as razors, knives, and swords, or precision mechanical components, such as clock springs.

36

•

Iron and Steel

In the early 1700s, a Sheffield clock maker named Benjamin Huntsman became frustrated by the inferior quality of locally produced British steel for his timepieces. He undertook to perfect a better product through his hobbies—alchemy, chemistry, and metallurgy. No records are preserved of his experiments, but hundreds of pounds of flawed steel were later found buried outside around his workshop, evidence of repeated failed experiments. Huntsman’s perseverance paid off, however, and he eventually began producing high-quality steel in quantities of several hundred pounds a week, which he offered to local Sheffield cutlery smiths. At first they rejected it, because it was much harder than the steel they had used for years. Huntsman soon found a market in France and exported all the steel he could manufacture. Sheffield cutlers became alarmed at the excellent reputation that Huntsman’s steel gained abroad and tried unsuccessfully to ban his steel exports. When that effort failed, they began trying to steal the secrets of his process. He had opted not to seek a patent, which would protect him for only fourteen years. Instead, his workmen were sworn to secrecy, outsiders were prohibited from visiting the foundry, and most work was done at night. Local legend has it that the first person who succeeded in copying Huntsman’s process was a competitor named Walker. Disguised as a vagabond, Walker appeared shivering at the door of Huntsman’s foundry late one stormy winter’s night and begged permission to warm himself by the fire. The workmen permitted him to come in out of the blizzard to sleep in a corner of the shop. He feigned drowsiness but observed that bars of blistered steel were broken into small pieces, two or three inches in length, and placed in crucibles of fire clay. Green glass was broken into small fragments and spread over the top. The crucibles were covered and placed in an intense furnace. After several hours, the molten contents were poured into a mold of cast iron. Meanwhile, the crucibles were again filled and the process repeated. When cooled, the cast-iron mold was opened and cast steel was removed, then hammered into a bar. Walker returned home and duplicated Huntsman’s unpatented process, which quickly came to be used by other steel manufacturers throughout the Sheffield area. Nevertheless, Huntsman’s steel continued to improve, and demand for his product grew as he expanded his operations. Prior to his innovations, no more than about 200 tons of steel had been produced each year in Sheffield. Using Huntsman’s

Innovations and Inventions

•

37

crucible steel process, however, Sheffield was producing 20,000 tons of steel each year by the mid-1800s, accounting for 40 percent of all steel produced in Europe at that time.

Increasing Quantities and Decreasing Costs: The Bessemer Converter Henry Bessemer made his first serious invention—embossed stamps to use on title deeds—in 1830, at the age of seventeen. Before that time, people who needed a tax stamp would usually peel one off an old deed and thus avoid buying a new one. The British government lost a great deal of revenue as a result of this common practice. Bessemer’s invention solved the problem, and he was appointed the royal superintendent of stamps. Bessemer eventually took out 110 patents, including one for compressing graphite to form a better writing “lead” for wooden pencils that is still used today. He also produced brass powder to use in pigments in place of gold. In answer to a challenge from Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, he devised a hydraulic machine for extracting juice from sugar cane. Bessemer’s inventions also included steam-driven fans for ventilating mines and a special furnace for making sheet glass. Bessemer made his first fortune when he invented the artillery shell. Armies were still using cannonballs at that time. He was sure that a long, thin projectile would be not only heavier but also more accurate, because spiral grooves could be cut around it, which would cause it to spin and keep it on target. The British War Office showed no interest, but in France Napoléon was fascinated by the idea’s potential. Bessemer traveled to France to showcase his new design. It had a serious flaw, however: existing guns were too weak and kept cracking when they used the new shell. What Bessemer needed was a material that was as malleable as wrought iron but could be cast in molds to make strong artillery barrels. Cast steel was ideal for his purposes, but it could be made only in thirty-five- to fifty-pound batches. It also took a long time in the furnace, making it extremely expensive. Lying ill in bed one day, Bessemer came up with the idea to blow air into the bottom of a vat of molten iron to reduce the amount of carbon and create steel more economically. Bessemer started experimenting with a small furnace, melting some steel in a bath of molten pig iron.

38

•

Iron and Steel

Blowing air over the surface to raise the temperature to melt the steel, he noticed that a lump or two of pig iron would not melt. He discovered that this was because it was now steel. The air had burned off the carbon from the surface of the iron. Bessemer realized that if he could expose enough of the molten iron to the air, he could convert it all into steel, so he made a new furnace with a hole in the top and tried to bubble Sir Henry Bessemer, inventor of the air through the molten Bessemer steelmaking process. (Library of iron. The air blast Congress) burned off the excess carbon in the pig iron, and the reaction produced sufficient heat to keep the steel red-hot after the iron had melted, dispelling the need for any further expensive fuel. Bessemer’s process was ten times faster than previous methods and used far less fuel. A Bessemer furnace could make thirty tons of steel within a half hour, rather than a mere thirty-five to fifty pounds over many hours. However, it did have some distinct disadvantages. It could not be used on ores that contained phosphorus, which included most of the iron ore on the European continent. Nor did it produce uniformly top-quality steel. As a result, the Bessemer process came to be reserved for making inexpensive bulk steel products—such as bridges, railways, and building girders—where cost was more important than quality. Still, the Bessemer converter remained the heart of steel production for nearly 120 years. Bessemer was knighted in 1879 and awarded a fellowship of the Royal Society. He died in London in 1898.

Innovations and Inventions

•

39

Although Bessemer is widely recognized as the inventor of the converter, he actually shared this achievement with a little-known American inventor named William Kelly. Kelly was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1811. He built a propelling waterwheel at the age of eighteen, and four years later he invented a revolving steam engine. In 1845 Kelly moved to Kentucky and bought the Eddyville Iron Works on the Cumberland River in Lyon County, as well as a furnace at Sewanee and a forge at Union. At Sewanee, nearly one-half of his metal was converted into large sugar kettles made on cast-iron elastic molds of his invention, which came into high demand on the sugar plantations in Louisiana and Cuba. In 1847 Kelly began experimenting toward strengthening iron through the introduction of a current of air. The method he invented, known as “Kelly’s air-boiling process,” was widely used for the manufacture of boiler plates. When Bessemer’s technology arrived in the United States, Kelly claimed that Bessemer had obtained it from English workmen who had worked for Kelly and then returned to England. Kelly filed for a U.S. patent on his process, and Bessemer traveled to the United States to dispute Kelly’s charges. The U.S. Patent Office decided that Kelly was the first inventor and issued him the U.S. patent, which was renewed in 1871, again despite Bessemer’s protests. Historians now believe that the two men probably came up with the idea at the same time, independently. Even so, Bessemer won the European patents on his invention and became immensely wealthy, whereas Kelly enjoyed little profit from his U.S. patents.

Solving the Quality Problem: Siemens and Martin While the Bessemer converter allowed greater quantities of steel to be produced at lower cost, the quality of that steel was not high enough for precision instruments or machinery parts. In 1868, after ten years of experimentation, Charles William Siemens invented a regenerative process for making steel. A native of Germany, Siemens had been educated at a polytechnic school in Magdeburg and then at the University of Göttingen. He visited England at the age of nineteen, hoping to introduce a process in electroplating invented by himself and his brother Werner. After seeing his invention adopted, Siemens returned to Germany to study engineering. In 1844 he went back to England with an-

40

•

Iron and Steel

other invention—a differential governor for steam engines. Finding that British patent laws offered inventors protection lacking in Germany, Siemens made England his home, becoming a naturalized British subject. There he tackled the problem of producing high-quality, low-cost steel. His solution was a large, long, shallow brick furnace, which built up heat by reflecting it off the brick lining, thus retaining and reutilizing the heat from combustion. Siemens’s furSir Charles William Siemens, inventor of the Siemens-Martin open-hearth nace heated a mixture of pig furnace. (Library of Congress) iron and scrap iron to a molten stage, applying blasts of burning torch gas and air to burn out the carbon and other impurities. Instead of using a vessel-like converter, however, Siemens built a rectangular chamber lined with bricks. Initially, Siemens heated the furnace using hot gases produced by burning coke in a separate chamber, but this allowed impurities to enter the metal. A French engineer, Pierre-Émile Martin, provided his expertise to help Siemens create the first open-hearth furnace. In its final version, gas was stored in brick chambers and blown across the top of the metal, causing impurities to be burned away or fall away as slag. The Siemens-Martin process was slow, taking up to twelve hours. But it did allow for quality control, yielding a superior grade of steel at a far more economical price and in much greater quantities than the Huntsman process. Although the process was much more costly than the Bessemer converter, the cost was offset by the higher-quality steel it produced. Siemens-Martin steel was used primarily for precision parts. Like the Bessemer converter, however, the Siemens-Martin openhearth furnace did not work with phosphoric iron ores, which were

Innovations and Inventions

•

41

Molten steel pours out of an open-hearth furnace at a Bethlehem Steel facility. (Bernard Hoffman/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

prevalent in continental Europe and Russia. Chemical engineers Percy Gilchrist and Sidney Thomas, cousins from Wales, tackled the remaining barrier of removing phosphorus from iron ores. They came up with a chemical solution that involved adding magnesium to the mix. When the pig iron became fully molten, the phosphorus in the iron combined with the magnesium to produce a slag that was easily skimmed off the surface. Incredibly, this phosphoric slag proved to be valuable because it made a very effective crop fertilizer. The Gilchrist-Thomas technology enabled both Bessemer converters and Siemens-Martin open-hearth furnaces to produce steel

42

•

Iron and Steel

from phosphorus-laden ore. This development had a dramatic impact on the European continent. For example, in its victory over France in the 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War, Germany had acquired the provinces of Alsace-Lorraine, which contained vast deposits of phosphoric iron ores. At the signing of the treaty, the ore reserves had been considered worthless and no great loss to France. With the introduction of the Gilchrist-Thomas technology, however, they became a major component of the new German steel industry.

The Close of the Industrial Revolution By the mid- to late 1800s, industrialization was complete throughout Europe and the northeastern United States. Although industrialization was institutionalized by this time, and no longer could be considered a revolution changing society, industrial advances and innovations in iron and steel continued. In 1868, for example, Abram S. Hewitt built America’s first open-hearth furnace. Steel production increased rapidly thereafter. In 1873 the United States—which had produced no steel rails before the Civil War—produced nearly 115,000 tons, which accounted for 12 percent of all U.S. rail production. As the price of steel continued to drop, iron rails—which were brittle and required frequent replacement—were replaced by steel. In the years after the Civil War, the American steel industry grew with astonishing speed as the nation’s economy expanded to become the largest in the world. Between 1880 and the turn of the century, U.S. steel production increased from 1.25 million tons to more than 10 million tons. By 1910, the United States was producing more than 24 million tons of steel each year—by far the greatest total of any country. Thousands of miles of steel rails crisscrossed the countryside. A new type of building—the skyscraper—had appeared, changing skylines forever. Such vertical building was impossible before the advent of inexpensive, mass-produced steel. Steel also contributed to the emerging automobile industry, which turned the United States into a mobile society. And mass-production assembly lines became a standard feature of American industry—another legacy of the iron and steel revolution. Through the inventiveness and innovative spirit of a few visionaries, the world had been changed.

Innovations and Inventions

•

43

Sources Berg, Maxine. 1994. The Age of Manufactures, 1700–1820: Industry, Innovation and Work in Britain. New York: Routledge. Bessemer, Henry. 1989. Sir Henry Bessemer F.R.S.: An Autobiography. London: Maney Publishing. Donkin, Richard. 2001. “Cheapness, the Mother of Invention.” Innovative Leader, August. Kranzberg, Melvin. 1962. Technology in Western Civilization: Technology in the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press. Mokyr, Joel. 1990. The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. New York: Oxford University Press. Needham, Joseph, and Robert K. G. Temple. 1989. The Genius of China: 3,000 Years of Science, Discovery, and Invention. New York: Simon & Schuster. Petroski, Henry. 1994. The Evolution of Useful Things: How Everyday Artifacts— from Forks and Pins to Paper Clips and Zippers—Came to Be as They Are. New York: Vintage Books. ———. 1996. Invention by Design: How Engines Get from Thought to Things. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Waterman, Lynn. 2002. Youngfolk’s Book of Invention. http://www.usgennet.org/ usa/topic/preservation/science/inventions/chpt4.htm. Watner, Carl. 1986. “The Industrial Revolution.” In Businessmen versus Neocheaters. Las Vegas: Black and White Publishing.

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies Diane Telgen

I

ronmaking has been a focus of American industrial efforts since colonial times. The Virginia Company made the first attempt at establishing an ironworks in the colonies in 1619, when it hired John Berkley to build an ironworks at Falling Creek, Virginia. The works never produced any iron, for the colony was eradicated by Native American attacks in 1622, before their completion. It would be another twenty years before the colonies produced their first successful iron furnace, at Saugus, Massachusetts, in 1645. By the end of the century, furnaces and forges had been built in almost every colony, supplying settlers with iron stoves, nails, farming implements, and household tools. By the middle of the eighteenth century, American pig-iron (raw iron ready for forging) production was great enough for the British Parliament to encourage export by passing the Iron Act of 1750. This act eliminated duties for American iron and forbade the construction of slitting mills, plating mills, and steel furnaces, in hopes of eliminating the American market for pig iron. The colonists largely ignored this provision of the Iron Act, however, and the colonial iron industry continued to expand during the next seventy-five years. This expansion, however, was due to growth in American population rather than in the market for iron; it was not until the 1830s that new technologies and new products led to an exponential increase in production. American iron production for the year 1700 was just 45

46

•

Iron and Steel

1,500 tons, while yearly production reached approximately 30,000 tons in 1771 and 54,000 tons in 1810. Production almost quadrupled over the next twenty years, as yearly production for 1830 was nearly 200,000 tons, and ironworks continued to expand in the years before the Civil War. Still, many of these firms were isolated, often set up on “iron plantations”—self-sufficient furnaces that supplied their own fuel (usually charcoal) and ore and had their own towns and stores for workers. The bigger firms were mostly family centered, including chains of mills and furnaces that were supervised by members of a single family. Few companies were vertically integrated—instead, each company tended to focus on one aspect of production, with rolling mills and forges purchasing their pig iron or wrought iron from outside companies. It was not until the 1870s, under the pioneering management policies of Andrew Carnegie, that iron companies began to branch out into all aspects of production, controlling everything from ore and fuel sources and transportation methods to the creation of finished products. Expansion in the field of steel production was also slow until after the Civil War, as most antebellum U.S. steel producers, limited to the expensive “blister” method of production, could not compete with the quality and price of British steel. In the 1860s and 1870s, however, new technologies made steel production practical, and by the end of the nineteenth century U.S. steel companies were world leaders in both production and scientific innovation. The amount of capital needed to run these new businesses was considerable, with average capitalization growing from $150,000 to $800,000 between the years 1870 and 1890. As a result, although U.S. outputs of iron and steel increased by more than 700 percent during this era, the number of companies in the industry decreased, and the family firm came to be replaced by the corporation. Carnegie’s revolution had an effect not only in the way iron and steel companies conducted their businesses but also in the size of those businesses, as many of his competitors merged to avoid being consumed by Carnegie Steel’s continual expansion. This wave of mergers culminated in 1901, when Carnegie sold his business to J. P. Morgan, the country’s foremost banker. By combining his own Federal Steel and other facilities with Carnegie Steel and John D. Rockefeller’s ore and shipping interests, Morgan created the giant trust U.S. Steel, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation. By the time the Great Depression halted corporate expansion, the industry was dominated by bankers and managers instead of “steel men.”

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

47

Notable Early Ironmasters During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, iron production was generally limited to local operations; the lack of cheap, reliable transport meant that furnaces needed to be based near sources of iron ore and wood, which served as the source for the charcoal that fueled most furnaces of the era. By the time of the Revolution, American iron accounted for nearly 15 percent of the world’s iron production—more than England and Wales combined. Although the American Revolution meant a greater demand for iron products such as muskets, cannons, and wagon wheels, those gains were offset by British attacks on iron-making facilities and the general disruption of trade. It was not until after the U.S. government began operating under its new constitution in 1789, bringing more certainty to the political and economic climate, that more people began to enter the iron industry. In the early nineteenth century, hundreds of entrepreneurs opened iron furnaces and forges; many of these operations were short-lived, and even those that survived were usually small, run by family partnerships. Because they were tied to local supplies, particularly of charcoal, “in many respects the industry was more analogous to agriculture than to the iron and steel firms of the late nineteenth century” (Ingham 1978). Nevertheless, there were early iron enterprises that were notable for their pioneering efforts in the industry. Others escaped the transience of most early iron enterprises and grew from small family operations into businesses that could compete with the major players of the late eighteenth century.

Iron Enterprises in Seventeenth-Century New England The first two iron enterprises in the American colonies were established by the same man, John Winthrop Jr. The eldest son of the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s governor, Winthrop had followed his father to the colony in 1631, a year after its founding. While his father was managing the growing colony, the younger Winthrop, who had been educated at Dublin’s Trinity College and had an interest in chemistry, tried to improve the family’s financial prospects through business. These efforts included the manufacture of salt and the establishment of the first ironworks in the colonies, the Lynn Iron Works, in 1644.

48

•

Iron and Steel

Two years later, Winthrop established a second foundry at Braintree, Massachusetts. By 1650, colonists living around the colony’s capital, Boston, could purchase iron pots and pans made in Winthrop’s foundries from the abundant bog ore found in Massachusetts’s coastal lowlands. Winthrop founded Pequod, Connecticut, in 1644 and moved there permanently after his father’s death in 1649. Over the next decade he set up furnaces in Connecticut, including one at New Haven, and was elected governor of Connecticut in 1657. After the laws of the colony were changed in 1659 to permit one person to hold successive terms as governor, he served in that position until his death in 1676. This left him little time for the iron business, but as governor he encouraged business development, believing that manufacturing and trade, not agriculture, would ensure the future of the colony. Although other colonies of the eastern seaboard established ironworks, “for a hundred years after its settlement in 1620 Massachusetts was the chief seat of the iron manufacture on this continent” (Swank 1892). These enterprises were usually limited to the eastern part of the colony, where bog and pond ore were easily extracted. Charcoal, made from wood, was used to fuel these bloomeries; they were usually located by rivers, as the colonists were limited to the use of waterpower. Another important ironworks in Massachusetts was established at Taunton, south of Boston, in 1656. These works were notable for their longevity more than anything else; they passed from owner to owner and were still in use more than 220 years later, in the 1880s. The colony of New Jersey also entered the industry in the seventeenth century, with its first ironworks being established by Henry Leonard about 1674, somewhere near Monmouth County, on the Atlantic Coast south of Manhattan Island.

Important Ironworks of the Eighteenth Century Perhaps the most successful colonial ironworks during the eighteenth century was the Principio Iron Works, which was located in Maryland but owned and managed by English merchants and ironmasters. Principio had its origins in a bloom forge that was built at Chesapeake Bay in 1715; three years later, this forge became the first in the colonies to ship bar iron to England. In 1722 the Principio

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

49

Company was founded by a group of Englishmen headed by Joseph Farmer, who brought ironmaster John England to the colony to supervise the enterprise. They built the Principio furnace in 1723, and it produced pig iron the next year. In 1725 Augustine Washington, father of future U.S. president George Washington, was brought into the enterprise. Augustine Washington was a prominent farmer who owned about 10,000 acres of land, as well as other iron interests he had inherited from his brother Lawrence. His agreement with Principio allowed the company to open mines on his land in Virginia, as well as the Accokeek Furnace; in exchange, Washington earned a one-twelfth share in the business. After Augustine Washington died in 1743, George’s elder half-brother, also named Lawrence, inherited the Washington iron interests. This share was not inconsiderable, as the expert management of John England placed Principio “in the front rank of our colonial iron enterprises for fifty years. . . . They were foremost in the production of pig iron and possibly of bar iron” (Swank 1892). The various Principio works were a valuable concern up through the time of the American Revolution, although there were changes in ownership and facilities. The company built forges and furnaces in Maryland, although Accokeek furnace was abandoned shortly after the death of Lawrence Washington in 1752. The colonial victory in the Revolutionary War brought about a turn in Principio’s fortunes, however; as a British company, their assets were confiscated by the state of Maryland in 1780. Although those loyal to the colonial cause, including the Washingtons, were allowed to retain their interests, the Principio properties were sold at auction. One member of the Washington family, most likely a brother of George Washington, purchased some of these assets, while the McCullough Iron Company bought the site of the main forge, which at the time was probably the largest producer of pig-iron blooms in the colonies. Other ironworks sprung up throughout the eastern colonies. In 1734 Thomas Lamb founded the village of Lime Rock in northwest Connecticut and built a long-lived bloomery forge there. This forge produced iron bars from newly discovered ore in the nearby Taconic Range. A blast furnace was later added. The Lime Rock forge was still in use in the late nineteenth century, although it did not long survive the age of steel. In Rhode Island, Samuel Waldo founded the Hope Furnace in 1735 on the Pawtuxet River; this facility was “said to have been the

50

•

Iron and Steel

most important ironworks in the State during the eighteenth century” (Swank 1892). The state of New York soon joined the iron industry with the founding of its first ironworks around 1740 in Columbia County, about 125 miles north of New York City and east of the Hudson River. Some twenty years later, magnetic ore was discovered in Orange County, farther south along the Hudson River, on property belonging to William Alexander, Lord Stirling, who would later serve with distinction in the Continental army as a general. Lord Stirling was also involved with iron businesses in New Jersey, and the Sterling [sic] Iron Works was built around 1765 on his property. Peter Townsend and his son, Peter Townsend Jr., built a second Sterling forge in 1777. The Townsends would remain associated with the ironworks for the next three generations, while the Sterling forge remained active through the end of the nineteenth century. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, technical advancements made the manufacture of iron products possible on a larger scale. Ironworks at this time included not only furnaces for processing ore but also rolling mills for generating bar iron and slitting mills for creating nail rods. One such enterprise was the Boonton Iron Works, founded around 1770 in Morris County, New Jersey, by Samuel Ogden. Overseeing a family effort, Ogden supervised the erection of rolling and slitting mills near the Rockaway River. This firm would later organize itself as the New Jersey Iron Company in 1830, after construction of the 109-mile-long Morris Canal connected Newark to the Delaware River, making cheap transport possible. This factory, too, would remain in operation for more than 200 years, finally closing in 1911.

Early Pennsylvania Enterprises The iron industry was not a major factor in the early years of Pennsylvania, despite a promising early start. The first iron was made in Pennsylvania around 1692, just eleven years after its founding; colony proprietor William Penn, who owned a mine in New Jersey, encouraged the industry. Iron enterprises in the colony were limited to minor bloomeries and forges until the late 1710s, but by the middle of the seventeenth century Pennsylvania had become the leading producer of iron in America. The natural resources of the colony—

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

51

plenty of wood for making charcoal and abundant reserves of iron ore—made growth of the industry possible. Two of the most advanced furnaces of the eighteenth century were built in Pennsylvania. The Warwick Furnace was built in Chester County (just west of Philadelphia) in 1737 by Anna Nutt and Company; Anna Nutt was following the provisions of her husband’s will in setting up the furnace. The Cornwall Furnace was built by Peter Grubb in 1742 in Lebanon County, almost ninety miles west of Philadelphia. The Cornwall Furnace was important for producing cannon shot and shells for the Continental army during the Revolutionary War, whereas the Warwick Furnace reputedly hosted George Washington’s forces in 1777. These furnaces were the largest of their era, measuring around thirty-two feet high, more than twenty-one feet square at the base, and eleven feet square at the top; they could produce between twenty-five and thirty tons of pig iron and castings per week. The Warwick Furnace was in use as late as the 1850s, while the Cornwall Furnace was one of the longest-lived establishments of the era, still operating in the 1890s. Other distinguished Pennsylvania companies were founded toward the end of the eighteenth century. Foremost among these was the Phoenix Iron Works, which was founded in Chester County in 1783 as the French Creek Works. Seven years later, the complex included rolling and slitting mills as well as a facility for making nails (these were created mostly by hand, as Jacob Perkins’s nail-cutting machine was not patented until 1795). The company was renamed the Phoenix Iron Works in 1813 when new partner Lewis Wernwag joined the firm. With the economic pressures of the War of 1812 and its aftermath, when British iron products were once again being sold in the United States, the firm changed hands again. The new owners realized they needed to expand their facilities, so in 1821 they added nail-making machines to the works and expanded into merchant pig iron. “By 1824 Phoenix Iron was being hailed as the wonder of American manufacturing. . . . Described as the first and largest nail factory of its kind in the United States, Phoenix Iron possessed the capacity to produce about 40 tons of nails a week” (Whelan 1989). Chester County was the site of another distinctive ironworks, run by one of the few women in the iron industry. Rebecca Lukens was born in 1794, the oldest child of Isaac and Martha Pennock. Her father was a farmer who turned to the iron business in 1793, establish-

52

•

Iron and Steel

ing the Federal Slitting Mill, which made iron strips used for spikes, hoops, and blacksmiths’ forgings. In 1810 Pennock and a partner bought a sawmill and converted it into an iron rolling mill, which they named the Brandywine Iron Works. Three years later, having attending boarding schools and finishing schools, Rebecca Pennock married Charles Lukens, a Quaker physician who gave up his practice to work for his father-in-law. At first he managed the Federal Slitting Mill, but in 1815 he became a partner in the Brandywine operation as well. Charles Lukens oversaw improvements to the mill, and his experiments in 1818 led to the first wrought-iron boiler plate made in America. In 1825 the Brandywine Iron Works manufactured the sheet iron used in building the country’s first iron-hulled vessel, the Codorus. Unfortunately, that same year Charles Lukens died, leaving only a verbal agreement that his pregnant wife was to inherit and manage the Brandywine facilities. Isaac Pennock had died the previous year, so Rebecca Lukens was left to her own devices. Although the issue of Brandywine’s ownership was debated over the next twenty-five years, Lukens turned to the business of running the mill, which was in debt because of the expansion into boiler-plate production. She secured credit from her husband’s friends and hired her brother-in-law as foreman of the mill. Lukens herself took care of managing the mill’s supplies, prices, contracts, and legal commitments. Over the next ten years, she turned enough profit to add another plant to the facility, one of her own design. She survived the panic of 1837 and further legal challenges to her ownership; by the time she retired in 1847, leaving management to her brother-in-law and son-in-law, the Brandywine Iron Works had added a store and a warehouse to its facility and was known for its high-quality plate iron. At the time of her death in 1854, Lukens was worth around $107,000; the works were renamed the Lukens Iron Works (later the Lukens Steel Works) in her honor shortly thereafter and remained in use for another century. Philip Benner was another prominent ironmaster of the postwar period. His company was pivotal in developing iron markets outside of the eastern seaboard. Benner was born in Pennsylvania in 1762, the son of an outspoken Whig who was imprisoned by the British during the American Revolution. Benner enlisted in the Continental army as a young teen and served under General Anthony Wayne, a relative, throughout the war. Afterward he learned the iron trade, dealing in iron and running a store in Chester County. In 1792 he purchased

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

53

property in Centre County, a wilderness area in the central part of the state, and moved there the following year. By 1794 he had built what was most likely the first forge in the area, and over the next six years he built a slitting mill, a second forge, and a nail mill. His costs were high, as he had to transport workers and supplies from the East, but he soon found he could recoup his costs by shipping iron products to the growing West, instead of back East. He opened an iron trade in Pittsburgh, and his “Juniata iron” (named for the river valley in which it was made) soon held a monopoly on the iron trade to the West. Before his death in 1832, Benner also established interests in transport, woolen goods, and newspaper publishing.

Major Companies before the Civil War Until the 1840s, the American iron industry remained relatively stagnant. Dependence on charcoal-fueled furnaces, which needed a blast of air to maintain higher temperatures, meant that ironworks needed to be located near sources of waterpower. The lack of cheap transportation also limited potential sites for furnaces and forges, which needed to have sources of ore and timber nearby. These limitations reduced the production potential of the U.S. iron industry. As a result, although the colonies had exported iron prior to the American Revolution, by the 1830s they were importing industrial iron products from Europe, especially railroad rails. It was the growth of the railroad, however, that contributed to an expansion in U.S. iron production: combined with the canal system, transportation of supplies and finished products became cheaper, more reliable, and thus more cost effective. Technological innovations also contributed to changes in the industry; after American ironmasters finally developed a method to use anthracite coal as fuel, it freed ironworks from the need to locate near large stands of timber. This began to concentrate the iron industry from widely dispersed local operations to locations in eastern Pennsylvania, which had large reserves of easily mined anthracite. Finally, the introduction of the puddling furnace, which produced higher-quality iron that could easily be rolled or shaped in mills, enabled iron production on a more commercial scale. A single operation could both process the ore and shape it into a finished product, and integrated mills along these lines made up the largest iron companies in the nation by 1860.

54

•

Iron and Steel

Peter Cooper, Abram S. Hewitt, and Trenton Iron Peter Cooper and his partner, Abram S. Hewitt, were pioneers not only in growing the iron industry but also in contributing their financial gains to philanthropic and educational causes. Born in New York City in 1791, Cooper was the son of a hatter who tried various business ventures with little success. Cooper’s family could not afford a formal education for him; instead, he was apprenticed to a carriage maker at age seventeen. He displayed a talent for mechanics and was inventive enough that his master paid him a salary and offered him a partnership in the business. Cooper decided instead to go into business for himself, and he invented a machine for shearing cloth that brought him enough money to invest in various businesses, including a grocery store and a glue-making enterprise. He cornered the market in the latter venture and invested the profits in Baltimore real estate. When Cooper discovered his partners in the property were cheating him, he decided to develop the land’s assets himself. He extracted the land’s iron-ore deposits and created a system to transport and smelt the ore. With partners he founded the Canton Iron Works in 1828, hoping to profit by selling rails to the newly organized Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. When the railroad was in danger of failure because the engines of the day were unable to handle the tight turns required by the twisty, hilly terrain, Cooper invented the Tom Thumb steam-engine locomotive. Its successful test in 1830 meant America’s first chartered commercial railway had a future— and Cooper’s ironworks kept a large potential customer. The Canton Iron Works became very profitable over the next ten years. Cooper hired former blacksmith Horace Abbott to supervise the factory in 1840, and the following year they produced the first heavy engine wrought by forging rather than casting. After Cooper and Abbott clashed over matters such as supplies and payments, Abbott bought the works in 1847. (Under Abbott the Canton Iron Works would prove important to the Union during the Civil War, supplying the armor plates for the original ironclad ship the Monitor.) In the meantime, Cooper had sold all his Baltimore interests and opened an ironworks in New York City, but he soon realized that there was no room for expansion in Manhattan. He decided to move the business to Trenton, New Jersey, and in 1845 formed a company with his son Edward and Edward’s close friend Abram Hewitt to open what at the time was the largest rolling mill in the United States.

55 Peter Cooper, U.S. industrialist, inventor, and philanthropist. (Library of Congress)

Abram Stevens Hewitt of the Trenton Iron Works. (Library of Congress)

56

•

Iron and Steel

The works would be ready to take advantage of the anthracite-coal revolution; not only were they located near sources of ore and anthracite in northern New Jersey, but Cooper and his brother Thomas had also patented several devices dealing with the new fuel. The Trenton Iron Works (later the Trenton Iron Company) opened in 1846 with Peter Cooper and Hewitt managing operations. Although a generation younger, Hewitt came from a background similar to Cooper’s: he was born in 1822 to an immigrant cabinet maker and machinist who worked at different jobs. Unlike Cooper, Hewitt had managed to gain an education despite his family’s economic hardships, excelling in New York City public schools and earning a scholarship to Columbia College (now University). He attended law school, and while working as a teacher at Columbia befriended Peter Cooper’s son Edward. The two men toured Europe together between 1843 and 1844, and on the return journey their ship was wrecked 120 miles from New York City. Left adrift in a lifeboat for the next twelve hours, the two men agreed to go into business together if they survived their ordeal. The following year, Hewitt was brought into the Coopers’ Trenton venture, upon Edward’s insistence. But the partnership was no gift: Hewitt brought to the firm both a flair for management and a key railroad contract, through a friend of his father, that ensured the early success of the Trenton Iron Company. “That the Trenton Iron Company was able to surpass most of its competitors and become one of the industry’s leaders by the mid nineteenth century was largely the result of Abram Hewitt’s efforts both to improve the quality and diversify the range of products manufactured by his firm” (Malsburger 1989). Under Hewitt’s management, the Trenton Iron Works gained a reputation for quality; not only did Hewitt invest in higher-grade iron ore, but he also hired an inspector to oversee production, something rare at the time. He invested in research and development, making Trenton among the first companies to experiment with, if not perfect, various manufacturing techniques. When the rail market was flooded by British imports in the 1840s and 1850s, Hewitt diversified Trenton’s product line; the most important of these products was the rolled wrought-iron construction beam. The result of years of experiments, the I-beams of Trenton’s “Universal Mill” were needed to construct large, fireproof public buildings and earned the firm some 100 contracts to supply the federal government. During the Civil War, Hewitt’s efforts were crucial to Union success; not only did

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

57

Trenton meet an important deadline for the production of mortar beds, but Hewitt also traveled to England in 1862 and learned the secrets of gun-barrel manufacturing from local workers. After Hewitt’s return, the Trenton works supplied all of the gun-barrel iron used by the Union forces. After the Civil War, Cooper and Hewitt used the economic uncertainty of the era to buy out their partners’ stakes in the Trenton Iron Works and grow the holdings of Cooper, Hewitt and Company to include interests in other iron- and steelworks, coal mining, and waterpower. Hewitt married Cooper’s only daughter in 1855, and the two men remained closely associated in their philanthropic efforts as well as their business partnership. Cooper served on New York City’s board of aldermen and advocated a paid public police and fire service, a city department to provide sanitary water, and free public schools. His most enduring legacy, however, is the Cooper Union, which he founded in 1858 to advance education in science and the arts by providing free education to both children and adults. Hewitt was chairman of the Cooper Union’s first board of trustees and served as its secretary for the next forty years, overseeing its financial and educational details. Hewitt’s public legacy also included political service; he served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, from 1875 to 1886, and two years as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He was elected mayor of New York City in 1886, but his battles against the corruption of the Tammany Hall political machine limited him to one term, and he retired from politics in 1888. Hewitt died in 1903, twenty years after his father-in-law; the two men’s legacy is commemorated in the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, located in New York City.

The Reeves Family and the Growth of Phoenix Iron Founded outside of Philadelphia in 1793, the Phoenix Iron Works had achieved prominence in iron nail manufacturing by the 1820s. The company made attempts to expand, adding a steam engine in 1825 and experimenting with the use of anthracite coal, but it was not until Benjamin and David Reeves assumed ownership of the company in 1827 that it made real progress. The Reeves brothers were familiar with the iron business; in 1814 they had founded the

58

•

Iron and Steel

Cumberland Nail and Iron Works in Bridgeton, New Jersey, and had diversified production into other iron products besides nails. After they took over the Phoenix works they added a new rolling mill; more important, they introduced puddling into the manufacturing process, which resulted in higher-quality iron that could immediately be processed in mills. They constructed one of the first anthracite blast furnaces in the country in 1837, although it was not perfected and had to be temporarily abandoned. Meanwhile, the company kept expanding throughout the 1840s, adding six more puddling furnaces in 1841. The company was reorganized in 1845 as Reeves, Buck, and Company. The following year, Samuel Reeves, son of David, was made manager of Phoenix’s newly expanded rail mill. Samuel Reeves had been educated at Princeton University, receiving a master of arts degree in 1840, but he had no formal training in either business or iron making. Time spent managing one of his family’s stores, along with a year surveying the coal and iron industries for the Pennsylvania Coal and Iron Association, gave him the practical knowledge he needed to make Phoenix Iron the country’s third-largest iron concern (in terms of employees) by 1860. By 1850 Reeves had established the largest rolling mill in Pennsylvania; its vertically integrated operation meant that one facility had the ability to take ore from processing through the production of finished rails. When the company reorganized again in 1855, taking the name of Phoenix Iron Company, Samuel Reeves was named vice president and left in control of the firm’s dayto-day operations. Reeves’s efficient management had made Phoenix very profitable during the 1840s and 1850s; it was his technical innovations, however, that made the company a world leader. It expanded into structural iron in the 1850s, becoming the first U.S. mill to roll large beams and shapes and manufacturing nine-inch I-beams. In 1862 Reeves invented the “Phoenix column,” a structural iron piece made of four or six lengths of curved structural iron that were flanged and riveted together. This column was used worldwide in bridge and commercial building construction; Reeves formed the Phoenix Bridge Company in 1864 to capitalize on the demand for these sturdy pieces. Reeves’s leadership—he was named president in 1871, after his father’s death—helped the Phoenix Iron Company become one of the longest-lived iron concerns from this era.

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

59

Lehigh Crane Iron and David Thomas’s Anthracite Revolution Although other U.S. companies had made attempts at using highquality anthracite coal to fuel an iron furnace, it was not until the Lehigh Crane Iron Company brought Welshman David Thomas to the country in 1839 that the technique was perfected. The Lehigh Crane Iron Company had its origins in the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, whose directors were looking to create a market for their services. They offered a bounty to anyone opening a commercial ironworks in Pennsylvania’s Catasauqua area, fifty miles north of Philadelphia. Two stockholders of Lehigh Coal, Josiah White and Erskine Hazard, had learned of the work being done at the Ynyscedwyn Iron Works in Wales to develop an anthracite-coal furnace; they invited the mine’s owner, George Crane, to the United States to build a similar furnace and named their new company the Lehigh Crane Iron Company in hopes of convincing him to emigrate. He refused them, and they extended the offer to David Thomas, the superintendent of the Ynyscedwyn works. Thomas was the actual developer of the Ynyscedwyn Furnace, although Crane held the patent, and the pay package Lehigh Crane offered was too rich to refuse; he left Wales and arrived in the United States in the summer of 1839. Thomas had been born in Wales in 1794, the only son of a well-respected farmer. Although his family was not wealthy, they provided him with the best education to be had locally; when he took a job at age seventeen with the local blast furnace, he quickly became proficient in not only iron making but also in furnace and mining design. He was only twenty-two when he was hired as general superintendent of blast furnaces and mines at Ynyscedwyn. The works were situated atop a supply of anthracite coal, but it was useless in their furnaces. Thomas experimented with the fuel by mixing anthracite with coke (made from lower-quality bituminous coal) and by building a small blast furnace designed to use the fuel. He successfully produced high-quality iron, but not in large enough quantities to make production profitable. After studying Scotsman James Neilson’s design for a hot-blast furnace, Thomas adapted it to use anthracite fuel so successfully that it garnered worldwide attention, including that of Lehigh Crane. Thomas was ready to build a similar furnace for Lehigh Crane in Pennsylvania but had been forced to leave his blowing engines back in Britain, as they were too big to fit in his ship’s

60

•

Iron and Steel

cargo hold. It took a year to find a U.S. company that could successfully produce five-foot-bore cylinders for his engine, but by 1840 Thomas had his first anthracite furnace in operation. Over the next decade Thomas built four more furnaces for Lehigh Crane, which expanded operations after the Lehigh Valley Railroad was built in 1855. In the 1860s the company built a sixth anthracite furnace, making it the biggest producer of pig iron in the Lehigh Valley. The company did not join the steel revolution of the 1880s, however, and ceased to be an independent concern by the end of the nineteenth century. Thomas, meanwhile, left Lehigh Crane in 1855 to pursue other business ventures in Pennsylvania, including the Thomas Iron Company of Hokendauqua, railroad and brick-making concerns, and the Catasauqua Manufacturing Company, an important source of boiler plate and bar iron after the Civil War. Thomas served as president of Catasauqua until 1879 and died three years later, having devoted much of his later years to civic and philanthropic concerns in his adopted country. Upon his death he was eulogized as the “father of the American anthracite iron industry,” a distinction that remains associated with him to this day.

A Southern Concern: The Tredegar Iron Works Although the first attempt at establishing an ironworks in the United States was made in Virginia, the industry failed to take hold in the South during the eighteenth century. Lack of supplies and skilled labor meant that southern efforts were limited more to forge finishing work than the production of ore in furnaces. The state of Virginia looked to change this in 1837, when the legislature chartered the building of a small foundry, forge, and rolling mill in Richmond. The Tredegar Iron Works was built by Francis B. Deane and was a minor concern until it came under the management of Joseph Reid Anderson in 1843. Anderson was a Virginia native who attended West Point and entered the Army Corps of Engineers. After his term of service, he worked as a civil engineer on internal improvement projects for the state of Virginia. In 1840 he was lured away from public service to work as a sales agent for the Tredegar works, whose owners hoped his experience would help them obtain government contracts, particularly with the U.S. Navy. Anderson discovered that quality problems made selling Tredegar’s products

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

61

View of Virginia’s Tredegar Iron Works, 1865. (Library of Congress)

more difficult, and his frustration led him to lease the ironworks in 1843, becoming its manager. Over the next five years, Anderson set up quality standards that improved the business, and after his lease was up in 1848 he purchased Tredegar outright. Although he had improved the firm’s output, he still faced disadvantages as compared to his northern competitors. He had trouble finding enough skilled labor to run his expanding operation, for example, and often resorted to slave and immigrant labor, even in skilled positions like puddler. Furthermore, local supplies of pig iron cost more than the anthracite iron produced in Pennsylvania, and the cost of importing it to Virginia meant his costs were higher than those of his northern competitors. In 1859 Anderson began losing some of his government contracts because he would not upgrade Tredegar’s technology to meet their specifications, so he began seeking markets throughout the South, mainly in railroad and bridge building. As the 1860s began, Tredegar’s southern customers started defaulting on their debts, leaving the company on the verge of collapse. The election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in late 1860, however, boosted orders of ordnance

62

•

Iron and Steel

and munitions as southern states began preparing for secession. Anderson himself became involved in sectional politics, supporting public demonstrations in favor of Virginia’s secession, and after the outbreak of the Civil War Tredegar became a vital part of the Confederate war effort. Anderson offered to sell or lease the works to the Confederate government, but it preferred to keep the works a private concern. The Tredegar Iron Works became the principal supplier of ordnance to the Confederate army, despite ongoing problems caused by shortages of labor and pig iron. Anderson addressed these problems by opening his own furnace and tripling the pay of skilled workers, but the labor shortage became more severe as his workers were sent to war; he ended up using slave and convict labor as the war progressed. In addition, the failure to upgrade his facilities that had cost him federal contracts meant that the quality of his product was unreliable. Nevertheless, the Tredegar works produced more ordnance than all but one other manufacturer during the war and also produced iron plate for the Confederacy’s first ironclad ship, the Merrimack. After the Confederate surrender in 1865, Anderson worked with Virginia’s Unionist governor, Francis Pierpont, to gain a presidential pardon and avoid the confiscation of Tredegar as an “insurrectionist” enterprise. He was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson, saving his business, but the economic problems of the Reconstruction era led him to sell a majority share in the business to northern investors in 1867. He continued to manage the ironworks and had some success in revitalizing the company, but after the panic of 1873 the Tredegar Iron Works went into receivership. By the time of Anderson’s death in 1892, it was a minor player in the iron industry.

The Scranton Family and Other Pennsylvania Innovators The development of the Lackawanna Valley of northeastern Pennsylvania was brought about by the involvement of the Scrantons, a wealthy and respected family whose origins in America dated to 1639. Brothers George Whitfield Scranton and Selden T. Scranton got their start working in various family businesses before getting into the iron business in 1837 by purchasing a furnace in New Jersey. The Scranton family’s extensive holdings included property in the Lackawanna Valley, and Selden’s father-in-law, geologist William Henry, alerted them

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

63

to the mining potential of the area in the 1830s. With other investors, the brothers formed Scrantons, Grant and Company in 1840 to expand their iron operations. They built an iron furnace at the village of Slocum Hollow (now the city of Scranton) and experimented with the use of anthracite fuel. The trials were not successful enough to turn a profit, so the brothers reorganized the company with the intent of moving into nail manufacturing. The nails they produced turned out to be too brittle, but George Scranton recognized that the quality of his iron would be well suited to producing rails. In 1846 the company was reorganized once again as Scrantons and Platt, with the Scranton family retaining a majority interest. The Scrantons were important not only in the financial backing of the Lackawanna facility but also in its management. George Scranton handled the financing of the company as it refitted the mill to produce T-shaped rails, the first facility in the United States to do so. Scranton’s foresight in building the mill and his reputation for meeting deadlines earned the company major contracts to provide T-rails to the expanding Erie and Baltimore and Ohio Railroads. George Scranton would eventually leave the day-to-day management of the company for politics in 1858, serving two congressional terms before his premature death in 1861 at age fifty, but the family maintained control of the firm. George brought in his cousin Joseph H. Scranton to manage the facilities when they reorganized once again in 1853 as the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company; his son, William Walker Scranton, would succeed him as the company’s president in 1872. Under the Scrantons’ leadership, Lackawanna was poised to take advantage of America’s postwar railroad expansion, and it remained a leading firm in the industry well into the twentieth century. The rolling mill, which was primarily used to generate rails, had other innovations created by Pennsylvania firms. The Brady’s Bend Iron Works, situated on the Allegheny River northwest of Pittsburgh, built the first vertically integrated rolling mill in the United States. The firm had been known for innovations since its founding as the Great Western Iron Works in 1839. The depression of 1843 led to its sale and reorganization as the Brady’s Bend Iron Works in 1844, and the new management built a second blast furnace the following year. They adapted their rolling mill to produce T-rails in 1846, becoming the first ironworks west of the Allegheny Mountains to do so. During this time they vertically integrated their mill, with coke-fired furnaces feeding newly produced pig iron directly into a

64

•

Iron and Steel

coal-fired rolling mill. This pioneering time- and labor-saving design would eventually be adopted by most other rolling mills. Although Brady’s Bend was one of the only rail producers west of the Alleghenies for some time, the panic of 1873 took its toll on the business, which closed in 1879.

Cambria Iron, John Fritz, and the Three-Roller Mill One of the leading iron companies of the prewar period was the Cambia Iron Works, located in Johnstown, seventy miles east of Pittsburgh. Not only was it a leader in innovation and production, but “Cambria served as a practical school and source of on-the-job training for a whole generation of iron and steel men” (Cutcliffe 1989). Several of Cambria’s owners and managers took their knowledge to other firms, including future giants Carnegie Steel and Bethlehem Steel. The firm had its origins in the 1840s, when investor George S. King partnered with ironmaster Peter Shoenberger to acquire some existing facilities in Johnstown. Shoenberger, a German immigrant who came to the United States as a toddler, had owned or managed several forges, iron mines, and furnaces for his family; he was responsible for setting up Pittsburgh’s first rolling mill, the Juniata Iron Works, in 1824. When Shoenberger and King set up the Cambria Iron Works twenty years later, the market for rails was expanding, and Cambria was a major supplier to the various new railroad companies emerging at mid-century. Shoenberger retained his interest in Cambria until his death in 1854, as well as investments in ironworks in Wheeling, West Virginia. His efforts were pivotal in the westward expansion of America’s iron industry. “Men like Shoenberger paved the way in terms of organization and production technology. The generation that followed and led America into the age of steel and industrial maturity owed an enormous debt to ironmasters like Peter Shoenberger” (Heitmann 1989). The 1850s was a decade of rapid change for Cambria. The firm was reorganized in 1852 in order to bring in capital to build coke-fueled furnaces but ran out of money before the project was completed, forcing another restructuring in 1855. The new investors included Daniel J. Morrell, who had made his fortune in dry goods; at the request of his partners, he was sent to manage the Cambria works, al-

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

65

though he knew nothing about iron production. He invested in research, hiring Robert Hunt to establish a chemical analysis lab in 1860. But his most important decision was to allow superintendent John Fritz, who had come to the plant in 1854, free rein to experiment with various production designs. The son of a German immigrant who taught himself mechanics, Fritz had little formal education before apprenticing himself to a blacksmith at age sixteen. His constant desire for learning led him to work long hours and change jobs frequently, and by the age of twenty-two he had risen through the ranks from mechanic to become superintendent of a rolling mill for Moore and Hooven Company. He moved to Reeves, Abbott, and Company to learn more about blast furnaces and rail mills. When he arrived at Cambria, he was well versed in all aspects of iron production, from mining to rolling. Fritz’s most important innovation was the “three-high” rolling mill, which added a third roll to the top of a roll train; this permitted the iron to be rolled both backward and forward, eliminating the need to turn the rails during the rolling process, something that had to be done by hand. Other iron companies, particularly nail producers, had experimented with the three-high mill before, but Fritz wanted to attempt it on a much larger scale. Despite objections from other company directors and even from the ironworkers themselves, Morrell permitted Fritz to build an experimental plant and conduct secret trials in 1857. Although the mill was destroyed by fire after two days, its initial run was so successful that Morrell quickly approved its rebuilding. Fritz’s revolutionary three-high rolling mill became the industry standard for producing rails over the next twenty-five years, and he implemented several improvements to the design. By the time he left Cambria in 1860 for Bethlehem Iron, the cost of Cambria’s rails had dropped from $160 to $28 per ton, and it was the second-largest iron employer in the country, with more than 1,900 workers.

The Postwar Iron Boom Although the years before the Civil War were ones of expansion and technical innovation for the U.S. iron industry, they were also full of economic hazards. The depression of the early 1840s ruined several

66

•

Iron and Steel

companies, whereas the 1850s saw a flood of imported iron rails after the British railway market collapsed. Between the years 1852 and 1857, no new rail mills were built in the United States; of the fifteen new rail mills built in the late 1850s, two-thirds were built west of Pittsburgh. Nevertheless, the industry made advances. The adoption of anthracite coal in the East and coke (made from bituminous coal) in the West decreased costs, while technological innovations increased efficiency. By the start of the Civil War, twenty-six states had iron furnaces, and U.S. companies manufactured iron and iron products of every stripe. Nevertheless, the industry’s “very size and relative dispersion also pointed to the fundamental lack of integration of these facilities. Most of the leading rolling mills and finished-iron producers were not connected with the blast furnaces which provided their pig iron. The industry was still segmented rather than integrated” (Ingham 1978). In addition, there had been few advances in the production of steel, which was still limited to small specialty operations. After the end of Civil War, however, the iron industry was poised to join in the country’s widespread industrial expansion. As early as 1860, half of all the iron produced by U.S. furnaces was used by railroads. As Americans spread westward, so too did their railways, and the demand for iron and later steel rails would drive the expansion of the iron industry, as well as its spread from Pennsylvania westward to Cleveland and Chicago.

John Fritz and the Growth of Bethlehem Iron John Fritz had revolutionized the American iron industry with his three-high rail rolling mill, built for Cambria Iron Works in 1857. Although his work at Cambria was a success, three years later conflicts with management drove him out of the company he had helped build into an industry leader. He accepted a position with the Bethlehem Iron Company of Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. Bethlehem Iron was founded in 1860 by Alfred Hunt, who had been in the iron business for more than a decade. Although his intention was to supply pig iron to the local market, Bethlehem Iron became an industry leader, particularly in technological innovation, once he hired Fritz as its general superintendent and chief engineer.

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

67

The company got off to a slow start, however. Although Hunt hired Fritz to supervise the building of the first blast furnace and rolling mill, financial problems during the Civil War led to reorganization. They began production in 1863, and as they found customers outside of the local market they expanded their facilities. They acquired the neighboring Northampton Iron Company in 1868, the same year they began construction of their first Bessemer steel plant. Three years later, they were one of the first companies to attempt a Siemens open-hearth furnace, and by the end of 1875 Bethlehem Iron was the largest producer of steel rails and pig iron in the Lehigh Valley, producing 80,000 tons a year. In the early 1880s, Fritz convinced the company’s directors, led by Joseph Wharton, to invest in armorplate and big-gun production; this diversification in the company’s products helped them ride out the panic of 1893. In 1899 the company reorganized as the Bethlehem Steel Company, and under Charles Schwab’s direction it became an industry giant during the early twentieth century.

Westward to Cleveland and Chicago Whereas the development of anthracite coal furnaces expanded the iron industry in eastern and central Pennsylvania, the discovery of huge iron ore deposits surrounding Lake Superior led to the growth of ironworks near Great Lakes ports, particularly after the completion of the Sault Sainte Marie Canals in 1855 enabled ships to pass from Lake Superior to Lake Huron. Iron ore was the focus of one of Cleveland’s first major companies, the Cleveland Iron Company, founded in 1847 by Samuel L. Mather and other investors. Mather came from a wealthy Connecticut family (the same one that produced colonial scholars and clergymen Increase and Cotton Mather) with financial interests in Ohio’s Western Reserve; he moved to the Cleveland area in 1843 to oversee the family’s interests there. The Cleveland Iron Company (reorganized in 1850 as the Cleveland Iron Mining Company) became an industry leader under Mather’s leadership. He realized after a few lean years that the company would make more profits by limiting it to shipping iron ore, rather than producing bar iron at high costs that would put it at a competitive disadvantage. He bought out a competitor, Michigan’s

68

•

Iron and Steel

Marquette Iron Company, in 1853 and focused on developing transportation systems instead of furnaces. By 1857 the company was shipping 10,000 tons of iron a year; in 1868, buoyed by escalating ore prices that allowed for investment in its own fleet, the company produced 100,000 tons of iron ore. Mather was an innovator not only by investing in transportation but by using new technology as well. The Cleveland Iron Mining Company was the first to use dynamite in its mines rather than the less stable black powder, and led in experimenting with new techniques, like the use of a diamond drill for exploration in the 1870s. Shortly before his death in late 1890, Mather began negotiations to buy out the Iron Cliffs Company, the other major mining concern on Michigan’s Marquette Range, and the company was consolidated as the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company in 1891. By 1900 the company was producing more than 1 million tons of iron ore annually, and at the start of the twenty-first century it was still North America’s largest producer of iron-ore pellets. Although the first ironworks in Ohio were built in Youngstown, near the Pennsylvania border, Cleveland became a major center of iron production after the Civil War, with twenty-one mills built between 1860 and 1866. By 1870 Ohio was second in the nation’s iron production only to Pennsylvania. The local industry leader was the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, which was founded in 1857 by brothers Henry and William Chisholm, Scottish immigrants from a lower-class background who had moved to Canada as young men. Henry worked as a carpenter and William as a general contractor, and after moving to the United States and establishing a construction business that built piers, railroad depots, and other commercial structures, they had saved enough to begin investing in real estate and other enterprises. The Chisholm brothers financed most of their first rolling mill themselves, although railroad entrepreneurs Amasa and Andros B. Stone joined the partnership in 1860. They added a blast furnace to supply their mills; their lakeside location made it cost effective to import ore for use in their furnaces. Over the next twenty years, until his death in 1881 at age fiftynine, Henry Chisholm’s management was essential to the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company’s success. He was an early investor in steel technology, in 1868 building the first Bessemer steel converter west of the Alleghenies to run continuously. He expanded capacity with

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

69

both Bessemer and open-hearth steel furnaces and focused the company on developing finished steel products. Unhappy with scrapwaste rates that could reach 20 percent, he developed a process to reuse scrap in rod mills. “In so doing he solved a major problem in the steel industry . . . and upset traditional notions about how steel could be worked. With refinements this process of producing rod and wire stock from Bessemer steel became the mainstay of Cleveland Rolling Mill’s business later in the century” (Harris 1989). The various business interests of the Chisholm and Stone brothers—including ore, shipping, and railroads—meant that Cleveland Rolling Mill was able to control elements of production from start to finish, as well as have a ready market for their products. Cleveland Rolling Mill was also important in spreading the iron industry to Chicago, whose location at the base of Lake Michigan made it ideal for both shipping and receiving. The company built its first plant there in 1863, and in 1871 Henry Chisholm established the Union Rolling Mill Company of Chicago, which had the city’s first Bessemer steel converter. Another key company in the Chicago iron industry was the Chicago Rolling Mill Company, which was headed by Michigan’s “iron king,” E. B. Ward, and built its first furnace in 1857. This provided the nucleus of Ward’s later North Chicago Rolling Mill Company, which became one of the area’s largest steel producers by the 1880s. The Joliet Iron and Coal Company, built by William A. Steel in 1869 and later the site of one of the world’s largest steelworks, was also an important Chicago-area business. In 1889 the successors of these three companies would merge into one of the first steel trusts, Illinois Steel.

Notable Companies in the South Although Pennsylvania, Cleveland, and Chicago were the major centers of iron and steel production during the nineteenth century, the South also produced several important companies. Between 1880 and 1890, the South’s annual iron production rose from nearly 400,000 tons to 1.95 million tons. One important area was Wheeling, West Virginia, whose location on the Ohio River between Pennsylvania and Ohio was recognized by early ironmasters as ideal for transportation. Peter Shoenberger, cofounder of the Cambria Iron Works,

70

•

Iron and Steel

was instrumental in introducing iron to Wheeling, building the first puddling mill there in 1832. The ensuing development of Wheeling’s iron industry was relatively unique: many important companies were founded not by businessmen or investors but by ironworkers who combined resources to go into business for themselves. One such worker was Stimson Woodward, who began working in the industry as a nail feeder at age eleven. He moved from Shoenberger’s ironworks in Pittsburgh to Wheeling in 1847, and two years later became a partner in the Belmont Nail Works. In 1851 he organized the La Belle Iron Works with Alexander Glass and other nail makers, and La Belle became an industry leader in the production of cut nails. In the early 1890s, competition from wire-nail makers forced the company to branch out into tin plate, but it remained an independent concern until it was purchased by Wheeling Steel in 1920. The Riverside Iron Works, which had origins in an 1852 Wheeling wire mill, was one of the most progressive companies to develop in this region. Eliphalet C. Dewey’s wire mill underwent various closings and refittings during the 1850s, but upon being rebuilt in 1859 after a fire it was sold to O. C. Dewey and his partners, who expanded the mill and made technological improvements to lower the cost of their nails. The company was reorganized in 1875 as the Riverside Iron Works and put under the management of Frank Hearne, whose family owned a share in the business. Under his leadership, the company branched into T-rails, Bessemer steel, and welded steel pipe, which would eventually become its main focus. The company was Wheeling’s largest manufacturer in the 1880s and was eventually bought out by financier J. P. Morgan in 1889. The state of Tennessee also contained some prominent iron companies, stemming from the area’s natural reserves of coal and iron. The Roane Iron Company, for instance, was chartered in 1867 near the junction of the Tennessee, Clinch, and Emory rivers. The company invested in coke technology and built the first coke-fired furnaces in the South. As the company grew, it absorbed an iron rail company, the Southwestern Iron Company of Chattanooga. To keep up with competitors in steel rails, the company installed a Bessemer converter in 1887, producing the first Bessemer steel in the South. The company took a turn for the worse after the steel rail market collapsed in the late nineteenth century; although it sold its

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

71

steel plant to focus on pig-iron production, it was forced into bankruptcy by 1923. The most prominent firm in the state was the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company (TC&I), which was founded by Nashville investors in 1852 as the Sewanee Mining Company. This coal-mining concern lost money and was reorganized by New York investors as the Tennessee Coal and Railroad Company in 1859, but after the Civil War erupted local creditors took over the company. It became Tennessee’s leading coal mining company over the next decade, branching out into coke production as well. When Thomas O’Connor purchased the company in 1876, he decided to move the company into iron production to stimulate coke sales and built a blast furnace near Cowan, Tennessee. Canny investments and purchases of competitors in 1886 and 1892 grew the firm, now known as the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company, into the nation’s third-largest producer of pig iron. The company moved out of railroads and into steel after the panic of 1893, but eventually was bought out by conglomerate U.S. Steel in 1907 in a key case that tested the steel corporation’s relationship with antitrust government forces. Alabama became a key state in the iron industry in the late nineteenth century. In fact, the city of Birmingham, which was close to rich deposits of both iron and bituminous coal (used for fuel in coked form), became known as the “Pittsburgh of the South” for its growing iron and steel industry. Birmingham’s first rolling mill was not built until 1880, but over the next few decades the city became a leader in the production of pig iron. Wheeling ironmaster Stimson Woodward had discovered the natural reserves of Alabama after the Civil War, and his son Joseph H. Woodward moved to the area in 1881 to form the Woodward Iron Company. He expanded the company’s interests, and in 1911 his son Alan H. Woodward oversaw the company’s purchase of the Birmingham Coal and Iron Company, making Woodward Iron the largest iron and steel firm in the South. It was difficult for southern companies to compete with their northern counterparts, however, and they generally remained limited to raw iron production. “Even had Birmingham wanted to finish iron products, railroad rates controlled by northern owners ensured that prices would be substantially higher and thus unable to compete outside the South” (DiBacco 1987).

72

•

Iron and Steel

Notable Companies West of the Mississippi Several iron and steel firms were also established west of the Mississippi in an attempt to take advantage of the growth of the American West. St. Louis, Missouri, was home to one such company, an attempt by James Harrison and Pierre Chouteau Jr. to develop the Iron Mountain region of Missouri. Harrison built a nail factory and rolling mill, for a time the largest one west of the Mississippi, and also invested in William Kelly’s Bessemer steel process. The company had difficulty competing with the transportation advantage enjoyed by Chicago-area ironworks, however—a fate that also befell the St. Louis Ore and Steel Company. St. Louis Ore and Steel was a successor to the Vulcan Steel Company, which built the first Bessemer converter in the West in 1876. Forced to import coke fuel because local supplies were not high quality, Vulcan Steel defaulted on its financing in 1878 and was forced to idle its plants by a coalition of eastern steel companies. The company was reorganized around 1882 as the St. Louis Ore and Steel Company and was vertically integrated to include mining, railroad, coal, steel, and milling interests. Because of its location, it remained at a disadvantage to eastern and Chicago plants, however, and it was finally sold around 1893. Colorado was home to one of the most successful companies of the American West. The area was ideally positioned to serve the burgeoning railroad market. The first rolling mill in the state, built in 1878, specialized in rerolling used iron rails. The company in charge of this enterprise, the Colorado Coal and Iron Company, was founded near Pueblo by A. H. Danforth, a railroad entrepreneur. The company expanded throughout the 1880s, building a coke blast furnace in 1881 and a Bessemer steel plant in 1882. For a time it had the only rail mill west of the Missouri River, and it enjoyed great success in the railroad market, particularly with the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. Its capacity grew so large that by the early 1890s an industry pool was actually paying it not to make rails. As other iron and steel companies were established in the West, Colorado Coal and Iron lost its competitive edge. It was taken over by financiers John D. Rockefeller and George J. Gould around 1900, but after merging with the Colorado Fuel and Company to form the Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation, it became one of the larger independent producers of the twentieth century.

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

73

The Rise of Steel The steel industry was slow to evolve in the United States. Until the second half of the nineteenth century, it was limited to small specialty producers because technical considerations made it too difficult to produce steel on a commercial scale. Most early steelmakers made blister steel, which was inferior to the cast-crucible steel made in England; in the 1830s, the United States imported all of its betterquality steel from Europe. Although some U.S. manufacturers made advances in the cast-crucible method, it was not until U.S. companies adopted the Bessemer and Siemens (open-hearth) methods of production that the industry took off. Although these innovations were pioneered in Europe, it was U.S. engineers who perfected these methods and designed labor-saving factories to improve productivity. By the end of the nineteenth century, the United States was capable of producing millions of tons of steel annually and led the world in total production, a dominance that would continue until the midtwentieth century.

Innovators in Cast-Crucible Steel Blister steel was relatively simple for U.S. ironmasters to make; by coating iron with charcoal powder and heating it in a furnace, crude steel was formed, distinguished by its blistered surface. Cast-crucible steel involved melting blister steel in a covered crucible, at high enough temperatures to increase the carbon content of steel. A crucible that could withstand high temperatures was essential to making cast-crucible steel, but these crucibles were not easily manufactured, requiring high-quality clay. It was not until William Garrard discovered a supply of such clay in West Virginia that Americans attempted to break into the cast-crucible steel market. Garrard had emigrated from England with his family as a young man. He and his brother, John H. Garrard, founded the Cincinnati Steel Works in 1831. William was the driving force behind the attempt, as he had some knowledge of chemistry and had experimented with making blister steel. He designed most of the firm’s machinery and buildings, basing his designs on British plants, and supervised construction. By 1832 the works had produced its first cast-crucible steel, of good enough quality to make saws and other tools. By using

74

•

Iron and Steel

imported Swedish bar iron, its products rivaled the high quality of British crucible steel. The panic of 1837, however, combined with the market’s distrust of U.S. steel, led it into financial troubles. After 1837 the company limited its production to blister steel, and it failed in 1844. A second important cast-crucible firm was the Adirondack Iron and Steel Company, whose owners hoped to capitalize on the highgrade iron ore of the Adirondack Mountains of northeastern New York. The ore required high temperatures to smelt, so manager James R. Thompson hired Joseph Dixon, a graphite manufacturer who had invented a heat-resistant crucible, to build a foundry in Jersey City, New Jersey. Dixon had a background in chemistry and printing and had patented a colored-ink printing process that could prevent counterfeiting. His printing research led him to look for crucible that could hold hot metal, and in the 1820s he discovered that graphite was particularly resistant to high temperatures. This brought him to the attention of Adirondack Iron and Steel. Dixon not only built the company’s cast-crucible steelworks in 1848 but also managed it over the next few years (he would receive another patent in 1858 for improvement to the steel-making process). Adirondack produced high-quality cast-crucible steel that won a prize at London’s 1851 Crystal Palace Exposition, but mechanical problems plagued the factory and production slowed, despite high demand. After Dixon left the company—he had often been in conflict with Adirondack’s leading investor, Archibald McIntyre—quality control declined, as the company expanded without making improvements. Adirondack eventually closed in 1854, and its facilities were leased to others. Later manufacturers, particularly in Pittsburgh, made attempts at producing high-quality steel, but their inconsistent output failed to gain market share, undermined by foreign competition and tariffs. By the 1850s the United States was importing 13,000 tons of British cast steel every year. It was not until the 1860s, led by Pittsburgh firms Hussey, Wells, and Company and Park, Brother, and Company, that U.S. cast-crucible firms met “with complete financial as well as mechanical success in this difficult department of American manufacturing enterprise” (Swank 1892). Hussey, Wells, and Company was led by Dr. Curtis Grubb Hussey, a former Indiana physician and store owner who was an early investor in Michigan copper mines. He came to dominate the

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

75

U.S. copper industry, particularly after inventing a furnace with a removable top that could process copper ore, and eventually branched into iron and steel. Intrigued by the potential of cast-crucible steel, he sent his partner, Calvin Wells, to study at Adirondack’s old steelworks in 1858. The two men bought an idle steelworks in 1859, and Hussey used his copper profits to support his new steel venture. Hussey, Wells quickly became America’s first commercially successful crucible steel company, producing top-grade chisels, tools, and farm implements. The firm went through various name changes as different partners joined Hussey’s enterprise; seven years after his death in 1893, the company became part of the Crucible Steel Company of America. Park, Brother, and Company was led by James Park Jr., the son of Irish immigrants who founded a successful retail business. Upon his father’s death in 1843, Park took over the family business, which included retail iron, and expanded into cotton mills and an iron foundry. He became involved in copper mining and processing, but steel was to become an important focus of his business. He founded the Black Diamond Steel Works in 1862, specializing in cast-crucible steel, and kept in business with a diversified line of both top-quality steel tools and lower-quality steel products. Park was an early adopter of new technology, installing the first Siemens gas-fired furnace at his copper works in 1863 and then at his steelworks in 1867. He also hired a metallurgical chemist for his works and was an early investor in Bessemer steel technology.

William Kelly and the Pioneers of Bessemer Steel Although the cast-crucible process was essential to U.S. companies breaking into the steel market, it was not a process that could produce steel in great quantities. The discovery that blowing a stream of cold air through molten pig iron could remove impurities and oxidize the metal led to a more streamlined manufacturing process and the production of steel on a larger scale. The process was patented by Englishman Henry Bessemer in 1855, but Kentucky ironmaster William Kelly had concurrently developed a similar treatment, which he called the “pneumatic process.” Although Kelly’s obsession with steelmaking impaired his finished-iron business and even led his family to question his sanity, his experiments were successful enough to

76

•

Iron and Steel

engage the interest of Cambria Iron’s Daniel Morrell, who let him build a demonstration model in 1856. That same year, Bessemer applied for a patent in the United States. Kelly contested the application and was awarded patents for his pneumatic process, while Bessemer was granted patents for his machine design. Kelly was a better inventor than businessman, however, and after the panic of 1857 he was forced into bankruptcy. To help pay off his debts, he sold the rights to his patents to a consortium of businessmen, an agreement that would earn him 30 percent of any profits. In 1863 these men formed the Kelly Pneumatic Process Company to develop Kelly’s process into an actual production model. Cambria’s Daniel Morrell was part of this consortium (as was James Park Jr., briefly), but the businessman pivotal in the early development of the pneumatic process was Eber Brock Ward, known at various times as the “steamship king of the Great Lakes” and the “first of the iron kings.” Based in Detroit, Michigan, Ward had developed a fleet of thirty ships to transport supplies to the growing cities of the Great Lakes and had expanded his interests into mining, timber, newspapers, railroads, and plate glass. He founded some of the first rolling mills in Chicago and Milwaukee, taking advantage of the growing western demand for rails. When he learned of the Kelly patents, Ward hired Zoheth Durfee, a Massachusetts native from a blacksmithing family, to investigate the potential of the process. Durfee brought in his cousin, engineer and architect William Franklin Durfee, to build an experimental furnace at one of Ward’s iron plants in Wyandotte, Michigan. Although William Durfee had no background in iron or steel, he studied Kelly’s and Bessemer’s patents and developed a design, including a casting ladle and cranes to move molten iron. Durfee’s design was successful, and in 1864 the Kelly Pneumatic Process Company’s Wyandotte plant produced the first Bessemer steel in the United States. In the meantime, Ward sent Zoheth Durfee to England to acquire the rights to Bessemer’s patents. Although Durfee was unsuccessful, he did observe several European steelmakers and gained the rights to Englishman Robert Mushet’s patent for adding spiegeleisen (manganese-rich pig iron) to Bessemer’s process, which made for more consistent quality. Unfortunately, the Wyandotte furnace impinged on the Bessemer patents, whose American rights had been acquired by engineer Alexander Holley for Griswold and Winslow. Holley

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

77

built a Bessemer factory at Troy, New York, and was successful in making Bessemer steel there in 1865. He realized, however, that the Mushet patent would be necessary for consistent steel production. Recognizing it would be more profitable to join forces than battle over patent rights, Holley’s backers and Ward’s Kelly Pneumatic Process Company decided to merge their interests in 1866, forming the Pneumatic Steel Association (renamed the Bessemer Steel Association in 1877). The new company would license the three patents of Bessemer, Kelly, and Mushet to prospective Bessemer steelmakers, who would pay royalties for each ton of steel they produced.

Alexander Holley and the Rise of the Engineering Class Over the next fifteen years, the Pneumatic Steel Association licensed the building of eleven Bessemer plants in the United States. Although they were built by different companies from Pennsylvania to St. Louis, they were linked by one man: engineer Alexander Holley. Holley was the designer who oversaw the building of six of the eleven plants; he consulted on three others, and although he had no direct involvement with the remaining two, they were based on his designs. Holley came from a Connecticut mercantile family that provided him with an excellent education. He received a degree in philosophy from Brown University, although his true calling was in engineering and drafting. These interests led him to posts with various railroad trade journals, but he was more interested in true engineering work, and he took a position as chief engineer with Griswold and Winslow in 1863. He had learned of Bessemer’s work while studying shipbuilding in Europe and after retaining the rights began studying more about metallurgy and pneumatics. Although the furnace he made for Griswold and Winslow was not the first to make Bessemer steel, it was better engineered than the Kelly Pneumatic Process Company’s pioneering works. After the patent situation was cleared up in 1866, the Pennsylvania Steel Company was the first to hire Holley to design a Bessemer plant to produce rails. Holley hired engineer George Fritz (brother of Bethlehem Iron’s John Fritz) and chemist Robert Hunt to assist him, and by 1868 their new plant was operational. Next he consulted on the design for Cleveland Rolling Mill’s new Bessemer plant, and then he spent two years with Cambria Iron Works. Although Cam-

78

•

Iron and Steel

bria general manager Daniel Morrell had been an early supporter of Kelly’s research, it took him eight years to convince Cambria’s management to adopt the Bessemer technology. Cambria vice president Edward Y. Townsend was an important advocate of Morrell, and after he became president of the company in 1873 he gave Morrell the support he needed to make Cambria one of the country’s largest integrated steelworks over the next two decades. Many of Holley’s early Bessemer designs took existing furnaces and adapted them to use the Bessemer process; the engineer was always looking for ways to improve his designs and advocated investing in superior machinery that would reduce overhead through efficiency. He got the chance to put this idea into practice in 1872, when Andrew Carnegie formed a company to build an all-new, designedfrom-scratch Bessemer steelworks. Holley’s design included several time-saving measures, including the Holley Vessel Bottom—a replaceable furnace lining that could be installed without cooling the furnace, thus reducing downtime. Holley would go on to earn ten patents for improvements in the Bessemer steel process. “Less responsible for the technological innovations of the Bessemer process than other engineers, [Holley] did, however, excel in the design, construction, and placement of facilities within an existing plant to achieve his goal of assuring ‘a very large and regular output’” (Black 1989). As Holley’s designs spread throughout the industry during the 1870s and 1880s, Bessemer steel came to dominate the market: whereas in 1867 the annual production of Bessemer steel was only 3,000 tons, in 1890 the total reached 4.13 million tons. Holley’s goal was not only to improve the efficiency and output of Bessemer steel mills—his design for Carnegie’s Thomson Steel Works set records for capacity, output, and production—but also to transform steelmaking into an “art” controlled by engineers and managers. He derided the old process of puddling as “a matter of tradition, trial, failure, and guesswork” and favored scientifically based methods of production that did not rely on the caprices of skilled labor. “Holley approached the technical and managerial problems of steel making as a crusader against ignorance and superstition,” and thus his designs relied on “better organization and more readiness, vigilance, and technical knowledge on the part of management.” As a result, “as practiced in Holley’s plants, Bessemer steel making thus allowed management to exercise greater control over the stages of

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

79

production” (Krause 1992). This newfound control would give steel companies a great advantage in their future struggles with labor.

The Open-Hearth Steel Revolution Although the Bessemer steel process transformed the U.S. steel industry, it was still problematic for many manufacturers. It was difficult to convert old puddling-style iron furnaces to the new technology, and it required considerable investment to adapt existing works to use the new, larger air-blown furnaces. An alternative process of steelmaking would prove more adaptable to, and eventually more prevalent in, the U.S. steel industry. Known as the Siemens-Martin or open-hearth method, this process was developed in the 1850s by the Siemens brothers, Germans who had emigrated to England, and was later improved by Frenchman Pierre-Émile Martin. The process used heat regeneration, capturing heated air from the melting process and redirecting it into the furnace, thus generating higher temperatures. The metal was contained in a shallow hearth at the bottom of a chamber, thus the name “open hearth.” This method was slower than the Bessemer process, but it was easier to regulate and the setup was closer to that used by puddling furnaces, making it easier to convert old works to the new process. In the same way that the Bessemer process had been developed and spread by Alexander Holley, the open-hearth method came to be advanced by one man: engineer Samuel Wellman. The son of the superintendent of the Nashua (New Hampshire) Iron Company, Wellman studied engineering at Norwich University in Vermont and served in the Union army before returning home to work for his father. In 1867 his father asked him to build a Siemens furnace from a set of blueprints; he was so successful that a visiting English engineer from Siemens hired him to install furnaces for the company. During his travels for the Siemens Company, Wellman observed other attempts at exploiting the open-hearth technology, including the furnace built in 1868 at Cooper, Hewitt, and Company’s Trenton works. Abram Hewitt had seen a demonstration of the furnace while traveling in Europe and secured the only U.S. license for Martin’s patent. Hewitt, like Holley, hoped to reduce his reliance on skilled labor by using the open-hearth method, as the technology essentially functioned similarly to the puddling furnace but did not require the

80

•

Iron and Steel

skill of a puddler. Although Hewitt’s Trenton furnace is often cited as the first working open-hearth furnace to manufacture steel in America, it is the furnace Wellman designed and constructed for the Bay State Iron Company of South Boston, completed in 1870, that is identified as the country’s first commercially successful open-hearth steelworks. Wellman left Siemens in 1870 and later served fifteen years as chief engineer and superintendent of the Otis Iron and Steel Company of Cleveland. During his years there he received almost 100 patents, including two that were crucial to the widespread adoption of the open-hearth furnace. His device for charging (that is, adding scrap metal to) the furnace without cooling it saved on downtime, whereas another invention mechanized the loading of the furnace and decreased labor costs. “By understanding the open-hearth process better than any other American, he was able to make critical design changes and incremental improvements that made the new technology commercially viable” (Sicilia 1989). Wellman’s advances led to the open-hearth process eventually overtaking the Bessemer process as the industry’s preferred method of production by the 1890s. Not only did it become easier to implement and supervise, but it also produced steel that was less prone to brittleness and breakage.

Andrew Carnegie’s Management Revolution Although engineering superintendents such as Holley and Wellman led great technological advances in the steel industry, it was the management ideas of Andrew Carnegie that would revolutionize both the structure and the strategies of American steel companies. There was little in Carnegie’s early life, however, to indicate that he would become one of America’s wealthiest and most powerful men. Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, in 1835, the son of a skilled weaver from a family involved in antimonarchy politics. The rise of textile mills meant his father was increasingly unable to find work, and the family emigrated to Pittsburgh in 1848, hoping to find better opportunities. Unfortunately, the U.S. market for handmade linens was as poor as in Scotland, and at age thirteen Carnegie was forced to help support his family as a “bobbin boy” at a local textile mill. Although the work was not arduous, it was twelve hours a day, six days a week. A higher-pay-

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

81

Andrew Carnegie was a ruthlessly efficient business magnate. (Library of Congress)

ing position stoking a small boiler was little better; it was only after the factory owner offered to give Carnegie a chance to work as a clerk that he began the long climb out of poverty. The clerking position led to a job as a telegraph messenger, and Carnegie made the most of it, mastering Morse code and earning a promotion to telegraph operator. His initiative in taking responsibility soon brought him employment as personal clerk and telegrapher to Thomas Scott, the general superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad. This would prove a turning point in Carnegie’s life; not only did Scott give his protégé increased responsibility over the years, so that Carnegie was a division superintendent by age twenty-four, but he also loaned Carnegie the money to make his first financial investments. It was these investments that would eventually draw Carnegie into the industry he would come to dominate. In 1863 he already held interests in oil, railroad sleeping cars, and iron bridges when a friend, Thomas Miller, asked him to invest in Pittsburgh’s Union Iron Mills. From Carnegie’s experience with Keystone Bridge, he knew that

82

•

Iron and Steel

wrought iron would be in demand for building; his familiarity with the iron company’s founder, railroad axle maker Andrew Kloman, gave him confidence that the company would be successful. But after a series of arguments among the shareholders left Miller out in the cold, he asked Carnegie to join him in building a competing business. Carnegie agreed, and the risk almost proved fatal: although the Cyclops Iron Company had ready customers in the bridge-building company Piper and Shiffler, run by two of the firm’s investors, the mill they built in 1865 was structurally unsound. Kloman’s Union Iron, however, was suffering from a lack of customers, and so the two men agreed to merge interests. The new Union Iron Mills became a valuable investment, yielding $20,000 profit to Carnegie in 1867. Having resigned from the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1865 to devote himself to his investments, Carnegie was poised to develop more fully his interests in the industry.

Investing in Accounting and Technology When Carnegie turned his attention to his new iron business, he found an industry sorely in need of good management. He discovered that each stage of production was usually handled by separate companies: one firm would smelt the ore, a second would forge pigiron slabs, a third might make sheets and plates, and a final company would create the finished product. Salesmen took commissions at each stage, and the cost of these middlemen elevated the price considerably. Worst of all in Carnegie’s mind was the fact that few managers made any reckoning of these individual costs: “As I became acquainted with the manufacture of iron, I was greatly surprised to find that the cost of each of the various processes was unknown.” Most companies used the simple double-entry system of bookkeeping, not tracking specific operating costs such as labor and capital investment; some balanced their books once a year, only then discovering if they had turned a profit. “I felt as if we were moles burrowing in the dark, and this to me was intolerable,” Carnegie wrote. “I insisted upon such a system of weighing and accounting being introduced throughout our works as would enable us to know what our cost was for each profession and especially what each man was doing, who saved material, who wasted it, and who produced the best results”

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

83

(Carnegie 1920). Carnegie hired Andrew Kloman’s cousin William Borntraeger to design a new cost accounting system so that he could find out where reductions might be made. Carnegie was also a maverick in his handling of other financial issues. Instead of paying his top employees large salaries or giving them bonuses, he gave them shares in the company, believing that a man with a personal stake in the company would be better motivated. Instead of worrying about his sales profits, he stressed reducing the cost of production, thinking that decreased costs would inevitably lead to increased profits. Rather than pay his investors big dividends, he often plowed profits back into the company through expansion, acquisition, and research and development. This strategy paid off handsomely: by hiring a chemist to explore the properties of iron ore, Carnegie learned that the low-phosphorus ores of Lake Superior were more usable than previously thought, and he bought them at cut-rate prices. In addition, Carnegie’s chemists told him that the “waste” roll scale formed and discarded during the rolling process was actually pure oxide of iron, allowing Carnegie to purchase the material for as little as fifty cents a ton. “Of course, in time other firms would get wise to Carnegie’s strategies, but by then it was too late for them to compete” (DiBacco 1987). Carnegie showed the most foresight in building the Edgar Thomson Bessemer Steel Works in 1872. His railroading experience told him that steel rails would be in high demand, so he liquidated many of his investments to raise the $250,000 needed to build a modern steel plant. While his competitors converted their old ironworks to use the Bessemer process, Carnegie hired Alexander Holley to design a mill from the ground up. Incorporating many new time- and laborsaving devices, the Thomson Steel Works (named after the Pennsylvania Railroad’s president) was state of the art; nevertheless, Carnegie never hesitated to replace parts as improvements came along. In addition, Carnegie “became the leading advocate of ‘hard driving,’ the practice of running equipment and men full-out for maximum productivity. . . . While other steel makers would have winced at burning out a furnace in weeks or months instead of years, or scrapping new equipment long before it was obsolete in order to replace it with state-of-the-art models, Carnegie charted cost and output numbers and rejoiced” (Sobel and Sicilia 1986). Over the next twenty-five years, Carnegie’s innovations dropped the price of steel rails from $160 per ton to $17 per ton.

84

•

Iron and Steel

Carnegie was also a pioneer in expanding his operations and dealing with competitors. He was one of the first steelmakers to vertically integrate his business, gaining control of all aspects of production. By 1881 he had interests in steel, coke, iron, furnaces, and coal mines, all merged into the reorganized Carnegie Brothers Company, Limited. Carnegie was chairman of the board and owned 55 percent of the firm, which had only six other shareholders, including Carnegie’s brother Tom. In addition, he refused to participate in any of the existing industry pools or trusts that attempted to control the market, divide customers among themselves, and set rail prices. Instead, he drastically undercut his competitors’ prices. His continuing reduction of costs and growth of market share ensured continuing profits, despite the economic troubles of the mid-1870s. He could have been ruined after the panic of 1873 and the drop in the demand for steel rails, but he had wisely diversified into structural steel products. In the 1880s Carnegie steel products helped build the first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building of Chicago, as well as the Brooklyn Bridge.

Carnegie’s Protégés Another of Carnegie’s gifts involved recognizing talent and finding the best engineers and managers to become his associates. He had done this with his earliest efforts in iron and steel, working with Andrew Kloman and Alexander Holley. Another important employee in the development of Carnegie’s business was William R. “Bill” Jones, who came to the Edgar Thomson Bessemer Steel Works in 1875. The son of a poor Welsh immigrant, Jones had little formal education but began working in the industry as a molder’s apprentice at age ten. By age twenty he had worked his way into a master mechanic’s position at industry leader Cambria Iron Works, eventually becoming an assistant superintendent to George Fritz in 1872. When Fritz died in 1875 and Jones was not named his successor, he accepted a job as a master mechanic at the Thomson works; four years later, upon recommendation of Holley, he was named general superintendent. Jones brought other talented supervisors over from Cambria and hired skilled workers by offering better pay. Not only did Jones patent more major Bessemer improvements than any other engineer, but he was also well liked by his employees, who called him “Captain” in

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

85

honor of his Union army service. He instituted three eight-hour shifts at the plant instead of two twelve-hour shifts (although Carnegie later ordered him to switch back because of the increased cost), and his efforts at negotiation often headed off labor trouble. Unfortunately, Jones was involved in a blast furnace explosion in 1889, and the head injuries he received proved fatal. Upon his death, “Carnegie honored Jones by calling him virtually irreplaceable. Indeed, except for Carnegie himself, no American made such an impact on Henry Frick, a key Carnegie partner and the iron and steel indusally, is best remembered for his role in the Homestead Strike. (Library of Congress) try” (Schweikart 1989). Henry Clay Frick entered Carnegie’s steel operation through his domination of Pennsylvania’s coke fields and was second only to Carnegie himself in his management skills and his ability to generate controversy. Coming from a successful family with interests in whiskey and coal, Frick worked in various family businesses until his grandfather’s death in 1870; he then began to focus on the coal and coke industry, foreseeing its potential in supplying the growing Bessemer steel industry. Through shrewd management he acquired a complete interest in the family’s coke business; by the end of the 1870s he had expanded his holdings until he controlled 80 percent of Pennsylvania’s coalfields and coke ovens. The boom in Bessemer steel rails meant a higher demand for coke: prices quintupled by 1879, making Frick a millionaire at the age of thirty. Carnegie was Frick’s biggest customer, so he found Frick’s near monopoly on coke a potential threat to his business. To alleviate the

86

•

Iron and Steel

risk, Carnegie bought a half-share in Frick Coke in 1883, making the men partners. Carnegie soon acquired a majority interest in Frick Coke, but because Frick continued to manage the business the partnership worked. In 1889 Frick became chairman of Carnegie Brothers Company, managing the combined coke and steel interests of the two men. He oversaw the takeover of the Park brothers’ Allegheny Bessemer Steel Company, fixing labor and management problems, and through restructuring increased Carnegie’s profits by 75 percent during his first year. To save on transportation costs he constructed the Union Railway, a company-owned railroad, further expanding the Carnegie empire. Frick is best remembered, however, for his role in the notorious Homestead strike of 1892, one of the most violent labor conflicts in U.S. history. Carnegie Steel had purchased this Pittsburgh steelworks in 1883 from the Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Company, a consortium that included such notable names as Andrew Kloman, James Park Jr., Curtis Hussey, and William Clark. Labor was strong at the Homestead plant, having emerged victorious in an 1882 strike, but Carnegie and Frick were known for their actively antiunion policies. Carnegie and Frick had locked out the workers of Homestead in 1889, but they ended up compromising with the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers (AAISW), at the time the country’s most powerful union. When that contract expired in 1892, Carnegie was determined to drive the union out of Homestead. He directed his managers, led by Frick, to conduct their negotiations accordingly. “As compassionate as Carnegie purported to be, however, the fact remains that it was he who gave the order for the union to be broken at Homestead and he who explicitly gave Frick carte blanche to carry it out” (Krause 1992). In a June letter to his lieutenant, Carnegie told him not to negotiate: “Of course, you will be asked to confer, and I know you will decline all conferences, as you have taken your stand and have nothing more to say.” After presenting proposals that the AAISW could only find unacceptable, Frick locked the workers out of the Homestead plant. The union men surrounded the plant, hoping to prevent scab workers from entering, and Frick responded by hiring 300 Pinkerton guards to protect the company’s property. This led to a violent conflict on July 6. The union men thought the Pinkertons’ river barge was filled with scab workers and refused to allow it to land. Union leaders had no control of the large crowd that gathered, women and

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

87

children among them. When shots were fired, it led to a firefight in which three Pinkertons and nine workers were killed and dozens of others wounded. Gravely outnumbered, the Pinkertons were forced to surrender; they were beaten and abused as they were escorted to a holding area. The local sheriff was forced to bring in 8,500 National Guardsmen to retake the works, a development Frick had expected. Although the public sympathized with the workers, a July 23 assassination attempt on Frick shifted public opinion. The public trials of several union leaders over the violence, as well as the use of scab labor at Homestead, led the union to concede in November 1892. Carnegie Steel’s victory had long-term effects on the labor movement, which would remain a negligible force in the iron and steel industry for the next forty years. Nevertheless, Carnegie’s confidence in his chairman was undermined; he said in his autobiography that “nothing I have ever had to meet in all my life, before or since, wounded me so deeply [as the Homestead incident]” (Carnegie 1920). He finally accepted one of Frick’s frequent resignations in 1894, although Frick remained with the company in an advisory capacity and was a key figure in the creation of U.S. Steel.

Carnegie’s Competitors Carnegie’s business methods also had an effect on his competitors; his ability to undercut their prices forced them to match his methods, cooperate with his companies, or face being taken over by the rapidly growing Carnegie Steel. The original organizers of the Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Company, for instance, started the Allegheny Bessemer Steel Company after selling Carnegie their Homestead plant. When he excluded them from his rail pool, limiting their customer base, the company failed, leaving Carnegie to buy them out once again. Although many of Carnegie’s competitors found themselves driven out of business, William Singer had the foresight to join his rival. He had been in the steel business since 1858, expanding his firm into Pittsburgh’s largest specialty steelmaker by 1881. He and his partners organized the Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Company to produce their own supplies of Bessemer steel. When Carnegie bought them out, he was the only one to accept Carnegie stock as payment. Singer became a director of the company and eventually its seventh-

88

•

Iron and Steel

largest stockholder, with shares worth $8 million at the time of the U.S. Steel merger. The Reeves family’s Phoenix Iron Company was made of stronger stuff. They refused to join Carnegie’s rail pool, and their diversification into structural iron ensured them a strong market position. Even when prices dropped after the panic of 1873, Phoenix’s bridge-building subsidiaries helped the company survive; in 1878 they sold 40,000 tons of structural iron, the largest order ever at the time, to New York City’s elevated-train line. The company decided to enter the steel market in 1886 and produced their first steel in 1889. Although Phoenix Iron remained a relatively small concern, the Reeves family retained ownership of Phoenix Iron until 1948. One of Carnegie’s largest competitors was the firm Jones and Laughlin, which formed in 1861 when Benjamin Franklin Jones’s Jones and Lauth Company, managers of Pittsburgh’s American Iron Works, was reorganized with the support of wealthy Irish immigrant James Laughlin. Jones had been an early proponent of vertical integration: he was among the first to buy coal and make his own coke, own his own limestone quarries, drill for natural gas and transport it to his boilers, and purchase Lake Superior ore lands. Jones sought to make his business more efficient, using a sliding scale based on product cost to pay his workers. Laughlin’s son James took over the business in the 1870s and helped the company remain a successful independent concern; not only did Jones and Laughlin expand into Bessemer steel in 1886, but they also invested in open-hearth technology, owning forty-two furnaces by 1896. In 1900 Laughlin consolidated Jones and Laughlin with another family interest, blast-furnace specialist Laughlin and Company, creating an integrated firm that would be second only to U.S. Steel during the first fifteen years of the twentieth century. Carnegie’s most public rival was not even focused on the steel business, but railroad tycoon John D. Rockefeller would play an important part in the consolidation of the steel industry during the 1890s. Rockefeller gained an interest in Minnesota iron ore almost by chance, one of several speculative investments made on his behalf by two advisers with a poor track record. Although Minnesota’s Mesabi veins were rich, furnaces had not yet been adapted to use the powdery ore they produced. Rockefeller poured more capital into the company, taking over the mines and the railroads used to transport their ore. When local steamship companies charged him extortionate

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

89

shipping rates, he built his own fleet into the largest on the Great Lakes and soon could dictate rates himself. Carnegie built his own fleet in response, but Rockefeller’s domination of the Mesabi iron mines, whose ore was now usable in many furnaces, gave him an advantage. When people began to speculate that Rockefeller would open his own furnaces and compete directly with Carnegie, the iron king was forced to deal. In 1896 he arranged to buy at least 600,000 tons of ore at rock-bottom rates, but in exchange he agreed to transport the ore on Rockefeller’s vessels and railroads. The deal drove down ore prices but raised the value of Rockefeller’s holdings: a share of mining stock that he bought in 1894 for $10 was worth $100 by 1901.

U.S. Steel and the Era of Consolidation Carnegie’s economies of scale allowed his company to offer the lowest prices around while still generating increased profits. Over twenty years his price for a ton of steel rails fell from $28 to $11.50, while his profits rose eightfold, from $5 million to $40 million. To keep up, other firms were forced to expand or merge. “An industry dominated by small firms owned by single individuals or simple partnerships gave way, by the end of the century, to larger integrated firms; nearly all of these were corporations, some controlled by investment bankers” (Ingham 1978). These mergers eventually led to the supertrust U.S. Steel, created in 1901, and an era of corporate giants that would have lasting influence on the industry and the nation as well.

From Illinois Steel to U.S. Steel Because of its location on the Great Lakes and at the center of a railway network, Chicago was becoming a steel center to rival Pennsylvania by the late nineteenth century. The oldest firm in the area was the North Chicago Rolling Mill Company, which had been founded by E. B. Ward in 1857 and expanded from rails into various steel furnaces, mills, and spiegeleisen production after the Civil War. Orrin W. Potter, who began as a clerk for Ward, served as general manager of the firm until assuming its presidency in 1871. A second important

90

•

Iron and Steel

firm was the Joliet Steel Company, which built the country’s ninth Bessemer steelworks near Chicago in 1870. Joliet also began by manufacturing rails; under Horace Strong Smith, a former railroad master mechanic, the company quickly upgraded and diversified its production. By 1887 it was producing more steel rails than any other company in the world, as well as more wire rods than any U.S. company. A third prominent Chicago concern was the Union Iron and Steel Company, run by Jay C. Morse, who had partnered with Samuel Mather in the iron-ore trade. In 1889 Morse and Potter opened negotiations to merge their interests; after involving Joliet Steel in the merger, the three companies incorporated as Illinois Steel. As president of the merged company, Morse subsequently added the Chicago Lake Shore and Eastern Railroad Company to their assets, giving Illinois Steel interests in transportation as well as ore, coal and coke, blast furnaces and Bessemer plants, and mills that could produce a full line of steel products. By the time Morse retired in 1894, the company boasted one of the largest steel-production capacities in the world. His handpicked successor, the colorful John Warne “Bet-a-Million” Gates, had already built a trust in the wire industry. After becoming president of Illinois Steel, Gates made their steel-rod division, which supplied his wire company, a profitable concern. By 1898 he had further consolidated his holdings in the wire industry, forming the American Steel and Wire Company, and made overtures to Andrew Carnegie about buying out his Pennsylvania steel interests. That effort proved premature, however, so Gates approached financier J. P. Morgan about underwriting a further steel wire–company consolidation. Through negotiations with Illinois Steel director and counsel Elbert Gary, Morgan arranged to buy controlling interests not only in Illinois Steel but in the Lorain Steel Company, the Minnesota Iron Company, and two railroads as well, forming the giant Federal Steel in 1898. Rather than retain Gates as president, Morgan asked Gary to head the new corporation, which within two years ranked second only to Carnegie Steel in production. Carnegie was not impressed with his new competitor. “I think Federal the greatest concern the world ever saw for manufacturing stock certificates,” he noted, “but they will fail sadly in Steel” (Carnegie 1920). Carnegie soon discovered his rival was a worthy adversary, however. Gary led Federal into further consolidations, merging fourteen companies into National Tube and twenty-five companies into American Bridge. When Federal began to expand into steel

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

91

production, canceling orders with Carnegie Steel, Carnegie struck back, approving the building of his own steel-tube factory. Morgan recognized that this spiral of competition would only harm both interests, so after hearing Carnegie Steel president Charles Schwab speak of the benefits in creating a steel supertrust, he decided to make Carnegie an offer. At age sixty-five, Carnegie was ready to retire from business and devote himself to his considerable philanthropic interests, so he named his price: $480 million, of Charles Schwab, twentieth-century steel which Carnegie himself magnate and industrialist. (Library of would receive almost half. Congress) Morgan accepted and immediately looked to acquire several of the other companies on Schwab’s list, including Rockefeller’s iron-ore interests, the purchase of which former Carnegie president Henry Clay Frick was key in negotiating. The formation of U.S. Steel was announced in 1901; the new corporation had a capacity of more than 9 million tons of steel and had almost $1.5 billion in capitalization, making it the world’s largest corporation.

U.S. Steel’s New Business Model Although the new U.S. Steel was a behemoth—controlling 37 percent of America’s pig-iron production, 74 percent of Bessemer production, 55 percent of open-hearth production, and at least 50 percent of various steel products—it was not intended to be a monopoly.

92

•

Iron and Steel

Nevertheless, it wielded considerable influence in the industry and had to beware of government antitrust legislation. Initial president Charles Schwab had left the company after conflicts with the board of directors, and in 1903 Elbert Gary took over direction of the company as chairman of the board. Throughout the next decade, Gary oversaw a period of continuing expansion as U.S. Steel tried to achieve vertical integration. He purchased Union Steel and Clairton Steel, which also had considerable coke and ore holdings and in 1907 moved to acquire the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company, which at the time was the ninth-largest steel company in the nation. Gary took the precaution of asking the government for permission to buy TC&I, explaining that the sale had been engineered by Morgan in order to bail out a brokerage firm that was overleveraged in TC&I stock. As Morgan had essentially rescued U.S. banks during that year’s panic, a grateful President Theodore Roosevelt consented to the purchase. Gary continued to be careful to avoid charges that U.S. Steel was becoming a monopoly. Rather than cut costs and run at full capacity, as Carnegie had done, he cooperated with his competitors, collaborating on pricing and founding the American Iron and Steel Institute to watch the industry’s interests. He also instituted what were known as “Gary dinners,” in which various steel-company figures would meet informally to discuss the industry. Gary also grew the company through investment in new operations, building a steel mill in Duluth, Minnesota; a cement mill near Chicago; and what would become the world’s largest steelworks at Gary, Indiana. These investments did not include money for research and development, however, as the chairman “made an effort to limit technological innovation. Once Carnegie’s hallmark, new technologies were dangerously destabilizing in Gary’s world. Often expensive, new methods could only be explored by the largest firms, who then gained major price advantages over smaller firms. Unwilling to risk appearing a predator, Gary discouraged innovation at U.S. Steel” (Seely 1994). Despite all of Gary’s cautions, the government brought an antitrust suit against U.S. Steel in 1911. The corporation fought the suit over the next nine years, eventually winning an acquittal in federal court that was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1920. Tipping the scales in U.S. Steel’s favor was its loss of market share over the past decade, a strategy Gary had deliberately pursued. Instead, Gary

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

93

stood by and observed the growth of competitors such as Jones and Laughlin, Inland Steel (founded in 1893 by the Block family), Armco (incorporated in Ohio as the American Rolling Mill Company in 1899), Youngstown Sheet and Tube (YST, organized in 1900 by James Campbell), and the Phillips Sheet and Tin Plate Company (which Ernest T. Weir would later turn into National Steel). “The small, independent iron and steel entrepreneur had, for all practical purposes, vanished. He had been replaced in the iron and steel industry by the investment banker and the professional manager” (Ingham 1978).

The Growth of “Little Steel” As Elbert Gary deliberately kept “Big Steel” from taking over the marketplace, other steel firms, known collectively as “Little Steel,” took the opportunity to expand and consolidate their places in the industry. Jones and Laughlin expanded heavily in 1905, becoming second in size only to U.S. Steel, while Cambria Steel (as it had been renamed in 1898) became the nation’s third-largest steel firm by buying out the Conemaugh Steel Company and investing in several mining, iron, steel, and water concerns. The rest of the country’s top-ten steel producers in 1905 included Lackawanna Steel; Colorado Fuel and Iron; Pennsylvania Steel, which was backed by the Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia and Reading Railroads and dominated eastern markets; Republic Iron and Steel, which wire king John Warne Gates had helped organize; Maryland Steel, which was a subsidiary of Pennsylvania Steel; the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company, which was to be purchased by U.S. Steel in 1907; and the La Belle Iron Works, the Wheeling nail and plate specialist. Little Steel’s lineup would change drastically over the next twenty years as the industry continued to grow and consolidate. The most aggressive of the Little Steel companies was the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, which was formed in 1904 by Charles Schwab after he left U.S. Steel. Schwab, much like Andrew Carnegie, had worked his way up from poverty into a position of power. Discovered by William Jones while working as a grocery clerk, Schwab taught himself chemistry and metallurgy and by age thirty-five was president of Carnegie Steel. Four years later, he was tapped by Morgan to head the new U.S. Steel, but conflicts with the board over his lavish lifestyle and outside investments led to his resignation.

94

•

Iron and Steel

One of those outside investments included Bethlehem Steel, which had just collapsed due to a financial scandal involving a merger with a shipbuilding concern. Schwab gained its assets, bought out other investors, and set about creating a firm that could rival his former employer. He invested heavily in shipyards and Cuban iron mines and then took a risk on a new technology. English immigrant Henry Grey had created a mill that could roll a structural steel beam as a single piece, rather than several pieces that had to be bolted together. Securing financing despite the panic of 1907, Schwab built this Grey Mill, which would prove crucial to developing Bethlehem’s presence in the international steel market. Schwab also diversified Bethlehem’s products by expanding into the arms market. He managed to contract with the British government for several submarines in 1914, getting around neutrality laws by shipping parts to be assembled in Canada. Two years later, Pennsylvania Steel was in trouble because of a drop in rail sales, so Bethlehem arranged to purchase the company, including its subsidiary Maryland Steel. The deal included one of the world’s largest mill complexes, Baltimore’s Sparrows Point, and made Bethlehem second in size only to U.S. Steel. Schwab served as head of the U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation during World War I—a war that made Bethlehem millions in profits—and afterward returned to the business of growing his company. He promoted Eugene Grace to succeed him as president, and together the two men oversaw an ambitious program of expansion. In 1921 Bethlehem was second in production only to U.S. Steel, followed by Midvale Steel (which had swallowed Cambria Steel in 1916), Jones and Laughlin, Lackawanna Steel, Youngstown Sheet and Tube, Republic Iron, Inland Steel, Colorado Fuel and Iron, and Wheeling Steel, all of which could produce more than 1 million tons per year. The following year, Bethlehem outmaneuvered its competitors to take over Lackawanna Steel, and in 1923 they acquired Midvale Steel. Although Bethlehem was only one-third the size of U.S. Steel, it was now the third-largest corporation in the United States, behind Standard Oil but ahead of General Motors. The Great Depression finally brought Schwab’s era of expansion to an end. Despite the stock market crash of October 29, the Bethlehem chairman sought to boost his company’s worth to more than $1 billion and made a play for the country’s number-three steelmaker, Youngstown Sheet and Tube. Schwab and YST chief executive officer

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

95

James Campbell announced a preliminary agreement for the sale in 1930, but minority YST stockholder Cyrus Eaton objected to the terms of the deal and filed suit to block it. The ensuing trial was a national sensation, especially after Schwab was forced to reveal the extravagant bonuses—Grace had received more than $1.5 million in 1929 alone—that Bethlehem paid its top executives. “When the trial finally ground to a halt in October [1930], four acrimonious months after it began, it was considered the most expensive legal battle in American history,” costing more than $2 million in legal fees (Reutter 1988). The judge’s decision to block the merger served as a major blow to Bethlehem’s prestige, as Schwab found himself the target of a suit from Bethlehem shareholders over their bonuses. The decision was overturned in 1931, but the continuing collapse of the stock market meant Bethlehem had lost interest in the merger. Although Schwab would serve as president of the American Iron and Steel Institute in 1933, his philosophies had less and less influence on the industry. By the time of his death in 1939, he had squandered his fortune, leaving Grace to cover his debts. The era of the steel titan, building giant companies from the ground up, was effectively over.

Sources Bining, Arthur Cecil. 1938. Pennsylvania Iron Manufacture in the Eighteenth Century. Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Biography Resource Center (online database). 2004. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. Black, Allida. 1989. “Alexander Lyman Holley.” In Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Paul F. Paskoff. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File. Carnegie, Andrew. 1920. The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Chernow, Ron. 1998a. “Blessed Barons.” Time (December 7): 74. ———. 1998b. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller. New York: Random House. Cutcliffe, Stephen H. 1989. “Cambria Iron Company.” In Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Paul F. Paskoff. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File. DiBacco, Thomas V. 1987. Made in the U.S.A.: The History of American Business. New York: Harper & Row. Dictionary of American History. 2003. 3d ed. 10 vols. New York: Scribner. Harris, Marc. 1989. “Henry Chisholm.” In Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Paul F. Paskoff. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File.

96

•

Iron and Steel

Heitmann, John A. 1989. “Peter Shoenberger.” In Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Paul F. Paskoff. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File. Hessen, Robert. 1975. Steel Titan: The Life of Charles M. Schwab. New York: Oxford University Press. Ingham, John N. 1978. The Iron Barons: A Social Analysis of an American Urban Elite, 1874–1965. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Krass, Peter. 2002. Carnegie. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Krause, Paul. 1992. The Battle for Homestead, 1880–1892: Politics, Culture, and Steel. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. LaFayette, Kenneth D. 1977. Flaming Brands: Fifty Years of Iron Making in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, 1848–1898. Edited by Thomas A. Johnston, Burton H. Boyum, and James L. Carter. Marquette: Northern Michigan University Press. Malsburger, John W. 1989. “Abram Stevens Hewitt.” In Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Paul F. Paskoff. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File. Paskoff, Paul F., ed. 1989. Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File. Reutter, Mark. 1988. Sparrows Point: Making Steel—the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might. New York: Summit Books. Schweikart, Larry. 1989. “William R. ‘Bill’ Jones.” In Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Paul F. Paskoff. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File. Seely, Bruce E., ed. 1994. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: Iron and Steel in the Twentieth Century. New York: Facts on File. Sicilia, David B. 1989. “Samuel Thomas Wellman.” In Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Paul F. Paskoff. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File. Sobel, Robert, and David B. Sicilia. 1986. The Entrepreneurs: An American Adventure. Boston: Houghton. Strouse, Jean. 1999. Morgan: American Financier. New York: Random House. Swank, James M. 1892. The History of the Manufacture of Iron in All Ages, 2d ed. Philadelphia: American Iron & Steel Association. Temin, Peter. 1964. Iron and Steel in Nineteenth-Century America: An Economic Inquiry. Cambridge: MIT Press. Wall, Joseph Frazier. 1989. Andrew Carnegie, 2d ed. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Whelan, Frank. 1989. “Phoenix Iron Works.” In Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Paul F. Paskoff. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File.

Lives of the Workforce Jeffrey J. Hill

S

teelworkers of any age toil in difficult working conditions. They perform physically demanding work in the midst of extreme heat and extreme noise. But those working during the years when the industry came of age in the United States—roughly the 1860s through the early 1920s—grappled with many other problems as well. Many of these early steelworkers endured extremely long hours for low wages, and they had few safeguards to protect them from the dangers of the job. In addition, the recurrent economic depressions of the period often threw them out of work or forced them to accept abrupt pay cuts. For most workers, the growth of the U.S. steel industry was marked by a combination of grinding toil and uncertainty.

On the Job Hot, Heavy Work The typical steel plant used several different processes, which included manufacturing pig iron from raw materials, refining the iron into steel ingots, and rolling the ingots into a variety of forms such as rails and plates. What most of these steps had in common was heat. Many of the laborers’ tasks were completed in the midst of broiling temperatures as well as sparks, flames, and clouds of noxious gases. The pouring of molten steel was especially dramatic, as Charles 97

98

•

Iron and Steel

Rumford Walker recalled in his account of working in a steel mill in 1919: “It comes out, red and hurling flame. Into the ladle it falls with a hiss and a terrifying ‘splunch.’ The first and second helpers immediately make matters worse. They stagger up with bags (containing fine anthracite) and drop them into the mess. They have a most damning effect. The flames hit the roof of the pit and sway and curl angrily along the frail platform on which you stand” (Walker 1922). The moment of pouring was one of the most dangerous in the workday. A worker would manually tap the spout with a rod and risked severe burns if he did not move quickly to avoid the stream of steel he had unleashed. Accidental spills were common. Molten steel splashing onto the floor could cause serious burns and on occasion buried workers completely. Walker described a spill that forced him to dodge a “thudding shaft of metallic flame” where “spatterings went out in a moderately symmetrical circle forty feet across” (ibid.). Another worker experienced a similar trial by fire in pouring pig iron: “You shoved this rod with an endplate up against the slag floating on top and tried to hold it back while the pig went into the mixer. Now the only thing between that ladle and you, protecting you from the heat, was this steel plate. I used to take wooden boards and lay ’em down on the platform to protect my legs from the burns. Well, by the time they’d pour a ladle of metal, damn if them boards wouldn’t be on fire. I’d hop off real fast” (Reutter 1988). In mills where products such as sheet metal were produced, the hot metal passing back and forth could heat the floor to sizzling temperatures. “I have seen men standing on floors so hot that a drop of water spilled would hiss like a drop on a stove,” observed John A. Fitch in his classic study The Steel Workers. “The shoes with thick wooden soles that they wear, act as some protection, yet their feet are heated to a point of great discomfort; and this is a thing that they must encounter every day and for from eight to twelve hours, practically without relief” (1911). The exposure to heat often took place when the workers had to hand-shovel materials into a ladle of poured steel or into a furnace. At other times, the men (steelwork was an entirely male calling during the period) might be called upon to clean up metal that had spilled in the pouring process. Though solidified, the spilled metal was still hot. Walker recalled that such jobs involved temperatures of “120 to 130 degrees when you’re right in it,” and likened the experi-

Lives of the Workforce

•

99

Workers tending the lower level of a blast furnace. (Library of Congress)

ence to “constantly sticking your head into the fireplace. When you had a cake or two of newly turned slag glowing on both sides, you worked like hell to get your pick work done and come out” (1922). The clothing worn by the workers varied, depending on the type of work being performed and the custom of the plant. An ironworker in Birmingham, Alabama, recalled that the men in his molding department “wouldn’t have on nothing but a pair of trousers and a pair of shoes. Maybe have on a pair of overalls, wouldn’t have on a shirt” (Painter 1979). In other cases, however, the men needed to cover their skin to protect it from the heat. “You’d never see a guy bare-chested, like they show in paintings ’cause he’d be toasted it was so hot,” stated a Maryland steelworker (Reutter 1988). Standard work trousers and shirts were the norm. For especially hot jobs, such

100

•

Iron and Steel

as cleaning out furnace stoves, a worker would opt for maximum coverage—a jacket, a hat with earflaps, and a bandanna to cover his face.

The Twelve-Hour Day For turn-of-the-century steelworkers, the length of the workday was perhaps more draining than the heat. Between the early 1890s and the early 1920s, work periods commonly averaged twelve hours. In many cases, these were divided into a ten-hour day shift and a fourteen-hour night shift on alternate weeks. In addition, many of the men worked the equivalent of seven days a week. Often this would be arranged by giving the workers one day off every two weeks— usually every other Sunday. On the Sunday that they had to work, however, the shift ran for twenty-four hours—which allowed the opposite shift to take the day off. Many steel operations ceased for just two days each year: Christmas and the Fourth of July. These were typically unpaid holidays. Of course, these arrangements did not apply to every steelworker in every mill. John A. Fitch wrote that “steel mills are so complex and such a variety of work is done, that no sweeping statement can be made in regard to the hours of labor” (1911). However, it is safe to say that the general trend in the thirty-year period mentioned above was to operate the plants on the basis of twelve-hour shifts. Historian David Brody estimated that by 1910, “nearly three-quarters of the steelworkers (excluding sheet and tin plate mills) were on the twelve-hour schedule” (1960). There is a tendency to view such hours as a holdover from a previous era, when work practices were far different from those that became common in the modern era. But, in fact, the workday generally grew longer in the steel industry as procedures became more modernized and mechanized. This process was outlined by Brody, who pointed out that as the steel era got under way in the 1860s, most mills operated on a ten-hour shift, which had been the standard procedure in iron manufacturing. The initial exception to the ten-hour schedule was blast-furnace operations, which needed to run continuously and thus employed two shifts of twelve hours each. Blast furnaces transformed raw materials into pig iron, which was later refined into steel in other furnace units. As plants became better

Lives of the Workforce

•

101

Workers laying out plates on a hot bed at a plate mill. (Library of Congress)

organized, it became preferable to match the later steelmaking processes to the output of the blast furnaces. This required round-theclock operation for all furnace operations. For a brief period during the 1880s, many steel plants functioned with three shifts of eight hours each. The reason for this reduction in hours was that output had greatly increased thanks to greater mechanization in certain parts of the process. Those tasks that still required a great deal of manual input had to be completed at a faster pace to keep up with more mechanized functions. Plant managers generally believed that men were unable to maintain such a fast tempo for twelve hours, so many plants adopted the eight-hour shift. As Brody put it, “incomplete mechanization intensified work, and consequently shortened hours” (1960). The shorter shift did not last long, however. As mechanization was introduced to more steps in the process and manual processes decreased, plant managers began to feel that it was possible to increase the number of hours for workers. The return to twelve-hour shifts began in the late 1880s, and the practice was widespread by the turn of the twentieth century.

102

•

Iron and Steel

Steel workers toiled long hours in dangerous conditions. (Library of Congress)

Although it is safe to say that workers were not pleased by the increase in hours, their situation was complicated by two factors. First, longer hours allowed men to earn more money. If hourly wages had remained the same and the number of hours simply been reduced, many workers would have found the corresponding reduction in pay disastrous. Second, many workers were paid by the amount of iron and steel they produced. In this case, fewer hours would have meant fewer tons of metal and less pay. For these reasons, labor unions such as the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers did not make shorter hours a priority issue and in some cases openly opposed an eight-hour day (Fitch 1911). Perhaps more important, after the failure of the Homestead strike in 1892, the power of the Amalgamated and other unions was greatly reduced, which gave workers little say in the amount of hours they worked. Compared to the eight-hour day and forty-hour workweek now common in the United States, the steelworker’s lot of a century ago

Lives of the Workforce

•

103

This portrait of Alabama workers shows that steelmakers and the mining companies that fed their appetites did not shy from employing youngsters. (Library of Congress)

seems extremely difficult. But was it extreme for its time? To some extent, it was. In 1910, the average workweek for those employed in industry (farmworkers excluded) was fifty-one hours (Reef 2000). By comparison, most steelworkers spent more than seventy hours on the job.

The Long Turn As taxing as the endless string of long days could be, conditions grew worse for those who had to work “the long turn”—the twenty-fourhour shift that usually occurred every second Sunday. A typical long turn might begin at seven on Sunday morning. Workers who had been on the day shift the previous week arrived at the plant at their normal time. They would remain on the job until seven Monday morning, when the opposing shift came to relieve them. After ending

104

•

Iron and Steel

An Eastern European Family Social scientist Margaret Byington studied the lives of steelworkers in Homestead, Pennsylvania, in the early 1900s. Her research examined the lifestyle of one unnamed eastern European family that was on their way to owning a home. A look at their way of life reveals a lot about the conditions faced by immigrants in a mill town in the first decade of the 1900s. The family was made up of a man and wife and four children, the oldest of whom was age seven and attending public school. The husband had been in the United States for fifteen years and had become a citizen. (Byington identified the family as “Slav” but did not indicate from which region of eastern Europe they hailed.) A semiskilled worker at the Carnegie mill, the man earned about $3.50 a day. Their small home was described as having just two rooms, a living room and a bedroom, both “comfortably furnished” (1969). One reason the family was able to afford the mortgage payments on their house was that they spent very little on entertainment. “The woman cannot remember having been to any of the parks or amusements of any kind,” according to the notes of Byington’s researcher. Both the husband and wife did belong to church-related lodges, however. The man was a member of St. Stephen’s Lodge, while the woman belonged to St. Catherine’s, and both of them attended about one meeting per month. In addition, the husband attended the dances put

the long turn, the men had ten hours off, then returned at five for the night shift, which they would continue to work for the following week. The long turn would usually begin to take its toll on Sunday night, as the men moved into the second half of the double shift. “The evening dragged,” remembered Charles Rumford Walker. “I fought myself to keep from looking at the clock. I fought for several hours after ten o’clock, and then, when I thought dawn must be breaking, went up and found it ten minutes of eleven” (1922). Workers were sometimes able to grab short naps during the shift, but they could be called back to duty at any time. Though the men headed quickly to bed after the long turn, they continued to feel the effects over the ensuing days. Walker contended that the Monday night following the long turn was “unquestionably the worst of the two-weeks’ cycle. The nervous excitement that helps

Lives of the Workforce

•

105

on by his lodge—though apparently his wife did not go with him. The social functions of the lodges seemed to be less important to the couple than the death and disability benefits they got through their memberships. Both the husband and wife were known to have a drink while at home. In addition, the husband occasionally wet his whistle at a saloon but “does not get intoxicated.” The family managed its food budget carefully, shopping around for the best buys and primarily eating vegetables, though the meals were said to consist of “good, substantial food.” The evening meal was an opportunity for the family to gather together, though dinnertime probably would have been adjusted each week, depending on whether the father was on the day or night shift. Compared to many other immigrants, this family fared well, but misfortune was still close at hand. The mother was suffering from poor health because she had taken up her household work too soon after childbirth. In addition, the children were described as “sickly,” and one had contracted typhoid fever. Source Byington, Margaret F. 1969. Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town. Vol. 4 of The Pittsburgh Survey: Findings in Six Volumes, edited by Paul Underwood Kellogg. 1910. Reprint, New York: Arno Press.

any man through the twenty-four turn has gone—quite. The seven or eight hours of day sleep seem to have taken that away without substituting rest; and what you have on your hands is an overfatigued body, refusing to be goaded further” (ibid.). The difficulties were compounded by the fact that men on such schedules were radically altering their sleep cycles on a weekly basis. The long shifts, long workweeks, and alternating schedules had a big impact on families. “The men are too tired to take an active part in family life,” observed Margaret Byington in her study of the steelmaking town of Homestead, Pennsylvania, in the early 1900s. Byington also notes that the long hours affected the community as a whole. The town offered few forms of entertainment and amusement because workers seldom had time to attend (1969). Charles Rumford Walker reached a similar conclusion: “The twelve-hour day, as I observed it, tended to either destroy, or to make unreasonably difficult,

106

•

Iron and Steel

that normal recreation and participation in the doings of the family group, the church, or the community, which we ordinarily suppose is reasonable and part of the American inheritance” (1922).

Changes in Work The increase in working hours in the late 1800s went hand in hand with changes in the type of labor that was being performed. The process of iron and steel manufacturing in the United States had always been divided into skilled and unskilled positions. Skilled workers performed technically challenging tasks such as “puddling” the iron or supervising the heating process in the steel furnaces. Unskilled workers, on the other hand, were responsible for simpler work such as shoveling and hauling. Skilled workers were paid more because they were more valuable to the operation and harder to replace. These distinctions did not disappear as steel manufacturing moved into high gear in the late 1800s, but the nature of the work underwent a change. Two of the major revolutions of the industrial age—mechanization and the division of labor—were applied to steelmaking on a large scale. Machinery was introduced into the process wherever possible, and complex procedures once performed by a single skilled worker were broken down into several small steps that could be performed by those with less experience and less training. As Brody explained it, “the steel-making tasks were radically altered. Steelworkers had been the manipulators of raw materials and molten metal. They became the tenders of machine” (1960). Mechanization allowed production to expand dramatically. In 1870, 77,000 tons of steel were produced in the United States. That number grew to 1.4 million tons in 1880, 4 million tons in 1890, and 11.4 million tons in 1900 (Paskoff 1989). The result of these changes can be seen in a comparison between two plants producing pig iron—one in Steelton, Pennsylvania, in 1875 (which employed earlier methods) and one at Sparrows Point, Maryland, in 1895 (a highly mechanized mill using later technology). Labor costs were 65 percent lower at Sparrows Point, and about half as many employees were required to complete the work. About 65 percent of the jobs at Steelton were deemed skilled positions, as compared to 25 percent at Sparrows Point (Reutter 1988).

Lives of the Workforce

•

107

Steelworkers wait in line to receive their pay at a steel works in Homestead, Pennsylvania. (Corbis)

These developments were part of a new trend in the way that industries were managed. Increasingly, owners and managers treated human labor as a commodity in the production cycle—one that they tried to obtain cheaply and use as efficiently as possible. Human efficiency, in fact, became a closely studied topic in all industries. This movement was spearheaded Frederick Winslow Taylor, a steel-company engineer in Philadelphia. During his tenure at Midvale Steel, Taylor began to perform careful time-management studies of work procedures at the plant, attempting to find the best method of completing each task. In addition, he implemented the idea of paying workers to meet set quotas in order to increase their productivity. Applying his talents to machinery, he created the largest steam hammer ever built in the United States. Later, he would collaborate with J. Maunsel White

108

•

Iron and Steel

to develop an important method of heat-treating steel for use in tools. The patent for this process made Taylor a wealthy man. After leaving Midvale in 1890, Taylor worked at the Manufacturing Investment Company, then became a management consultant. During this period, Taylor refined and implemented his theories about organizing industries and managing employees. His system involved carefully analyzing each task and trying a variety of procedures. The goal was to divide the procedure into a number of small steps and find the fastest way to perform the work. Once a method was identified, each step in the process would be timed to arrive at an estimate of how long a given task should take. Workers were then trained to follow the procedure exactly and were given a set amount of time to complete it. Those who failed to do so were removed from the job. Ultimately, Taylor’s system gave managers increased control over the production process and limited the decisions of those performing the work. The system could also result in the elimination of jobs. For example, one of Taylor’s consulting jobs was at the Bethlehem Iron Company (soon to change its name to Bethlehem Steel). After studying the work of those handling materials in the company yards, Taylor recommended that the number of employees there be reduced from 400 to 140. Surprisingly, this and some of Taylor’s other ideas were not well received at Bethlehem, and his services for the company ended in 1901. From that point until his death in 1915, Taylor concentrated on promoting his theories, which became known as scientific management and “Taylorism.” Taylor’s ideas were controversial in his day and remain so to the present. He believed that scientific management would end labor conflict because workers would be paid fairly for their input and would come to internalize the ideas of the managers who supervised them. Critics maintained that Taylor’s system would transform people into dehumanized machines. They also charged that the system made it easy for unscrupulous managers to exploit their employees. Though Taylor’s complete program was never widely adopted, parts of the process had great influence in the way steel mills and other industries operated in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In addition, some of his ideas were adapted by later management theorists and have influenced modern schools of thought on how to best organize production.

Lives of the Workforce

•

109

Wages Though productivity in the steel industry surged in the late 1800s and early 1900s, workers’ wages did not. In analyzing steelworkers’ pay in the Pittsburgh area between 1892 and 1907, John A. Fitch found that, on the whole, wages did not keep pace with inflation. The amount of the shortfall varied depending on the type of worker, however. Fitch estimated that the costs of food, rent, and other items rose by 22 percent during the fifteen-year period. According to his figures, unskilled workers saw their wages rise between 7 percent and 15 percent, making for a shortfall between 7 percent and 15 percent in the real value of their wages (1911). As for skilled workers, Fitch asserted that the actual dollar figures of their wages went down during the period. A manager of one of the Pittsburgh companies even admitted to Fitch that “the daily earnings of some of the most highly paid men have been systematically brought down to a level consistent with the pay of other workers.” Combined with the increased prices, the reduction in wages must have been painful. But it is important to remember that the skilled workers enjoyed a relatively high rate of pay prior to 1892, so they generally avoided the extreme hardship experienced by many unskilled workers. Fitch’s study also included a third type of steelworker, the “intermediate man” or semiskilled worker. This group did better than the others, though Fitch estimates that their wages still had less value in 1907 than they did in 1892 once adjusted for inflation (ibid.). Fitch’s numbers do not necessarily apply to other parts of the country, and historians vary somewhat in their interpretation of steelworkers’ wages during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Few workers seemed to have seen an increase in the real value of their wages, however. Brody argued that “wages barely kept pace with the rising cost of living in the two decades after 1890” (1960). Wages in the steel industry also had a long history of being unstable. For instance, at certain points in the 1890s, average wages rose and fell by as much 30 percent from their median point in the decade (ibid.). These ups and downs were usually caused by the topsy-turvy business cycle of the late 1800s. Between 1870 and 1900, there were three significant economic downturns: from 1873 to 1879, from 1882 to 1885, and from 1893 to 1897 (Helibroner and Singer 1984). All of them were marked by widespread layoffs in the steel industry, as well

110

•

Iron and Steel

as in most other business sectors. Those who were lucky enough to keep their jobs suffered large cuts in pay. The periodic recessions continued into the twentieth century. For instance, 20,000 furnace workers were idled by events surrounding the so-called panic of 1907 (Brody 1960). Mechanization and related adjustments to pay and job functions certainly created difficulties for workers, but it should be noted that the changes were not entirely negative. Some of the most difficult physical tasks, such as loading blast furnaces by hand in the midst of poisonous fumes, were left to machines. Historian David Brody noted that “the burden on the steelworker had greatly eased” thanks to technological advances (ibid.).

Accidents This is not to suggest that steel mills became safe, carefree places. Accidents remained a frequent occurrence and, at times, a deadly one. An example of the type of destruction that could be unleashed can be found in an incident at the Sparrows Point works in 1891. Leaking water ignited an explosion in a blast furnace that killed four employees and injured many others. An account of the accident in the Baltimore American and Baltimore Sun told of one victim who had the unfortunate experience of literally going from frying pan to fire: Thomas Miller, of Linwood, N.C., one of the coloured men at the hospital, tells a horrible tale of his sufferings after the explosion occurred. He was thrown into a deep ladle used for carrying molten metal. The ladle was almost red-hot, and he slid into it head foremost. He had to climb up the sides, and in his frantic efforts to get out burned most of his clothing off and roasted the flesh on his hands. After he climbed out he fell over on a pile of hot cinders and brick, and severely burned his neck and face. (Reutter 1988)

Such accidents were not rare. In 1907 and the early months of 1908 alone, John A. Fitch noted three explosions at steel plants in the Pittsburgh area. All caused fatalities, and one of the blasts killed 14 workers. Less fiery but often more deadly were the trains and cranes that moved materials from place to place within the plants. Railroad mishaps accounted for 15 percent of the deaths in a yearlong survey

Lives of the Workforce

•

111

An accident at the Pacific Car Foundry. (Josef Scaylea/Corbis)

of steelmaking accidents in the Pittsburgh area in 1906 and 1907. The same study noted that crane accidents caused more than 20 percent of the 195 total deaths (Fitch 1911). Some of these unsafe work conditions can be attributed to the laws and legal precedents that prevailed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In general, employers were held less accountable for work conditions than they would be later in the 1900s. As Mark Reutter explains in Sparrows Point, “[C]ommon-law doctrine decreed that because a workman chose his occupation, he assumed the risk of bodily injuries at work. In a world of the survival of the fittest, the burden of factory accidents fell squarely on the victim” (1988). Lawsuits were occasionally filed related to workplace injuries and deaths, but companies were often successful in fending them off or settling the case at a nominal cost. In this atmosphere, owners had little financial incentive to make their factories safer. In an analysis of accidents at the Sparrows Point

112

•

Iron and Steel

complex in 1902, Reutter found that the cost of each accident to the company was only $3.91. The historian concluded that the cost of reengineering the factories to make them safer would have been much higher, so the company chose to avoid such improvements (ibid.). This situation began to change once workers’ compensation laws began to be enacted in the 1910s. The Carnegie Steel Company made an effort to offset some of the financial hardship experienced by families because of work-related deaths and disabilities. Andrew Carnegie established the Carnegie Relief Fund in 1901, when his mills were sold to the United States Steel Corporation. He deemed it “an acknowledgment of the debt which I owe to the workmen who have contributed so greatly to my success” (Byington 1969). Benefits paid from the fund were modest: $500 to the family when a worker was killed, plus $100 for each child that he had supported. It was better than nothing, however, which was what many families received unless they were covered by some form of insurance.

Other Ailments In addition to sudden death and injury, steelworkers were susceptible to less dramatic hazards. One was noise, which made many workers hard of hearing. In completing his study of Pittsburgh steelwork, Fitch noted that “among the men I met, partial or slight deafness was quite common, and that they all attributed it to the noise” (1911). Another problem was long-term exposure to ore and steel dust, which often caused respiratory problems. Taken together, these hazards made steelwork a dangerous occupation. According to one study published in the 1930s—The Condition of Labor in the American Iron and Steel Industry—a person who entered the steel plant at age twenty could expect to live seven years less, on average, than someone who worked a professional job from the same age (Reutter 1988).

Off the Job Given the long hours, a steadily employed steelworker during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries could spend half of his

Lives of the Workforce

•

113

productive years inside a mill. As startling as that fact may seem, a portrait of the lives of the industry’s workforce would not be complete without a look at their home life and the way they spent what little free time that they had available to them. It is tempting to say that anyone who worked ten to fourteen hours in the heat of a steel mill probably spent the rest of their time sleeping. To a certain degree, this was true. “I wash up, go home, eat, and go to bed,” wrote Charles Rumford Walker of his off-hours while working the night shift. “Every hour of the twenty-four is accountable, in sleep, work, or food, for seven days.” But Walker was referring to a fourteen-hour night shift. He found the alternate week on the ten-hour day shift “decidedly better” because it allowed some time for socializing, leisure—and additional sleep (1922). Whatever shift they were working, and however long they spent in bed, workers’ lives were affected by a wide range of factors once they left the steel mill. In most cases, the nonwork portion of their lives was heavily influenced by their job and by the company they worked for.

Clearing the Throat The first stop for many workers after they departed the factory was a saloon. Most steel towns had plenty to choose from. Homestead, Pennsylvania, which had a total population of 25,000 in the first decade of the 1900s, was estimated to have more than fifty drinking establishments (Byington 1910). Roughly the same ratio applied to Duquesne, Pennsylvania—thirty saloons for 12,000 people—whereas neighboring McKeesport had nearly seventy saloons serving a town of 40,000 (Fitch 1911). Often, as was the case in Homestead, a large cluster of bars was conveniently located where workers would exit the mill. A stop at a local watering hole served several functions. First, there was a social aspect—a chance to talk over the events of the day (or night) with coworkers. But perhaps more important, there was a widespread belief that an after-work drink had therapeutic qualities. Fitch contended that “a large majority of steel workers sincerely believe that the regular use of alcoholic drinks is essential to keep them from breaking down.” Whiskey was a popular choice after long hours in the mill because, as one worker explained to Fitch, “it takes the dust out of my throat.” Beer, a more economical choice, was used

114

•

Iron and Steel

for the same purpose. Many believed that a drink gave them a boost of energy when they sorely needed one. In Fitch’s opinion, most men did not drink to excess after leaving their jobs: “The men line up at the bar, each one taking one drink and paying for it himself. The first line of men put down their glasses and leave, and the bar is filled again with a second group. There are very few who take more than one drink on coming from the mill” (1911). The after-work stop for beer or whiskey was not the only time workers visited the saloons, of course. The establishments also served as a place for socializing in off-hours. Even then, Fitch maintained that “ordinarily one does not see very much drunkenness” (ibid.). Of course, alcohol proved to be a problem for some men, who went on extended drinking binges. Usually, this occurred when the workers would create their own vacation by simply not showing up for their jobs—often for a week or longer. “Men kept at the job as long as they could stick it, and then relaxed into a two or three week’s drunk,” according to Walker. Such outings were more common for single men, who sometimes went on a toot when they were planning to move to a new town. In other cases, men stayed in the same town and hoped that they would be rehired after their party came to an end. For many men, these escapes were a direct response to the long hours on the job. Walker related the story of a coworker from Poland who explained his three-week binge in simple words: “What the hell, work all time goddamn job, what the hell?” (1922). Drinking also took place at home, at least for some of the workers. One observer of the eastern European immigrants in Pittsburgh noted that “the evidences of drink in the homes were apparent on all sides. Empty beer kegs and bottles were to be seen everywhere. In Latimore Alley on a September morning, I counted 20 empty kegs in one yard” (Roberts 1974). The extent of drinking among the immigrants was a controversial subject in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Antialcohol crusaders often portrayed foreign-born residents as excessive drinkers, a description that may have been partly inspired by prejudice. The temperance forces were largely Anglo-Saxon Protestants; the immigrants were mostly eastern European Catholics (Behr 1996). The negative portrayal of the newcomers as heavy boozers played a part in the passage of Prohibition, when alcohol was banned during the 1920s and early 1930s. As in any time, the use of alcohol could create misfortune. Excessive drinking and alcoholism created strains in personal relations, and

Lives of the Workforce

•

115

money spent on alcohol could have disastrous effects for those whose wages barely covered food and shelter. As already mentioned, drinking was frequently tied to absenteeism at the mill, so employers tended to view alcohol as a drain on productivity. In most towns, they were unable to do much to curb the problem, but as we shall see, the situation was different in communities that were directly built and controlled by the steel companies.

Going Home After his stop at the saloon, a worker would generally head for home. Where that home was located and what it was like would depend on several factors, including how much money he made, the language he spoke, the country he was born in, and the color of his skin. As discussed in greater detail elsewhere in this book, the steel industry was staffed in large part by immigrant labor. In the industry’s early decades, the immigrants tended to come from the British Isles and western Europe. Later, eastern and southern Europeans predominated. In Pittsburgh and surrounding towns, Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Slovenes, Russians, Croatians, Lithuanians, and other eastern Europeans became an especially large force, especially in the unskilled positions. They were often referred to simply as Slavs or, more pejoratively, as “Hunkies.” Blacks were also employed in the mills and formed a sizable part of the workforce in areas such as Alabama and Maryland. (Prior to the end of the Civil War, southern mills such as the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia, made use of slave labor.) Adding to the mix were whites native to the United States. Mix, however, is an inaccurate term, because the nationalities and races tended to be divided both inside the plant and out. One of the most detailed looks at the home lives of steelworkers is found in Margaret Byington’s Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town. She found that that there were two primary groups that congregated together: English-speaking whites (some born in the United States, some in the British Isles and western Europe) and non-Englishspeaking eastern Europeans (whom she refers to as Slavs). In addition, there was a small group of African American residents in Homestead who formed about 5 percent of the population. Their living conditions were very similar to those experienced by the eastern

116

•

Iron and Steel

Europeans. In general, the workingmen of the two major groups held different jobs at the Carnegie Steel Company, Homestead’s mill. The English-speaking employees held the higher, more skilled positions and the eastern Europeans the less skilled ones. The two groups lived in different areas of the town, attended different churches, and socialized separately.

Up on the Hill Most English-speaking workers would have a longer walk home from the saloon than their eastern European counterparts. In Homestead, as in many mill towns, the better residential districts were somewhat removed from the factory because it was preferable to get away from the smoke and noise of the mill. Homestead’s better districts were arranged along the hills above the Monongahela River. Most were within walking distance or a short streetcar ride from the steel mill. Despite their improved location, these were not lavish homes. Byington described the houses as being “of that dreary type of small, closely-set frame structure so characteristic of a rapidly growing industrial community” (1969). The two-story homes generally contained four or five rooms. Upstairs were two bedrooms; downstairs were a kitchen and a “front room”—also known as the parlor— which served as the family’s living room. If there was a fifth room, it was usually a dining room on the ground floor. Water and bathroom facilities varied from house to house. Indoor water service and an indoor toilet were the dream of many of the English-speaking residents, but not everyone had achieved these luxuries. Some families had to get their water from a pump or faucet in the yard or on the back porch, and some homes still had outhouses situated at the back of the property. Though the lots were not large, there was usually enough space behind the house for a garden or yard, which provided a pleasant place to relax in warmer weather.

A Worker and His Parlor In The Steel Workers, John A. Fitch profiled Jim Barr, a thirty-fiveyear-old worker in one of the Pittsburgh-area mills. Barr shared

Lives of the Workforce

•

117

many of the characteristics of the English-speaking workers, as outlined by Margaret Byington. Though born in England, he had lived in the United States since he was a boy and was therefore well assimilated into American culture. Further, after ten years in steelwork, he held a skilled job that allowed his family to live in a pleasant home. When Fitch visited Barr, they sat in the worker’s “comfortable and tastefully furnished parlor.” Families spent most of their leisure time in such rooms, which were usually the showplaces of the home. In Barr’s case, the room was decorated with pictures and a carpet, and there was a piano for family entertainment (1911). Despite his agreeable surroundings, Barr did not seem to be a happy man. “I’ve got as good a home here as a man could want,” he told Fitch. “It’s comfortable and I enjoy my family. But I only have these things to think about. I’m at work most of the day, and I’m so tired at night that I just go to bed as soon as I’ve eaten supper.” Barr felt that his strength was declining because of the long, hot hours he spent on the job, and he believed that the pleasures of life were passing him by. “I have ideas of what a home ought to be, all right,” he said, “but the way things are now I just eat and sleep here” (ibid.).

Life in the Tenements Conditions were a good deal grimmer for most eastern European workers. Byington notes that the majority of Homestead’s immigrants lived just a few blocks from the steelworks, where the factory noise was loud and the smoke thick. Yards and gardens were a rare sight in this area. Instead, closely packed tenements filled most of the available space. The houses were often grouped around a small courtyard, which would be shared by as many twenty families. Indoor water was very rare, and indoor toilets were unheard of. In fact, the courtyard would typically contain two water pumps and a collection of as many as ten outdoor toilets emptying into a single vault. The toilets often served more than 100 people (1969). Needless to say, indoor conditions were also crowded. The houses surrounding the court were designed much like those in the Englishspeaking neighborhoods—four rooms, two upstairs and two down— but each house would typically be occupied by two separate families. Kitchens frequently doubled as part-time bedrooms. In some cases, four or five people shared a single room. One reason for the crowded

118

•

Iron and Steel

A company steel town in Jefferson County, Alabama. (Library of Congress)

conditions was that many families took in one or more boarders to supplement their income. This was necessary because it was very difficult to support a family on the pay of an unskilled steelworker, and only about 2 percent of the eastern Europeans in Homestead held skilled positions in 1907, according to Byington (ibid.). In these households, it was not unusual for a single bed to be used by two different men working opposite shifts. About half of the eastern European men employed at the Carnegie Steel Company were single. (Some of these may have been married, but their wives remained in Europe.) Though they shared the same general living conditions as the immigrant families, the single men usually fared quite a bit better financially. They had fewer mouths to feed and tended to live frugally. The single men boarded individually with families or stayed in slightly more formal boardinghouses that might provide a bed and food for twenty or so men. These boarding operations were usually family run, with the wife of the house doing all of the cooking and laundry for the men who stayed there. The

Lives of the Workforce

•

119

boardinghouses were as crowded as other residences in the area— each room contained multiple beds.

Out on the Town Given the lack of personal space at their residences, it might be expected that the eastern Europeans would seek out other places to spend what free time they had available. The most popular outlet in this regard was provided by fraternal orders, or lodges, most of which were affiliated with the churches that served the immigrant community. The majority of the lodges were men-only organizations, but there were also orders for women as well as groups that accepted both males and females. The lodges held regular meetings that offered members a chance to socialize, and they also put on larger functions such as dances. The fraternal orders were more than social organizations, however. By joining and paying the monthly dues, a member and his or her family became eligible for benefits in the case of death or injury. These payments were not vast—a death benefit might be in the neighborhood of $1,000—but they provided a very important form of insurance for the immigrants, especially given the high numbers of deaths and serious injuries they suffered in the steel mills. Though most eastern Europeans shared similar circumstances, they were not a cohesive group, and this was certainly true when it came to their lodges. The different ethnic and nationalistic groups belonged to different fraternal orders, which sprang from the fact that they attended different churches. In addition, the groups had distinctive cultures and often spoke different languages. There was little mixing among them, even though they lived in close proximity to one another. In some cases, their differences and age-old prejudices made for bad relations. Byington noted that “feuds dating back many centuries still provoke quarrels in this new-world town” (1969). Members of the English-speaking community belonged to their own fraternal lodges, which supplied similar social opportunities. They also enjoyed other amusements, such as the nickelodeons. In these early movie theaters, patrons could see a short “moving-picture” show along with musical performances. The nickelodeons were not off limits to the eastern Europeans, but fewer of them were likely to attend because they had less disposable income and because the films and songs were in English.

120

•

Iron and Steel

Homemade music figured in the entertainment for both groups. Typically, an English-speaking family would gather in their parlor, where they would listen to the children perform on the piano. The eastern Europeans would usually have simpler instruments such as accordions, which would be used to entertain small gatherings. The immigrant get-togethers grew more festive on Saturdays, when, as Byington explained, “the household usually clubs together to buy a case of beer which it drinks at home” (ibid.). Though their circumstances were usually quite different, the English-speaking and eastern European communities shared certain goals. Families in both groups showed a strong desire to own a home, though their chances of doing so varied with their income. Of those taking part in Byington’s study, 28 percent of the English-speaking families owned their homes as compared to 6 percent of the eastern Europeans (ibid.).

Poor Living and Poor Health Diseases such as typhoid were not unusual at the turn of the twentieth century. They could affect people from all walks of life, but Byington’s study indicated that the overall heath of the eastern European community was worse than that of its English-speaking counterpart. By her count, an average of one out of every three children born in the eastern European community of Homestead died before age two. Among the English-speaking population, the figure averaged about one of every six. Byington pointed to overcrowding as the primary cause of the high infant mortality rate among the immigrants, with the lack of fresh air and adequate water supplies being a big part of the problem. She also noted that pneumonia, tuberculosis, cholera, and malnutrition were leading causes of death in Homestead and suggested that such ailments were likely to be found in impoverished and unsanitary areas (1969). Studies such as the one Margaret Byington conducted in Homestead were part of a larger reform movement that took place in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The goal of this research was to point out the difficulties faced by America’s less affluent residents and suggest changes. These studies frequently targeted major cities, but Byington felt that “many of the unwholesome living conditions we

Lives of the Workforce

•

121

Company housing provided by a steel mill, ca. 1930s. (Library of Congress)

associate with poorer city neighborhoods are repeated in the average mill town with less excuse and with as bitter effects” (ibid.).

Company Control In many such towns, the steel plant was by far the largest employer. These were “company towns” in the sense that the community’s economy was dominated by the steelmaker. This gave the owners the power to control conditions outside the factory gates. In some cases, they used their power to control the political process or to keep close tabs on what their employees did while off the job. In other instances, employers became involved in housing and retail operations. Profit was the ultimate goal of all companies, but that is not to say they all sought to exploit their employees to the maximum degree. Some firms attempted to assist workers in certain ways, believing this

122

•

Iron and Steel

A company store for steelworkers. (Library of Congress)

would make them happier, more productive, and more reliable. Others were guided by larger social and moral issues. One of the less gallant ways that companies pursued their aims was by subverting the democratic political process. This was usually accomplished by coercing their employees to vote for certain candidates and parties. Although it is difficult to assess how widespread such practices were, John A. Fitch found evidence of coercion in several Pittsburgh-area steel towns in the early 1900s. “Repeatedly I was told that workmen have been discharged at Duquesne for refusing to vote the way the company wishes,” Fitch wrote. He also noted that a steel manufacturer was successful in delivering votes for a particular Senate candidate in the town of Braddock (1911). In many cases, such strong-arm techniques were unnecessary because workers, especially those in the skilled class, supported company-approved candidates by their own choice. They were likely to believe that what was best for the company was best for them (Brody 1960).

Lives of the Workforce

•

123

Company-Assisted Housing As noted earlier, many employees in the steel industry wished to buy a home. Employers often found it worthwhile to assist them in these efforts. A worker with a comfortable, consistent home life was likely to be content and productive. More important, he was less likely to pull up stakes and seek another job in a different steel town. One way companies provided assistance was by offering low-interest home loans so employees could more easily make a purchase. Fitch quoted one enthusiastic worker who proclaimed that “a good many men have their own cottages now just because the company helped them” (1911). Some steel firms became enmeshed in real estate by building houses that were then sold to employees. In other cases, the companies served as landlords by renting dwellings to their workers. Brody noted that “profit was not an objective” for most steel companies that became involved in housing (1960). Byington confirmed this point. Referring to a borough that bordered Homestead, she noted that the homes “owned and rented by the Carnegie Land Company in Munhall are the best houses for the money in town” (1969). Rather than wringing extra profit out of the housing itself, the company realized its return by having a more stable workforce. These programs proved attractive for workers, but in most cases they were limited to those in skilled positions.

Paternalism and the Company Town In a few cases, companies sought more direct control over the towns in which they made steel. The best example of this was Sparrows Point, Maryland, which was built from the ground up by the Pennsylvania Steel Company in the late 1880s. As historian Mark Reutter detailed in his study of Sparrows Point, company executives Frederick and Rufus Wood put as much thought into designing the community’s residences, businesses, and schools as they did in planning the steelmaking facilities. They were motivated by social as well as business factors: Sparrows Point was an attempt at solving problems such as overcrowding, labor unrest, and alcoholism. The idea that a company should take on such a task was rooted in the concept of paternalism, which was a growing movement in the

124

•

Iron and Steel

late 1800s. Paternalism was the idea that businesses or other powerful entities should assume a large degree of control over the way people lived. This theory held that the company should act as the responsible parent and help workers to conduct their lives in a productive and moral manner. Sparrows Point was just one of many exercises in creating a paternalistic company town. One of the earliest examples was Lowell, Massachusetts, which had been built in the 1820s as a textile-manufacturing center. In 1881, the movement reached its pinnacle with the creation of Pullman, Illinois, by traincar tycoon George Pullman. In the case of Sparrows Point, company control began with political control. Residents had no ability to elect a mayor, town council, or any form of local government. In addition, the police force was directly hired and controlled by the company. The town’s housing structure gave management an even stronger hand. All residences were owned by the company and rented by the employees. A worker could rent a home only after he had proven himself punctual and productive, and he had to toe the company line if he wished to keep it. Immediate eviction took place whenever someone quit a job, was fired, or—most important—went on strike.

Cheap Rent and High Morals On the positive side, the homes provided by steel companies generally were tidy and inexpensive. As Reutter pointed out, rents in Sparrows Point were as much as 25 percent lower than comparable homes in nearby Baltimore. “Residents got cheap rent,” he wrote, “which in turn made their pay envelopes look a lot bigger” (1988). Unlike most steel manufacturers, Sparrows Point provided residences to unskilled workers as well as more highly paid employees. But that is not to say that all homes were created equal. The lettered thoroughfares—A Street through K Street—clearly indicated the hierarchy of the town and the factory. Senior managers lived on A through D Streets, skilled workers and other white employees inhabited streets E and F, and African American workers (who filled most of the unskilled positions at Sparrows Point) resided on the remaining lettered streets. The homes became smaller and more crowded the farther one went down the town’s alphabetic order, though living conditions were generally less dense than those found

Lives of the Workforce

•

125

in the tenements of Homestead and other unplanned mill towns. Another plus was the community’s schools. They were funded by the company and superior to most in the region, though segregated by race, as was common in Maryland in the late 1800s. The Wood brothers held strong Christian beliefs and made an effort to provide their workers with a strong moral foundation. They provided land for churches, charging rent of just one dollar a year for each of the seven congregations that were established. Further, alcohol was strictly forbidden in Sparrows Point, and those caught selling booze faced large fines. (That did not prevent residents from visiting other communities for a drink, however, and many of them did just that.) The Woods’ religious beliefs did not interfere with the operation of the steelworks, however. Sparrows Point operated on the same schedule as most mills in the 1890s: eleven-hour day shifts, thirteen- or fourteen-hour night shifts, and a twenty-four-hour long turn that began on what was supposed to be the Christian day of rest.

Paternalism Retreats The heavily controlled company town began to fall into disfavor in the mid-1890s, largely due to events in Pullman, Illinois. In 1894, workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company went on strike. Related work stoppages brought train traffic to a standstill around the crucial rail hub of Chicago. Federal troops were called in, which resulted in violent riots. In the aftermath of the strike, inquiries were made into the cause of the labor unrest. This focused negative attention on management’s absolute control over the town of Pullman. In particular, the company’s involvement in worker housing was strongly criticized. Overall, the event created greater skepticism about paternalistic practices. Rather than eliminating worker-management disagreements, paternalism seemed to be creating greater discord. In the wake of the Pullman strike, companies that built factory/town complexes made efforts to distance themselves from paternalistic control. In the case of Gary, Indiana, which was begun in 1905, U.S. Steel limited its role as a landlord. It built houses for skilled workers but turned over much of the town’s development to an independent entity, the Gary Land Company. Lots were sold to employees and outsiders alike. The resulting town had some of the same drawbacks that plagued earlier unregulated steel towns. The

126

•

Iron and Steel

unskilled were often exploited by unscrupulous landlords and forced to live in poor-quality residences. The company’s hands-off approach and a lack of regulations made Gary into “a dreary and chaotic industrial city,” in the opinion of historian Margaret Crawford (1995).

The End of an Era The decline of paternalism was one signal that the equation between steelworkers and company owners was changing. In the first two decades of the 1900s, “welfare work” programs were instituted by employers in hopes of easing tensions with workers. Despite these moves, labor unions made headway in organizing the steel industry during World War I. This set the stage for the first real challenge to mill owners’ labor practices since the early 1890s. The biggest single change to come out of this period was the end of the twelve-hour day and the long turn. Some progress had been made in 1918, when workers began to earn overtime pay after eight hours on the job, but this did not have a great effect in reducing the number of hours worked. The tide began to turn with the widespread steel strike of 1919. Though the strike failed, it succeeded in raising public awareness about conditions in the mills. A report on the causes of the strike by the Commission of Inquiry of the Interchurch World Movement focused particular attention on the long hours endured by steelworkers. In 1922, President Warren G. Harding requested that steelmakers reconsider the twelve-hour day. Company executives dragged their feet for more than a year, but growing public opposition finally convinced them to change their position. In 1923, the industry began to move to an eight-hour day, with a small wage increase helping to offset the reduction in hours (Brody 1960). From the standpoint of most workers and their families, this made a tremendously positive change in their lives, both on and off the job.

Sources Behr, Edward. 1996. Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America. New York: Arcade Publishing. Brody, David. 1960. Steelworkers in America: The Nonunion Era. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Lives of the Workforce

•

127

Byington, Margaret F. 1969. Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town. Vol. 4 of The Pittsburgh Survey: Findings in Six Volumes, edited by Paul Underwood Kellogg. 1910. Reprint, New York: Arno Press. Crawford, Margaret. 1995. Building the Workingman’s Paradise: The Design of American Company Towns. London: Verso. Fitch, John A. 1911. The Steel Workers. Vol. 3 of The Pittsburgh Survey: Findings in Six Volumes, edited by Paul Underwood Kellogg. New York: Charities Publication Committee. Frederick Winslow Taylor. 2004. American Decades CD-ROM. Gale Research, 1998. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. Helibroner, Robert L., and Aaron Singer. 1984. The Economic Transformation of America: 1600 to the Present. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Mohl, Raymond. 1985. The New City: Urban America in the Industrial Age, 1860–1920. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson. Painter, Nell Irvin. 1979. The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro Communist in the South. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Paskoff, Paul F. 1989. Introduction to Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Paul F. Paskoff. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File. Reef, Catherine. 2000. Working in America: An Eyewitness History. New York: Facts on File. Reutter, Mark. 1988. Sparrows Point: Making Steel—the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might. New York: Summit Books. Roberts, Peter. 1974. “Immigrant Wage-Earners.” In Wage-Earning Pittsburgh. Vol. 6 of The Pittsburgh Survey: Findings in Six Volumes, edited by Paul Underwood Kellogg. 1914. Reprint, New York: Arno Press. Walker, Charles Rumford. 1922. Steel: The Diary of a Furnace Worker. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press.

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements Jonathan Rees

W

orkers in the U.S. iron and steel industry had to keep up with constant change during the era of industrialization. As the iron industry evolved into the steel industry and the steel industry grew, both the technology labor used and the products it made became increasingly diverse. It is no wonder that the union movement could not keep up with this pace of change. Although there were strong unions in the iron and steel industry before the 1870s, the spread of the Bessemer converter and the simultaneous rise of Andrew Carnegie led to the effective demise of these organizations. As a result, the historian David Brody has referred to most of this period as the “Nonunion Era.” This lack of trade union representation explains why the working conditions that labor faced in steelmaking were as bad as those found in any industry in the United States. Once the steel industry became the most important nonunion industry in the United States, labor reform efforts tended to emanate from management rather than from employees. Unless the government forced the leaders of the industry to make fundamental changes, the incremental improvements that companies offered were not greeted warmly by their employees.

129

130

•

Iron and Steel

Early Unions At the beginning of the industrializing era, skilled ironworkers held great power over their working conditions because their knowledge and experience were crucial to the production process. In order to produce iron, craftsmen had to know exactly how long and at what temperature to work each batch of molten metal coming out of the blast furnace. Because they stirred the product in order to separate the iron from the impurities, these workers were known as puddlers. Because puddlers were an absolute necessity to employers, ironworkers managed to organize strong unions based on a shared culture. As a result of the ironworkers’ power, leaders of this industry targeted puddlers for extinction as early as 1854 (Krause 1992). Although it would take decades, the men who ran the industry would create new methods of production so as to make the puddlers’ knowledge and skills obsolete. Though they undoubtedly did this because their new methods of production were so much more productive, breaking the power of skilled ironworkers was a nice added bonus. The first recorded strike in the U.S. iron industry occurred in 1849, years before there is any record of an organized union. The first successful union in the industry, the Sons of Vulcan, grew out of the panic of 1857. It began as a secret society based in Pittsburgh, and members were admitted with only the greatest caution. A favorable tariff bill and the Civil War greatly improved the market for iron. This allowed the union to drop its secrecy in 1862 and establish itself on a permanent basis, growing into other states and iron-producing regions while the conflict continued. By 1873, the Sons of Vulcan had 3,331 members organized into eighty-three lodges in twelve states (Fitch 1989). The first great dispute this new union faced was a result of the panic of 1873. Iron prices dropped considerably during this crisis. For this reason, Pittsburgh ironmasters became desperate to renegotiate their wage scales, an action they claimed was absolutely necessary to compete with mills in other regions of the country. Unable to reach an agreement, the Pittsburgh firms locked out their labor force in December 1874, throwing 40,000 people out of work. Employers undercut the union in a number of ways, perhaps most notably by importing black ironworkers from Richmond, Virginia. Because Bessemer technology (which would eliminate the need for puddling

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

131

pig iron in steel production) had not been perfected yet, however, striking ironworkers were still hard to replace. As a result, the manufacturers capitulated to the union’s demands in April 1875 (Krause 1992). Fearing that changes in technology would make it harder to win labor disputes in the future, the Sons of Vulcan sought interunion solidarity after the lockout ended. Four unions—the United Sons of Vulcan; the Associated Brotherhood of Iron and Steel Heaters, Rollers, and Andrew Carnegie cast a large shadow Roughers of the United over the industry’s labor history. States; the Iron and Steel (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis) Roll Hands’ Union; and the United Nailers— joined together to form the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (later the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers) in 1876. The Sons of Vulcan was the largest and oldest of these organizations (Fitch 1989). In iron mills, skilled union workers used their power over the production process to gain benefits like control over their hours of employment and the right to choose their own helpers. The most important sign of the Amalgamated Association’s power was its ability to limit production. In its contracts, the union included restrictions on the amount of pig iron produced in each heat and the number of heats per shift. It justified these restrictions as a way to limit overexertion by union members. The union also achieved a common wage scale for the unionized sectors of the industry (Robinson 1920). Although the industry had a strong presence in the iron sector of the industry, it represented far fewer workers in steel mills. Indeed,

132

•

Iron and Steel

by the early 1880s, the Homestead Steel Works in Homestead, Pennsylvania (just outside of Pittsburgh), was virtually the only steel mill the Amalgamated managed to organize. Faced with stiff competition, owner William Clark tried to force a contract on his employees that prevented them from remaining Amalgamated Association members and limited their ability to set their own terms of employment. In response, Amalgamated Association members at Homestead walked off the job. Clark managed to start the mill up with nonunion replacements but soon realized that he needed the expertise of union members in order to keep it running at full production levels. Hurt by the damage caused by this strike, the ownership sold out to Andrew Carnegie, who continued to recognize organized labor there for another ten years (Krause 1992). It is important to note that the 1882 Homestead strike was an exception, not the rule. Most new steelworks did not have to go through this kind of labor struggle. As Bessemer steel technology improved, iron makers increasingly switched over to become steelmakers. Instead of making improvements to existing iron mills, these firms generally built new facilities and kept the union out from the very start. They could do this because the automated nature of Bessemer steel production made puddlers’ skills dispensable. With no leverage in the emerging Bessemer steel industry, the Amalgamated Association could not prevent or even slow the transition from iron to steel because it had little success in these new mills. It had better luck in mills that began in iron and converted to steel, but the majority of steelworkers were employed elsewhere. In those few places where it did manage to organize steelworkers, the Amalgamated made numerous concessions out of necessity. If the union had fought technological change, employers might have felt the need to destroy it, and union leaders knew the organization could not win such a fight (Rees 2004).

Labor Relations at Carnegie Steel Andrew Carnegie could afford to recognize unions at his mills during the 1880s because of his superior technology. Because he could produce steel faster and cheaper than his competitors, he was more concerned with preventing strikes and continuing production than paying high wages. In fact, he not only paid his workers high wages

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

133

but also gave them an eight-hour day and even pioneered aspects of what would later be called welfare capitalism (such as selling coal to employees at below-market prices). Stuck with inferior technology, his competitors did not have these luxuries. Carnegie expressed his philosophy on unions at this stage of his company’s history in two often-quoted magazine articles published in 1886. “My experience has been that trade-unions, upon the whole, are beneficial to both labor and capital,” he wrote in one. “There is an unwritten law among the best workmen,” he wrote in the other: “‘Thou shalt not take thy neighbor’s job.’ No wise employer will lightly lose his old employees” (Wall 1992). Although such sentiments made Carnegie a hero to the working class, Carnegie was only a friend of convenience. He supported the Amalgamated Association primarily because he wanted to pass on these high labor costs to his competitors. Over the course of the 1880s, the focus of the industry changed from producing steel rails to producing structural steel for buildings. At the same time, competitors opened new nonunion mills that were as technologically sophisticated as Carnegie’s facilities, if not more. Faced with these new manufacturing problems, Carnegie’s high labor costs became increasingly burdensome. It did not help that the market for steel rails—the product that Carnegie had built his company upon—looked increasingly bleak. In response to the changing market, Carnegie began to pioneer the use of open-hearth steel in order to build structural shapes. Like Bessemer steel before it, this technology had the added benefit of not requiring puddlers (Rees 2004). In order to make these changes in technology possible, Carnegie felt the need to get increasingly severe with his workforce. In 1888, Carnegie’s firm imposed a sliding scale at its Braddock, Pennsylvania, plant in order to control costs. Now, when the price of steel dropped, wages would drop with it. The company also ended the eight-hour day around this time. In 1889, Carnegie refused to sign the Amalgamated Association scale at its flagship facility in Homestead. When the workers struck in response, the firm tried to hire permanent replacements. Even though the company used police for protection, angry crowds turned back the replacements not once, but twice. Shortly after the second attempt, labor and management reached a settlement that included a sliding scale like the one used in Braddock. That contract lasted an unprecedented three years (ibid.). Whereas Carnegie Steel was locked into a union contract, an increasing number of smaller iron mills around Pittsburgh cast off the

134

•

Iron and Steel

union. By 1892, even those manufacturers that had previously signed the scale refused. In fact, manufacturers from every sector of the industry and every region of the country began proposing deep wage cuts before the union ever offered its scale. By September 1892, Iron Age, the main trade journal for this industry, described the union’s situation this way: Our tables enumerate non-union rolling mills employing not less than 70,000 men. . . . In addition we have confidential data from 13 mills having a monthly tonnage of 36,150 tons and employing 10,715 men. [We find] the total number of men working in non-union works in the United States up to 100,000 men. A study of the products made by these non-union mills will show they embrace every line of work in the whole range. (ibid.)

In other words, the union was already dying before the Homestead lockout occurred. The event attracted attention mostly because of the fame of its proprietor and the violence that occurred there.

Homestead and Its Aftermath Stuck with falling prices and one of the last contracts in the steel industry, Andrew Carnegie and his partner, Henry Clay Frick, decided to get rid of the union once and for all. When the Amalgamated Association came to bargain in early 1892, management took a position that it knew the union would not accept. In the weeks before the contract expired, the firm built a fence around the Homestead Works, making the facility easier to defend. Then it hired the infamous Pinkerton Detective Agency to protect the new workers it wanted to recruit to replace the strikers. It is important to note that Homestead was a lockout, not a strike. This labor dispute was planned and initiated by management. The issue at the heart of the lockout was the company’s desire to control the production process. Although events at Homestead are important because of the role they played in the elimination of trade unions from this industry, the violence of July 6, 1892, is what made the lockout world famous. On the evening of July 5, 300 Pinkerton guards met and boarded two heavily armed barges about five miles down the Monongahela River from the Homestead works and began to sail toward their assignment.

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

135

This illustration from Harper’s Weekly (July 16, 1892, issue) shows Pinkerton men after their surrender during the Homestead Riot. (Library of Congress)

Most of them did not expect violence. Unknown to the Pinkertons, the striking workers of Homestead had established a warning system designed to detect this very event. Tipped off that the barges were approaching, thousands of men, women, and children from the community of Homestead rushed to the riverbank near the steel plant. Many of the men were armed. When the barges arrived, a gun battle ensued. As is the usual case in such events, nobody is certain who fired first. Nine workers and 3 Pinkertons died in the battle before the detectives finally surrendered at five that afternoon. After the surrender, the townspeople began to mercilessly abuse their defeated adversaries. At first, a line of steelworkers paraded the

136

•

Iron and Steel

Pinkertons around the town. The guards were at first met with only insults. But then came the physical abuse—first with hands and fists, then sticks and clubs. The guards were left bloody and dazed. Interestingly enough, the people who treated the Pinkertons the worst were the women of the town rather than the steelworkers whose jobs were in jeopardy. At the end of the procession, the guards were incarcerated in the local Opera House. During the procession, another crowd looted their barges on the riverside and then burned the empty hulks. After negotiations between the union leaders and state officials, the Pinkertons were allowed to leave Homestead on a special train at twelve thirty the next morning. On July 12, the Pennsylvania National Guard arrived in town to restore order. Permanent replacement workers arrived the same day under military protection. The Amalgamated Association at Homestead never recovered from this blow. Bad press from the violence of July 6 made it difficult to rally support from the general public. The same is true for the attempted assassination of Henry Clay Frick by an anarchist named Alexander Berkman in late July. Gradually, more and more workers returned to their jobs without protection of a union contract. The union formally ended its effort on November 20, 1892, although in truth it had lost the battle months earlier. With the Amalgamated Association gone, Carnegie Steel was able to further mechanize its operations at Homestead, speed up production, and, perhaps most important, keep most of the profits created by industrialization for itself. Although the Homestead lockout was the most dramatic instance of the shift of power happening in this industry, countless other steel manufacturers managed the same trick both before and after Carnegie did. Because the Homestead lockout appeared to contradict Andrew Carnegie’s previous pronouncements on labor, making him look like a hypocrite, it did enormous damage to Carnegie’s reputation. The representatives of organized labor who had once lauded him now condemned him strongly. The following editorial from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which was reprinted all over the country, is a good example of how public opinion turned against Carnegie: Three months ago Andrew Carnegie was a man to be envied. Today he is an object of mingled pity and contempt. In the estimation of ninetenths of the thinking people on both sides of the ocean he had not only given the lie to all his antecedents, but confessed himself a moral

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

137

coward. One would naturally suppose that if he had a grain of consistency, not to say decency, in his composition, he would favor rather than oppose the organization of trades-unions among his own working people at Homestead. One would naturally suppose that if he had a grain of manhood, not to say courage, in his composition, he would at least be willing to face the consequences of his inconsistency. (Wall 1970)

Although it can never be proved conclusively, there is a case to be made that Carnegie’s extraordinarily generous philanthropy was designed to repair the damage the Homestead lockout did to his reputation. Although its loss in the Homestead lockout hurt the Amalgamated Association severely, the union did not disappear immediately. A few sectors of the steel industry, such as tin plate making (a product that was used primarily for ceiling tile and cans), still required skilled workers. The union maintained a presence in plants that produced those products, adopting an accommodative stance toward technological change so as to encourage employers to keep them around. However, those workers who had mastered old technology found themselves in an increasingly difficult position. New technology was much more productive than the old technology, and it made their old skills largely irrelevant. For both of these reasons, modernizing steel technology could be extremely lucrative. By the turn of the century, companies in nearly every sector of the industry wanted to eliminate the union so they could keep the additional profit entirely for themselves. Once the transition from Bessemer-steel to open-hearth production began in the 1890s, controlling the production process became even more lucrative. As was the case in the 1880s, most firms built new facilities to produce steel by these new methods and kept the Amalgamated Association from ever gaining a foothold in them. In this manner, control over production passed almost entirely into management’s hands (Rees 2004). The union was still around when J. P. Morgan bought out Andrew Carnegie to form the United States Steel Corporation in 1901. U.S. Steel, known at the time simply as “the Corporation,” inherited a large number of plants in the sectors of the industry that still signed union contracts. Together, the unionized workers of these companies made up about 10 percent of U.S. Steel’s workforce. The Amalgamated Association, thinking it could take advantage of U.S. Steel’s

138

•

Iron and Steel

New York marchers participate in a 1908 Labor Day Parade; the parade included a large contingent of workers on strike against U.S. Steel. (Library of Congress)

debts and the Corporation’s overly valued securities, tried to provoke a confrontation immediately. On July 1, 1901, approximately 20,000 men answered the union’s strike call. However, under the fiercely antiunion leadership of Chairman of the Board Elbert Gary, the Corporation restarted many organized plants with nonunion labor and transferred work from closed union mills to operating nonunion mills. When the parties reached a final settlement in September, the union lost six tin plate mills, two hoop mills, and five sheet-metal works. It also lost eight steel mills (ibid.). U.S. Steel gradually eliminated the union from its remaining plants with little difficulty. In the years following the 1901 strike, lodges in the organized sectors of the Corporation either lost their charters after being defeated in short strikes or gave them up voluntarily. By 1908, only fourteen of U.S. Steel’s mills remained organized. The Corporation locked out its remaining unionized workers the following year. By 1912, the Amalgamated Association had split into two

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

139

distinct unions, yet the combined membership of both these organizations amounted to only 5,730 out of a potential 275,000 employees in the entire industry (United States Commissioner of Labor 1913). The U.S. steel industry was, at this point, almost entirely union free. Spurred on by the demand for labor caused by World War I, John Fitzpatrick of the Chicago Federation of Labor, along with William Z. Foster, a former organizer for the radical union the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), William Zebulon Foster was an began a new grassroots important early labor organizer in the campaign to organize the steel industry. (Library of Congress) steel industry. With the help of the national American Federation of Labor, they formed the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers in August 1918. Although very few steelworkers were unionized, twenty-four different unions had some jurisdiction over aspects of this industry. Getting them to cede jurisdiction to the National Committee was nothing short of a miracle. As long as the war continued, the campaign was very successful. Once the war ended and employers felt free to strike back, however, the campaign ran into trouble (Brody 1986). Although there were many small-scale strikes during and after the war, the rank and file pressured Foster and Fitzpatrick to call a national strike on September 22, 1919. At first this effort was very successful, as many more workers heeded the strike call than had signed union cards. However, the response to the strike varied by region. Whereas the walkout ended quickly in the South, it stopped production entirely at many mills in the Pittsburgh area. The men on the

140

•

Iron and Steel

picket lines were mostly unskilled, foreign-born workers. The workers who stayed on the job tended to be U.S.-born and better paid. This included many of the unionized workers left in the industry. The president of the Amalgamated Association was Michael Tighe, who rose to the top of the organization in 1918. Although he had agreed to join the National Committee, Tighe was primarily concerned with preserving the positions of his union’s small, highly skilled constituency. Therefore, in early November, Tighe pulled his members off the picket line. Thousands of steelworkers followed Amalgamated Association members back to work (ibid.). These skilled workers were enough for many firms to restart their operations. Others used permanent replacements. In particular, the use of 30,000 African American replacement workers spurred some strikers to return, because they did not want to lose their jobs to a class of workers they considered inferior. A constant barrage of newspaper reports that conveyed the impression that the strike was over did not help, either. The same was true with respect to publicity surrounding Foster’s IWW past, which served to discredit the strike in the eyes of the public. Local and state authorities also resorted to violence to force striking steelworkers back to work. In Gary, Indiana, federal troops were called in to restore order to the town. Faced with a rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground, the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers declared the strike over on January 8, 1920.

Conditions of Employment in a Nonunion Industry Because the steel industry was so important to the U.S. economy, its labor policies were more influential than those of other industries. By 1892, the steel industry was at the forefront of the U.S. antiunion movement. Everything from coal mining to cement making fell under the influence of this industry’s passionate antiunion philosophy. One of its most important antiunion tools was a huge surplus of workers willing to take the most difficult jobs, which industry leaders deliberately cultivated. Because every steelworker feared he could be easily replaced, the industry could manage its existing workforce in any way it saw fit. In fact, steelmakers could employ workers only when they needed them, running their mills at full speed during periods of peak demand, then shutting them down and laying everybody

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

141

off when demand slacked. Therefore, average steelworkers floated from job to job, often with no idea from where their next paycheck would come. Unlike a seasonal industry, this was a social choice, a deliberate policy designed to make organization more difficult (Misa 1995). Operating nonunion with a huge pool of surplus labor to draw upon (many of whom were new immigrants), steel manufacturers let the conditions of employment in their mills deteriorate rapidly with near-complete impunity. Perhaps the most oppressive labor policy of the industrializing era was the twelve-hour day. More than half the industry’s employees worked twelve hours a day in 1910. The long turn—a twenty-four-hour day that occurred in most mills once every two weeks, when workers rotated between the day and night shifts— only made the difficulties of the long shift worse (Fitch 1989). The journalist John Fitch described the social effect of this hours policy in 1911: Twelve hours every day spent within the mill walls means thirteen or fourteen hours away from home, for the skilled men often live at least a half hour’s ride from the mills. It means early hours for the wife, if breakfast is to be on time, and late hours too, if the supper dishes are to be washed. It doesn’t leave much time for family either, when the husband begins to doze over his paper before the evening’s work in the kitchen is done, and when necessity inevitably drives him early to bed so that he may get up for the next day’s routine. (Rees 2004)

Such policies remained viable only with the vastly unequal distribution of power that industrialization made possible. For the same reason, steel mills were also extremely dangerous places. Both deaths and maiming injuries were common occurrences at the turn of the twentieth century. In a 1907 exposé for Everybody’s magazine, the journalist William Hard described how forty-four men died in accidents at one U.S. Steel plant in 1906: Twelve of them were killed in the neighborhood of blast-furnaces. One was hurled out of life by a stick of dynamite. Three of them were electrocuted. Three of them were killed by falls from high places. Four of them were struck on their heads by falling objects. Four of them were burned to death by hot metal in the Bessemer Converter Department. . . . Three of them were crushed to death. One was suffocated by

142

•

Iron and Steel

the gas from a gas-producer. One of them was thrown from an ore bridge by a high wind. One of them was hit by a red-hot rail. One of them . . . was scorched to death by slag. And ten of them were killed by railroad cars or by railroad locomotives. Approximately 2,000 workers there were maimed on the job in this same plant during the same period. (ibid.)

Working in the steel industry also took a toll on an employee’s general health. Partial deafness, brought on by the noise of the mill, was a common occurrence. Physical and mental strain caused by the pace of work affected many employees. The heat of the mill caused skin conditions among men who worked closest to the flames. Furthermore, having to go from the heat of the mill into the cold during the winter months often brought on fevers. And thanks to the prevalence of the twelve-hour day, steelworkers were invariably chronically tired, even if they were not engaged in physical labor during every moment of their long working day. How did steelmakers get workers to accept such difficult conditions of labor? It helped that the vast majority of steelworkers during the era of industrialization were immigrants. After 1880, most of them came from southern and eastern Europe. Many of these workers were absolutely terrified when they first saw the inside of the mill. Because many did not speak English, they were often the victims of accidents. Although native-born Americans complained about falling wages after the union disappeared, to immigrants the steel mills offered a fat paycheck compared to wages where they came from. To them, having a job was more important than the conditions under which they labored. New immigrants were the most likely employees to be let go in slack times. Nevertheless, at least some did manage to rise through the ranks and make a career in this industry (Brody 1998). The failure of the federal government to demand change was another factor that made the difficult conditions of labor in the U.S. steel industry possible. Throughout the era of industrialization, the government was more likely to assist the steel industry through high tariffs or as a purchaser for its goods than it was to intervene in the relationship between labor and management. Although there were congressional hearings on the Homestead lockout in 1892 and a special committee that looked at U.S. Steel (including its labor policies) in 1911, no legislation designed to level the playing field between steel companies and their employees ever passed. Indeed, very little

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

143

legislation that favored labor of any kind passed Congress and survived court challenges during this era. Only with the start of World War I did the federal government begin to take a direct interest in how steel was being produced, and then only because they wanted to be sure that nothing would threaten this essential industry during wartime. Fear of bad publicity, such as that which might be generated by a government investigation, did encourage steelmakers to introduce their own reforms. However, as explained below, few of these reforms made a real difference in employees’ lives.

The Methods of Control Steelmakers used a variety of methods to keep immigrants and native-born Americans in line. Not every company used every one of these methods. However, every steelmaker was committed to keeping the mills union free. The fact that they would consider such socially divisive tactics as the ones described here illustrates the strength of their commitment and the lack of countervailing forces on their power over employees, both from unions and from government. One of the most important ways that steel firms kept their mills union free was to use labor spies. There were two kinds of labor spies at work in the steel industry at this time. Some were employed by management as part of a permanent force, and others were hired from outside agencies for a short period of time. U.S. Steel, even though it inherited Carnegie Steel’s spy network when it took over the firm in 1901, used both these methods. In fact, when interviewed by representatives of the Interchurch World Movement (IWM)—an organization of liberal Protestant reformers that attempted to mediate the 1919 strike—Elbert Gary showed the representatives a spy report about them (Gulick 1924). Correspondence in files given to the IWM demonstrated that steel companies throughout western Pennsylvania commonly exchanged information gathered from their farflung espionage networks. These companies considered espionage to be part of everyday business. The use of spies and armed guards had a devastating effect on employee morale. Employees were generally suspicious of their employers, and this inevitably affected their productive capacity. Such policies also invariably poisoned any efforts at goodwill that the steel compa-

144

•

Iron and Steel

Police arresting a striker during a 1909 strike at a Pittsburgh mill. (Library of Congress)

nies offered their employees. However, steelmakers were generally willing to accept these costs because they recognized that maintaining a pliant, nonunion workforce required a strong element of force (Fitch 1989). Dissident employees usually chose to acquiesce to their employers rather than act on their displeasure because the potential consequences of discovery were severe: they would be fired and put on a blacklist so that they would never be hired by any steel firm again. Another source of the steel industry’s power over its employees was its ability to control where workers lived. Many steel companies had to offer their employees the chance to rent or buy a place to live, as employees often had no other options for affordable housing. In many towns, the companies established virtual fiefdoms, controlling government offices, law enforcement, or both. Throughout western Pennsylvania, for example, U.S. Steel and the Republican Party worked hand in glove to maintain order (ibid.). The 1919 strike is a perfect illustration of how important controlling housing can be to controlling labor. Those workers who rented

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

145

or mortgaged a home from their employer proved less likely to walk off the job than those who did not. For this reason, formal workerhousing assistance plans took off throughout the industry after the strike ended. In fact, U.S. Steel implemented a company-wide homeowning plan in January 1920—the same month the strike formally ended. It allowed employees to purchase homes directly from the Corporation on the installment plan or by taking out a companybacked mortgage (Rees 2004). Another outgrowth of the 1919 strike that helped managers maintain control of employees was the intentional exploitation of ethnic and racial divisions in order to prevent workers from organizing. In the early days of the industry, Andrew Carnegie had deliberately mixed workers of different ethnicities in order to make them more pliable. By 1919, many firms took the opposite approach, attempting to keep employees of particular ethnicities clumped into particular departments so that they could be played off one another during times of trouble. During the 1919 strike, U.S. Steel made good use of this strategy, playing Serbians against Italians around Chicago in an effort to get both groups off the picket line as soon as possible (Cohen 1990). Employers used the same dynamic tactic to manipulate racial tension in their favor during this same dispute. Racial tension had played little role in this industry before 1919 because there were comparatively few African Americans working in mills outside the South. However, the great migration that began during World War I changed this situation drastically. Black labor came north to replace European immigrants who could no longer emigrate because of the war. High wages in industrial jobs, such as those in steel mills, attracted African Americans by the thousands. Indeed, manufacturers sought all such labor they could find because the turnover of these workers may have been as high as 1,000 percent (Rees 2004). Overall, the percentage of African Americans working in the industry increased from 4.7 in 1908 to 12.4 in 1920 (Hogan 1971). The magnitude of this migration fueled the racial prejudice of white workers, including those employed in the steel industry. Many western Pennsylvania steel towns were on the verge of race riots during the war years and the postwar reconstruction. This made them particularly susceptible to the racist tactics that employers used during the strike. Indeed, the question of whether black workers could ever be organized deeply divided the National Committee. Among

146

•

Iron and Steel

ordinary steelworkers, the traditional resistance of black workers to trade unions increased the sense of hopelessness that strikers felt as the dispute grew increasingly bleak. At the same time, African Americans grew increasingly close to their employers as jobs that they never would have been able to take became open to them. In fact, starting with the 1919 strike, black workers became a permanent fixture in mills throughout the country. However, the tensions between black and white workers poisoned labor relations in the steel industry for decades (Rees 2004).

Welfare Capitalism in the U.S. Steel Industry Because most American steelworkers were nonunion during the era of industrialization, they were seldom able to make requests to reform their working conditions. At the same time, managers recognized that if they took maximum advantage of their nonunion industrial-relations system, poor employee morale would hurt their production capacity. For this reason, and for fear of bad publicity, many firms believed it would be worthwhile in the long run to try to ease their employees’ difficult working conditions. Therefore, U.S. steel manufacturers experimented with a series of labor reforms after the turn of the twentieth century. Although many of these efforts would have helped improve steelworkers’ lives, they were unfortunately marred by management’s paternalism. Welfare capitalism is a blanket term that historians use to encompass a variety of labor reforms in the late stages of industrialization that were not required by the labor market. In the steel industry, welfare capitalism included everything from old-age pensions and accident-prevention efforts to providing workers with space to plant gardens. One of the largest welfare capitalists in the entire American economy was the United States Steel Corporation. Between 1912 and 1922, U.S. Steel spent 8 percent of its total profits on its welfare-capitalist efforts (Edwards 1979). Although its efforts received a great deal of attention, the Corporation got very little in return for this huge expense. In theory, expensive efforts at generating goodwill could have bought the loyalty of the workers who stood to benefit from them. In fact, they did not, because many of U.S. Steel’s most important welfare efforts attracted few participants and stimulated little genuine

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

147

cooperation. The costliest welfare programs, such as the stock purchase plan and the pension program, reached only a tiny portion of the Corporation’s workforce. The prime reason for this poor reaction was the paternalistic manner in which the Corporation implemented its plans. As Chairman Elbert Gary explained in 1919: Above everything else . . . satisfy your men if you can that your treatment is fair and reasonable and generous. Make the Steel Corporation a good place for them to work and live. Don’t let the families go hungry or cold; give them playgrounds and parks and schools and churches, pure water to drink, every opportunity to keep clean, places of enjoyment, rest and recreation, treating the whole thing as a business proposition, drawing the line to be just and generous and yet at the same time . . . retaining the control and management of your affairs, keeping the whole thing in your hands. (Rees 2004; emphasis added)

Because U.S. Steel did not consult with its employees on these efforts, welfare capitalism reinforced the autocratic nature of steel industry employers. Many workers did not participate in welfare-capitalist programs at U.S. Steel because they were suspicious of the Corporation’s motives. Other steel companies that made major welfare efforts patterned them closely on those of U.S. Steel and faced similar problems. It did not help that most of U.S. Steel’s welfarecapitalist efforts were hurried responses to threatened government action or embarrassing journalistic investigations (Eggert 1981). U.S. Steel’s stock subscription plan allowed workers at all levels of the company to buy the Corporation’s stock at a reduced rate on the installment plan. Employees would have a small sum deducted from their paychecks each month, and after three years they would own as much stock as their salary allowed under the plan. As they put money toward this goal, they would receive a special bonus at the end of each year and a special bonus dividend after five years. Although better-paid employees could obviously afford more stock, management encouraged unskilled employees to participate in the program with the idea that owning even a single share could make an employee more interested in his work. Even employees who could not keep up their payments got their initial investment and payments already made returned to them, along with 5 percent interest (Rees 2004).

148

•

Iron and Steel

Even though it could be extremely lucrative, low participation rates limited the effect of the stock purchase plan on most employees. To make matters worse, even fewer workers ever managed to make all their payments and receive a portion of the bonus fund after their subscriptions were completed. Nevertheless, U.S. Steel claimed the program was a big success. One might presume that this plan was intended only for skilled workers who were needed for the production process and could afford to participate in the program. Yet evidence from U.S. Steel’s own statistics suggests that the few employees who actually participated in the stock subscription program included the skilled and unskilled alike. And even if the Corporation had intended the stock purchase plan to appeal primarily to the most skilled workers, its low participation rates do not justify the enormous cost of the entire program (ibid.). Why, then, did U.S. Steel’s stock purchase plan survive into the 1930s? The answer is paternalism. U.S. Steel management believed the stock purchase plan promoted hard work and individual ambition among their employees. The men who ran the company felt a duty to keep this option open for industrious, thrifty employees— despite the cost. It also helped that attention paid to the stock purchase plan helped dispel U.S. Steel’s reputation as a giant, unionbusting monopoly (ibid.). U.S. Steel’s pension program was an outgrowth of a $4 million gift Andrew Carnegie made to his employees when he sold out to U.S. Steel in 1901. However, that fund was intended only for former employees of Carnegie Steel. It was not even administered by U.S. Steel. In 1911, the Corporation took over the Carnegie fund, added $8 million to its assets, and made pensions available to the employees of all its subsidiary companies. The pensions were supposed to be a signal to employees that long-term loyalty to the Corporation would be rewarded (Fitch 1989). Unfortunately, because of the restrictive rules governing its outlays, only a limited number of workers stood to benefit from the program. Furthermore, U.S. Steel’s system was noncontributory, meaning employees provided no money toward its operation. Therefore, the Corporation could alter the rules of its program whenever and however it saw fit. The most significant of many changes came in 1915, when U.S. Steel raised the retirement age to sixty-five and the required length of service to twenty-five years (United States Commissioner of Labor 1913). These changes, designed to limit the cost

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

149

of the plan—which had skyrocketed as more workers qualified— made it of less value to the employees who were supposed to be its beneficiaries. Even if they managed to receive benefits, many pensioners found the need to work during their “retirement.” Once again, the best explanation for such a lame welfare program is management paternalism. Tiny pensions for a small number of workers satisfied management’s desire to reward loyalty but probably did not change the behavior of long-term employees. U.S. Steel started its groundbreaking safety program in 1906. By 1908, it had established a bureaucracy of worker and plant committees designed to inspect mills for safety violations and establish rules to prevent accidents before they could happen. In 1910, around the time accident rates began to drop, U.S. Steel created a voluntary accident-relief program that paid as much as eighteen months’ wages to injured employees or $3,000 to the relatives of deceased wage earners, regardless of liability, on the condition that the injured party or the family did not file suit (Fitch 1989). Such efforts were not undertaken entirely out of management’s desire to make life in an industrialized steel mill safer for employees, however. The safety program was designed in part to combat negative publicity surrounding accidents in the industry. Legal considerations also played a role. At the time the safety program began, no employer could be held liable for an accident that could be blamed on an employee, whether or not the injured party was responsible. Therefore, the safety program was filled with rhetoric designed to get employees to accept responsibility for any mishap. Although the safety program was undeniably a net benefit for employees, the manner in which the Corporation implemented the program seriously undercut its effectiveness. Because safety instruction treated employees like children, it actually antagonized many of the workers it was designed to help. In addition, worker education was substantially less expensive than, and often took the place of, structural improvements designed to improve mill safety (Rees 2004). Many of U.S. Steel’s programs spread to other firms in this industry and into other parts of the U.S. economy. Most notably, U.S. Steel became the head of the “Safety First” movement that spread throughout U.S. industry in the early years of the twentieth century. The Corporation even maintained a safety museum at its headquarters in New York. As a deliberate policy, U.S. Steel never patented the safety devices it developed and even invited executives at other

150

•

Iron and Steel

steel firms to visit their plants in order to examine them. Furthermore, state workers’ compensation laws passed in the 1910s and 1920s made the potential cost of an accident increasingly significant to a firm’s bottom line (ibid.). Most other steel companies introduced their own welfare-capitalist programs during the 1920s. These other firms took up the same welfare programs that formed the core of U.S. Steel’s efforts. Stock purchase plans spread through the steel industry in the years following World War I, when the stock market was doing well. Most of these plans copied U.S. Steel’s design, with payments being drawn out of a worker’s salary over an extended period of time. In many cases, the response to these plans was as anemic as the reception for U.S. Steel’s plan. Even those plans that proved popular in the 1920s did not survive the Great Depression. Many other firms instituted pension programs during the 1920s, but as was the case with U.S. Steel, they had trouble funding them because so many workers ended up qualifying (ibid.). The Corporation often pointed to its welfare efforts as evidence of a partnership between labor and capital, but thanks to the ability of management to keep most of the gains of industrialization, the alliance that management offered workers was not an equal partnership. Because of this skewed power relationship, welfare capitalism reinforced the autocratic nature of steel industry employers. For this reason, many workers did not participate in welfare-capitalist programs at U.S. Steel. Paternalism and lack of control made employees suspicious of the Corporation’s motives. Despite the benefits of improving safety, much remained to be done in the years after the Corporation first enacted its reforms and they had spread to other companies. Welfare capitalism disappeared during the Depression, both at U.S. Steel and in the rest of the industry. When times were tight, it was an expense that steel firms did not feel was worth keeping.

The End of the Twelve-Hour Day The other huge change in labor policy to come after the collapse of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers was the end of the twelve-hour day. Anybody who wanted a job in a mill had to be willing to work twelve hours a day, because if he was not, management could always find someone else who was. Most steel execu-

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

151

tives supported this practice because they thought it would be too costly to change. Yet this did not prevent parties besides labor or management from waging campaigns to ban the practice. Indeed, it took the threat of government action to get the industry to eliminate this practice entirely. In 1911, a dissident U.S. Steel stockholder named Charles M. Cabot commissioned the journalist John Fitch to do a study of the twelve-hour day, which he then sent to other stockholders at his own expense. In order to get in front of the issue, Chairman Elbert Gary responded by appointing an independent committee to investigate this issue. Although that report was basically a whitewash, the issue remained in the public eye because of a parallel congressional investigation (Brody 1998). During this discussion, the number of steelworkers working a twelve-hour day grew rapidly. In 1910, the percentage was approximately one-half. By 1921, some sources suggested that the figure was as high as two-thirds of employees in the industry (Rees 2004). The demand for shorter working hours was the central issue behind the 1919 strike. The increased demand for steel during the war had made reduced hours more important even than higher wages to most steelworkers. Although the defeat of the strike seemed to spell the end for reform, that was not the case. The Interchurch World Movement had attempted to mediate that conflict. Although the industry declined the organization’s offer, IWM representatives still compiled a report of what they learned during their investigation of the conflict. Released in July 1920, the report sharply attacked the twelve-hour day (Interchurch World Movement 1920). Thanks to publicity over the report, the issue remained controversial even after the strike had been defeated. Cost was the reason that steel manufacturers stated most often for their opposition to shortening the working day. In truth, nobody really knew exactly how much more it cost to run a steel plant on three shifts until a plant switched over to the new system. Yet those plants that switched over to the eight-hour day before the end of World War I found that decreasing hours actually increased profits, because the cost of paying workers more per hour of labor was more than compensated for by the benefits of increased production (Rees 2004). The steel industry did not change its hours policy until pressure came to bear from the federal government. That pressure had begun in 1918, when U.S. Steel enacted the basic eight-hour day at the be-

152

•

Iron and Steel

hest of the Wilson administration’s War Labor Policy Board. This meant the last four hours of the twelve-hour workday were paid at the overtime rate. The Corporation discontinued this measure when peace returned. After three years of criticism sparked by the 1919 strike, President Warren Harding held a meeting of top steel executives to discuss this issue in 1922. Still resistant to reform, the industry agreed only to form a five-man committee to investigate the issue again and report back its findings. When that committee recommended no change a year later, Harding threatened congressional legislation to solve the problem. Elbert Gary, acting in his capacity as the leader of the industry’s largest trade group, immediately backed down. Like the other companies that made the change before them, those firms that switched over to the eight-hour day in 1923 were amazed by how smoothly it all went and by the increases in production most of them experienced. Steel was the last major industry in the United States to formally end the twelve-hour day, and America’s was the last steel industry worldwide to complete this reform (ibid.).

Employee Representation Another important labor reform that has its roots in government intervention in the economy during World War I is employee representation—what we would now call a “company union.” Steel firms developed employee-representation plans (ERPs) during the early twentieth century as a way to gain all of the benefits of having a unionized workforce (such as suggestions from employees to improve production) with none of the costs (such as having outsiders from the union directly involved in the plant and stirring up trouble). By far the most famous employee-representation plan in the United States was developed at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. It was drawn up at the behest of John D. Rockefeller Jr. in order to deflect the enormous adverse publicity that his family had received after the infamous Ludlow Massacre of 1914, which had led to the deaths of at least twenty-five miners and members of their families (Gitelman 1988). Although that firm did own a steel plant in Pueblo, Colorado, employee representation did not come to the rest of the steel industry until after World War I began.

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

153

World War I shook the nonunion labor relations system in the U.S. steel industry severely. First, the conflict cut off immigration to the United States, so the pool of excess labor that employers depended upon to keep their employees subservient disappeared. Second, a new attempt to organize the industry began in order to take advantage of this labor shortage. Workers in Youngstown and Pittsburgh even initiated brief strikes, the first since 1909. As a result of these new circumstances, employers felt the need to increase wages for the first time in years. However, the fact that they were making money hand over fist servicing war contracts certainly did a lot to compensate for this necessity. The massive influx of black labor into northern steel cities also helped compensate for the companies’ loss of power over white workers. For steel manufacturers, ceding any control of the workplace to workers was the worst possible thing that could have happened. Although workers were not organized enough to threaten this situation, the government was another matter. During World War I, the Wilson administration took a direct interest in seeing that any issues between steelworkers and their employers were settled amicably. Under the auspices of the National War Labor Board (NWLB), it tried to force employers in all war industries, including steel manufacturers, into bargaining collectively with employees through shop committees. Some steel firms, like Philadelphia’s Midvale Steel, used the war emergency as a way to improve their relationship with employees. It introduced genuine reforms, like the eight-hour day, during this time (Eggert 1981). However, most firms used the power they had over the production process to avoid ceding any power to employees at all. U.S. Steel never bent to NWLB pressure to establish collective bargaining with its employees during the war. Most steel firms that did introduce employee-representation plans did so only under pressure. The best example of the limitations of company unions is the story of events at Bethlehem Steel. The Bethlehem Steel ERP would never have existed if not for World War I. The company kept the plan after the emergency ended but emasculated its provisions in order to use it as an antiunion weapon and public relations device. The plan was also the model for all subsequent ERPs in the iron and steel industry. The fact that Bethlehem Steel had only a few plants made it particularly vulnerable to strikes, because each plant produced a high per-

154

•

Iron and Steel

centage of the company’s total output. In April and May 1918, machinists and electricians at its flagship plant in South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, conducted a series of strikes to protest the piecework system under which they were paid and the refusal of management to recognize their union. Even though these workers made up only a small percentage of the plant’s entire workforce, they got support from ordinary steelworkers, and the plant had to shut down. Because product from this facility went entirely to the U.S. Armed Forces at this time, the Wilson administration immediately handed the dispute over to the NWLB. Workers agreed to come back from the picket line pending the board’s decision (Rees 2004). On July 31, 1918, the NWLB mandated that Bethlehem Steel pay a minimum wage and overtime to all its employees. More important, it mandated that the company engage in collective bargaining with its employees. Because this part of the ruling applied to the entire labor force, ordinary steelworkers in South Bethlehem would have some semblance of collective bargaining for the first time in their history. Bethlehem Steel fiercely resisted this decision. But rather than openly resist the will of the government during wartime, the firm decided to delay its implementation. At the same time, it began to design an employee-representation plan that would have all the appearances of a significant labor reform but would not entail genuine collective bargaining with an outside party. When the war ended, Bethlehem Steel flouted the government with impunity. After the NWLB dissolved, Bethlehem Steel introduced its version of employee representation to the South Bethlehem plant in January 1920; it was the same plan that had been rejected by the board during the war (ibid.). Employee representation was an idea whose time had not yet come. During World War I, firms like Bethlehem Steel used it as an antiunion device rather than as a genuine reform. Because the Bethlehem plan did help stop unions from spreading at the company, it became the model for all subsequent plans in the industry once government began to enforce collective bargaining on steel firms again during the Great Depression. By creating employee-representation plans, steel companies tacitly admitted that steelworkers should be consulted with regard to their working conditions, no matter how limited employee influence happened to be. To the antiunion zealots of the U.S. steel industry, this was a bad precedent. Indeed, during the late 1930s, steelworkers would successfully use these organiza-

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

155

tions as launching pads for the permanent unionization of the industry. During the era of industrialization, steel manufacturers had the upper hand with respect to their employees because new technology and immigration constantly expanded the pool of workers from which they could draw. This not only made it possible to keep nearly every penny of the benefits garnered by new production technology, but it also meant that employers could bust unions with impunity and squeeze workers for every possible penny. Only the force of the federal government could bring this unbalanced distribution of power back into equilibrium, but it did not do so until the Depression of the 1930s, after industrialization in the steel industry had run its course.

Sources Brody, David. 1986. Labor in Crisis, 2d ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ———. 1998. Steelworkers in America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Cohen, Lizabeth. 1990. Making a New Deal. New York: Cambridge University Press. Edwards, Richard. 1979. Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplace in the Twentieth Century. New York: Basic Books. Eggert, Gerald. 1981. Steelmasters and Labor Reform, 1886–1923. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Fitch, John A. 1989. The Steel Workers. 1910. Reprint, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Gitelman, H. M. 1988. Legacy of the Ludlow Massacre: A Chapter in American Industrial Relations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Gulick, Charles A. 1924. Labor Policy of the United States Steel Corporation. Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, vol. 116. New York: Columbia University Press. Hogan, William T. 1971. Economic History of the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States. 5 vols. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath. Interchurch World Movement. 1920. Report on the Steel Strike of 1919. New York: Harcourt Brace and Howe. Krause, Paul. 1992. The Battle for Homestead, 1880–1892. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press. Misa, Thomas. 1995. A Nation of Steel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rees, Jonathan. 2004. Managing the Mills: Labor Policy in the American Steel Industry during the Nonunion Era. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Robinson, Jesse. 1920. The Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

156

•

Iron and Steel

United States Commissioner of Labor. 1913. Report on Conditions of Employment in the Iron and Steel Industry. 4 vols. 62d Cong., 1st sess., S. Doc. 110. Wall, Joseph Frazier. 1970. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. ed. 1992. The Andrew Carnegie Reader. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Environmental Impact Charles E. Williams

T

he iron and steel industry was the emblem of the Industrial Revolution in the United States during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, playing an important role in shaping the nation’s transportation infrastructure, the industrial specialization of its cities, and its rise as an economic and military power. Iron is an abundant but generally nonrenewable natural resource that must be extracted, concentrated, and processed to create a useable and merchantable product such as pig iron, wrought iron, or steel. All steps in iron and steel production—from mining to smelting—may incur some impact to the environment. The scope and scale of environmental impact of the iron and steel industry in the nineteenth century mirrored changes in mining technology from quarry to open-pit mining, shifts in fuels used in ore smelting from charcoal to coal and coke, and developments in transportation from wagon roads to canals and railroads. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, government and industry response to air and water pollution by the iron and steel industry spurred the development of agencies and legislation to control industrial pollution.

Mining the Ore: Quarries, Shafts, and Open Pits Iron oxides of various types used in iron and steel production—especially magnetite, hematite, siderite, and limonite—are common in the swamps, bogs, and uplands of the eastern and midwestern United 157

158

•

Iron and Steel

Mining companies destroyed entire hillsides to reach the raw ores demanded by the U.S. iron and steel industry. (Library of Congress)

States. The first step in iron and steel production is to mine the useable ore from iron-rich deposits. Mining of minerals, including iron, can have varied and extensive impacts on the environment, both direct and indirect—such as the destruction of vegetation and surface features, accelerated soil erosion, sedimentation of water bodies, and generation of waste in the form of overburden or toxic tailings (Goudie 2000). From colonial times until 1870, the dominant method of mining upland iron ores like hematite and magnetite was quarry mining, an uncomplicated method in which iron ore at the ground’s surface was extracted by hand using pry bars and pickaxes after the overburden—vegetation and soil—was removed (Bining 1973; Ransom 1966; Reynolds 1989). Johann Schoepf, a German traveling through the colonies in the early 1780s, described the simplicity of early quarryiron mining: “Any knowledge of mining is superfluous here, where there is neither shaft nor gallery to be driven, all work being at the

Environmental Impact

•

159

surface, or in great wide trenches or pits” (1988). Quarry-mine trenches were seldom greater than forty feet in depth and were typically abandoned for new sites or “mine holes” once this depth was reached (Bining 1973). Swedish botanist Peter Kalm noted the ease and extent of quarry mining of iron in 1748: “Iron is dug in great quantities in Pensylvania [sic], and in the other American provinces of the English. . . . [I]n many places, with a pick-ax, a crow foot, and a wooden club, it is got with the same ease with which a hole can be made in hard soil” (1972). Bog iron, or limonite, was mined from swamps, bogs, and stream banks, especially along the coastal plain of the eastern United States. Bog iron is produced when groundwater seeps through sand containing iron or ferrous salts. When iron-rich groundwater reaches the bog or swamp’s surface, iron-oxidizing bacteria—in a complex set of chemical reactions—convert the ferrous salts to ferric ions that precipitate out of the water as ferric hydroxide, forming bog-iron deposits (Atlas and Bartha 1998). Peter Kalm visited Quebec’s Trois River Iron Works in 1749 and commented on the nature of bog-iron deposits: “[M]oor ore . . . lies in veins, within six inches or a foot from the surface of the ground. Each vein is six to eighteen inches deep. . . . The ore is pretty rich, and lies in loose lumps in the veins, of the size of two fists, through there are a few which are near eighteen inches thick” (1972). The New Jersey Pine Barrens was the center of the bog-iron industry from 1765 to 1865, with more than thirty furnaces and forges in operation, but competition with higher-quality upland ores from Pennsylvania probably contributed to the industry’s decline (Pierce 1957). In early colonial times, bog iron was sometimes located by driving a rod through a stream bank until a shallow deposit was hit, then the iron nodules were removed with long tongs. On shallow lakes and ponds, bog ore was mined with long-handled scoops—or floating shovels—by miners working from flat-bottom boats. Other efforts at “raising the ore” involved digging the ore from swamps, bogs, and streambeds by hand once the overlying peat or sand was removed (Clarke 1968). Unlike upland iron ores, bog iron is a renewable resource that can replenish itself in as little as twenty years if the hydrology and vegetation of the swamp or bog are not adversely changed by mining (Pierce 1957). An observer of the bog-iron industry in Massachusetts in 1793 noted the regenerative potential of the resource at Raynham Forge: “The Raynham forge has been run for

160

•

Iron and Steel

eighty years on a plenty of bog ore. . . . The time may come when it will be as easy to raise a bed of bog ore as a bed of carrots” (Pearse 1875). Shaft mining replaced quarry mining as the dominant extraction method for upland iron ores from 1870 to the end of the nineteenth century. The shift from quarry mining to shaft mining was hastened by the exhaustion of rich surface-iron deposits in the Great Lakes and the Northeast and by the increased market for iron due to the explosive growth of the U.S. railway system. Shaft mining exploited deeper veins of iron beyond forty feet, for which it was cheaper to sink a shaft than to remove the overburden. Early shafts were usually sunk at the angle of the ore deposits, but later mines tended to sink vertical shafts with horizontal tunnels extending to ore deposits, creating a labyrinth of shafts and tunnels (Reynolds 1989). Mines were deepened after iron deposits closer to the surface were depleted. In 1900, some mines in the Marquette and Menominee Ranges of Michigan and Wisconsin reached 2,000 feet in depth. Deep mines— situated below the water table—were often plagued by flooding and required steam-powered pumping systems to keep them dry. In 1890, the 1,500-foot-deep Chapin Mine in Michigan’s Menominee Range employed a 1,250-horsepower pump capable of removing 4 million gallons of water daily to keep the mine dry (ibid.). Mechanized open-pit mining arose in the 1890s in the Mesabi Range of Minnesota, where iron-ore deposits—specifically taconite, an ore rich in silicon dioxide—occurred in horizontal beds close to the surface, over an extensive area, and were relatively soft and easily broken up and handled by machinery. Mechanized open-pit mining for iron ore is similar to strip-mining for coal and other minerals in that both rely on heavy machinery to remove overburden from mineral deposits, usually over a large area. Once the iron ore was exposed, drilling and blasting loosened it for loading by steam shovels onto railroad cars for transport. By the late 1890s and early 1900s, mechanized loading had become so efficient that a single steamshovel crew could load 3,000 tons of ore a day, a dramatic increase over the few tons that could be loaded per hour by hand or chute loading in quarry or shaft mining (ibid.). Mechanized open-pit mining increased the extent and intensity of iron-ore extraction—and land disturbance—in regions where ore could be easily accessed, such as the iron ranges of Michigan and Minnesota. For example, the

Environmental Impact

•

161

Miners at work on Minnesota’s Mesabi Range, which became a major ore source for steelmakers in the second half of the nineteenth century. (Library of Congress)

Hull-Rust open-pit mine near Hibbing, Minnesota, is currently 1 mile wide, 4 miles long, and 535 feet deep (Gordon 1996). Environmental impacts and legacies of iron mining in Industrial Revolution landscapes of the United States varied in extent and intensity according to the type of mining methods used—quarry, shaft, or open-pit mining—and the specific geological character of the mining region, especially the elemental composition of iron-bearing ore deposits. Of key environmental concern are toxic or noxious contaminants—chemical and physical—generated by various segments of a mining operation. Toxic or noxious contaminants may occur in the gangue (the mineral material associated with the iron) and become either mobilized by the mining process to form primary contaminants or transformed by chemical and biological agents into toxins or secondary contaminants.

162

•

Iron and Steel

Toxic or noxious contaminants most often occur in mine pits, shafts, and tunnels, in overburden and waste-rock piles, in ore piles, and in tailing impoundments—basins in which pooled water retains fine rock and dust that could be transported by wind if the particles were dry (United States Environmental Protection Agency [USEPA] 1994). Such toxic contaminants—especially trace elements and heavy metals like aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, and zinc—may pose a health threat to humans at high concentrations and, if toxic to plants, may also slow vegetation recovery on mined lands. Iron mining may affect the hydrology of a site—the patterns of water delivery and storage—and influence the quality of groundwater and surface water as water seeps through contaminated overburden, ore piles, waste rock, or tailings and into deeper geological strata. In areas where iron is extracted from sulfide-rich ores, like pyrite and marcasite, water in conjunction with oxygen and certain species of bacteria can produce a type of pollution called acid mine drainage (AMD). More often caused by strip-mining of coal than by iron mining, AMD can have great impact on the structure and function of aquatic ecosystems and on drinking-water quality. AMD is characterized by rivers and streams having low pH, high acidity, and high concentrations of sulfates and heavy metals, especially iron, magnesium, manganese, and aluminum (Kimmel 1983). AMD forms when water flows through sulfur-bearing rock that is exposed to the air. Sulfide—usually iron or ferric sulfide—is oxidized in the wet environment to ferrous sulfate and sulfuric acid, a potent acidifying agent. Ferrous sulfate may be further oxidized to ferric sulfate by bacteria, which then can combine with the hydroxyl portion of water molecules to produce ferric hydroxide—the hallmark of AMD. Ferric hydroxide precipitates out of the water at low pH to form a striking yellow or orange coating on the stream bottom, commonly called “yellow boy.” Aquatic organisms in AMD-affected watercourses must be tolerant of low pH, high levels of heavy metals, abundant silt, and choking “yellow boy” to survive (ibid.). Few organisms, other than aquatic insects like midges, can tolerate these conditions; thus, AMD-impacted streams are low in aquatic biodiversity compared to nonimpacted streams. AMD is most common in the eastern United States, where sulfatebearing rock is widespread. In areas that lack sulfur-rich ores or have significant buffering capacity, like much of Michigan and Minnesota, mine drainage may be alkaline—of pH 7 or higher—and pose little or

Environmental Impact

•

163

no threat to aquatic ecosystems (ibid; USEPA 1994). AMD may be caused by both shaft and open-pit mining of iron, but it is more often associated with abandoned shaft mines, in which tunnels and shafts expose a range of deep deposits to oxygen and water, particularly after dewatering operations have ceased (USEPA 1994). Overall, quarry mining of iron ore was probably less environmentally disruptive than shaft or open-pit mining because it was generally more limited in extent and area, generated less overburden and waste, and exposed less sulfate-bearing rock to the elements. Postquarry-mining landscapes may be pockmarked with trenches or pits that may fill with water, forming ponds and wetlands that may be used by wildlife—a benefit in some managed landscapes (United States Geological Survey 2001). In the Salisbury iron-making district of Connecticut, abandoned quarry pits filled with water, evolving into a landscape of lakes, woodlands, and suburban homes (Gordon 1996). Areas in which shaft mining was common—particularly where sulfide-rich ore deposits occur—may have some streams and rivers polluted by AMD. Another potential environmental impact of abandoned underground mines is subsidence—the collapse of shafts and tunnels that creates dangerous pits, or subsidence features, at the landscape’s surface. For example, in Iron County, Michigan, subsidence from abandoned shaft mines created large pits that have damaged roadways, disrupted utilities, and even caused human deaths. Open-pit mines can create several environmental problems common to other ironmining methods, including AMD, soil contamination, and destruction of vegetation. However, air pollution by fugitive dust—from tailings, waste rock, overburden, and ore piles—is an environmental impact closely associated with open-pit mining. An environmental health concern for miners and those living near open-pit taconite mines is silicosis, a lung disease caused by breathing in the silica dust generated by ore extraction (USEPA 1994).

The Forest as Fuel: Charcoal Launches the Iron Industry When explorers and colonists first set sight on eastern North America, they marveled at the forested landscapes before them and the bounty of natural resources—especially wood—for the taking. And it was wood in the form of charcoal that launched the early iron in-

164

•

Iron and Steel

dustry in the American colonies. As early as 1585, Thomas Harriot— historian of Sir Richard Grenville’s expedition to Virginia—noted “the infinite stores of wood for smelting” and the great value of America’s forests for the future iron industry (Cox et al. 1985). Indeed, Great Britain was thought to be in the midst of a wood shortage in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—caused in part by the demands of the iron industry—and the forests of North America provided a seemingly inexhaustible supply of wood (Perlin 1989). John Evelyn, a British arboriculturist, suggested in 1664 that Great Britain center its iron production in the American colonies in an attempt to conserve its forests: “Twere better to purchase all our Iron out of America, than to exhaust our woods at home” (Whitney 1994). By the 1630s, iron was being produced for local use in Lynn, Massachusetts, and by 1650 iron was exported in small quantities to Great Britain. By 1776, eighty-two charcoal iron furnaces were in production in the American colonies (Cox et al. 1985). By 1865, 560 iron furnaces were in blast in the United States, of which 439 (78 percent) were fueled by charcoal (Williams 1990). Charcoal was an ideal fuel to smelt iron ore into pig iron at the furnace and to work the pig iron into bar and wrought iron and other iron products at the forge or bloomery. Charcoal produced an intense heat when burned, providing the needed temperatures of 2,600 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit to reduce iron oxide in ores into pig iron. It was also a good source of the carbon required for pig-iron production, and it was a clean fuel, having few impurities—such as sulfur or phosphorous—that would reduce the malleability and quality of the pig iron (Whitney 1994). Charcoal was used as a fuel in the U.S. iron industry until 1945 but began a long, slow demise as mineral fuels such as anthracite coal (used in furnaces from the 1830s to the 1870s) and later coke (used from the 1850s to the present) rose to prominence as the iron industry’s smelting fuels of choice (Schallenberg 1975, 1981; Tarr 1994). Interestingly, charcoal pig iron persisted as an industry well into the twentieth century as ironmasters diversified their products and specialized in certain industrial production niches in which charcoal iron was superior. Development of retort plants—additions to charcoal furnaces that captured and condensed wood chemicals such as methanol, acetone, acetic acid, acetate of lime, and tars—provided new chemical markets. Furthermore, specialization on products such as railroad wheels—in which charcoal iron was superior to that pro-

Environmental Impact

•

165

duced by coke—enabled the industry to persist longer than might be expected in competition with cheaper coke (Hicock 1974; Schallenberg 1975, 1981). Production of charcoal for the iron industry required significant labor, skill, and time. Thus, as a smelting fuel, it was relatively expensive. Teams of woodcutters were employed in cutting trees for charcoal production, usually during the late fall, winter, and early spring (Paskoff 1989). Areas of wooded land—typically between 3,000 and 5,000 acres—were bought or leased by iron plantations for charcoal production (Williams 1989). Areas of forest were often clear-cut, sometimes repeatedly in a twenty-year cycle, with all species and sizes of trees taken (Wacker 1979). Certain tree species—mostly hardwoods—were considered to be superior for charcoal production, particularly those species having tight wood grain, low water content, and high specific gravity, such as hickory and American chestnut (Bining 1973; Paskoff 1989). A dry cord (a stack of wood eight feet high, four feet long, and four feet wide) of hickory produced approximately thirty-six bushels of charcoal weighing thirty-three pounds per bushel; a dry cord of American chestnut made approximately thirty bushels of charcoal weighing about twenty pounds per bushel. In contrast, softwood or conifer species such as white pine yielded about thirty bushels of charcoal per cord but at a weight of only sixteen pounds per bushel (Paskoff 1989). Heavier charcoal was preferred in iron making as it was less frangible—susceptible to breaking and pulverization in the furnace— and more durable than lighter charcoal. Moreover, most colliers (charcoal makers) also preferred heavier charcoal as they were paid by the bushel weight, with quality charcoal paying premium prices. The acres cut per year by woodcutters for charcoal production varied with the output and efficiency—bushels of charcoal consumed per ton of pig iron produced—of particular iron furnaces. In general, efficiency of charcoal iron furnaces increased in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, thus reducing charcoal use per ton of pig iron produced in the industrial era. But iron output increased dramatically, as did the average acreage of forest cut yearly per furnace to produce charcoal (Schallenberg 1981; Whitney 1994). For example, from 1750 to 1800, the output of preindustrial iron furnaces ranged between 100 to 400 tons of pig iron per year, with an efficiency of 200 to 400 bushels of charcoal used per ton of pig iron and an average of 50 acres of forest cut yearly to produce the charcoal. By 1850, early

166

•

Iron and Steel

industrial-era charcoal iron furnace output had increased to between 725 and 1,000 tons of pig iron per year, with an efficiency of 150 to 250 bushels of charcoal used per ton of pig iron and an average of 150 acres of forest cut yearly to produce the charcoal. By 1900, industrial charcoal iron furnace output of pig iron had reached 20,000 tons of pig iron per year, with an efficiency of 80 to 100 bushels of charcoal used per ton of pig iron and an average of 1,200 to 1,600 acres of forest converted yearly to charcoal (Whitney 1994). Not surprisingly, landholdings of the large blast furnaces of the late nineteenth century were enormous. The Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company, which operated initially in the iron ranges of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, amassed forest holdings of 750,000 acres, which they rapidly cleared (Whitney 1994). It is estimated that the twelve large charcoal furnaces operating in Michigan in 1910 may have cleared a square tract of forest stretching 11 miles on each side—or approximately 120 square miles—in a single year (Schallenberg 1975). Charcoal production in the United States through the 1860s was a simple, almost Neolithic technology based on the pile technique (Schallenberg 1981). Charcoal was best made during dry, calm weather, and the peak period of charcoal production was May through October (Paskoff 1989). Cordwood—cut into lengths of approximately four to six feet—was pulled by horse or mule to the hearth area or coaling pit for charring or coaling. Coaling or charcoal “pits” were circular and typically ten to fifteen yards in diameter (Paskoff 1989) and were not really pits but areas of dry, level ground where wood could be easily stacked (Ransom 1966). Twenty to forty cords of wood were stacked in concentric circles at the coaling pit, producing a dome-shaped mound. Sometimes a rough square chimney of six to eight feet in height made from small logs was first constructed then surrounded by the cordwood. The mound was then covered with sod or mud and wet leaves and ignited by dropping flaming embers down the chimney or, when a chimney was not constructed, by vent holes punched through the sod. The wood was allowed to char or carbonize for three to fourteen days, during which time the colliers constantly watched the color and volume of smoke and regulated the burn by adjusting the size of the vent holes or the chimney opening (Paskoff 1989). Once the coaling was done, the mound was dismantled and the charcoal raked into small piles for cooling to minimize big flare-ups and loss of product. The completed

Environmental Impact

•

167

Beehive ovens deposited heavy amounts of pollutants into the air and water. (Library of Congress)

product was then hauled to the furnace by horse-drawn wagon. Maximum charcoal production by the pile method was approximately thirty-five to thirty-eight bushels of charcoal per cord of wood coaled (Schallenberg 1981). In the mid- to late 1800s, the pile technique of charcoal production was replaced in many iron-producing areas of the United States by two new higher-yield technologies: kilns and retort plants. Kilns— permanent beehive-shaped structures of masonry, brick, or sheet iron that were first innovated in Great Britain—were introduced to the U.S. charcoal industry in the early 1860s and became commonly used after the Civil War. Kilns allowed colliers to more closely regulate venting, and thus the rate of carbonization, than could be done with rough charcoal domes. As a result, kilns produced less ash and undercoaled wood. Maximum charcoal production for kilns was approximately forty-five to fifty bushels of charcoal per cord of wood coaled (ibid.).

168

•

Iron and Steel

Retort plants were first used in the U.S. charcoal industry in the 1870s to 1880s. An adaptation of the by-product coke oven (see below), retorts produced charcoal in the absence of air in a sealed iron chamber that was heated externally by blast furnace or boiler-waste heat. Maximum charcoal production for retorts was approximately sixty to sixty-five bushels of charcoal per cord of wood coaled, in addition to the yield of merchantable wood chemicals condensed by the process (ibid.). The charcoal iron industry had many impacts on the nation’s lands and waters, but probably the most obvious was the industry’s effect on forests. On a large scale, the charcoal iron industry consumed less than 1 percent of all the fuelwood used in the United States from 1800 to 1930. Thus, compared to wood consumption for other uses—particularly as fuel to meet domestic heating needs—the charcoal iron industry’s demands and impacts on the nation’s forests as a whole were very minor during this time (Whitney 1994; Williams 1989). However, when viewed on a local scale, the impact of the charcoal iron industry on forests was substantial. As early as the 1780s, Johann Schoepf commented on the aftermath of tree cutting for charcoal production in eastern Pennsylvania: “We went through a devastated tract of woods, probably 2000 acres in extent; the trees had all been destroyed by an iron-foundry which fell to ruin when the owners had used up all their wood” (1978). This was not an isolated observation: Schoepf recorded numerous instances of deforestation and iron furnace and forge closure in eastern Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey in the 1780s. Depletion of forests by conversion to charcoal became more noticeable after 1840, when many furnaces were abandoned due to “scarcity of timber,” relocated to new wood supplies, or refitted to burn coal or coke. Describing forest depletion in Ohio’s Hanging Rock iron district in 1884, geologist N. W. Lord noted: “The disappearance of the forests under the demands of the furnaces, which is so now apparent throughout the region, increases every day the difficulty of obtaining the necessary fuel, and marks very plainly the fate of the charcoal iron industry” (Williams 1989). In fact, most furnaces that failed did so because of a shortage of economically accessible charcoal that could be hauled to the furnace in a cost-effective manner (Whitney 1994). Until 1870 and the rise of rail transport, most charcoal consumed by an iron furnace was produced within a two- to five-mile radius of the furnace (Temin 1964).

Environmental Impact

•

169

Most iron furnaces and plantations occurred on marginal lands— sites with poor soils suitable only for growing trees and not agricultural crops. On such sites, rotational cutting practices were often adopted—especially by iron plantations of large size—in which cutover land was allowed to revert back to forest as new or sufficiently regenerated areas were cut. Depending on the quality of the site and the rate of tree regrowth by species, cutting rotations could range from fifteen to fifty years; a range of twenty to thirty years was most common in forests of the eastern United States (Whitney 1994; Williams 1989). The regenerating forest was often managed under a coppice system in which tree species that regenerated rapidly by sprouting—that is, stem regrowth from roots—were favored over slow-growing species that regenerated from seeds, thus altering the species composition of the original forest (Whitney 1994). In portions of southern New England, New York, and New Jersey that were repeatedly cut over for charcoal and fuelwood, a “sprout hardwood forest region” developed, dominated by species such as American chestnut and scarlet, northern red, black, and white oaks that sprouted rapidly after cutting (Braun 2001; Whitney 1994). American chestnut—a preferred charcoal species with rapid stem growth—was especially favored by coppicing and increased dramatically in the sprout hardwood region. Early land surveys of northwestern Connecticut indicated that American chestnut composed approximately 4 to 15 percent of the original forest; but by 1908 it became a dominant species in the region, comprising 60 percent of the forest (Irland 1999; Whitney 1994). Unfortunately, introduction of the Asian chestnut blight in the early twentieth century greatly diminished the abundance of American chestnut in eastern North America and eliminated the potential for coppice forestry based on this species. Frequent cutting and subsequent changes in light availability also affected the understory or ground-layer plants of the forest. Sun-loving, weedy plants such as blackberry and goldenrod were favored by the open conditions created shortly after forest cutting. Blueberry and huckleberry were also favored by abundant light, creating a dense cover fifteen to thirty years after cutting (Whitney 1994). Locals often burned blueberry patches at frequent intervals to stimulate fruiting—typically at the expense of forest regeneration. Writing about highbush blueberry in the New Jersey Pine Barrens in 1900, forester John Gifford commented: “The young shoots which spring

170

•

Iron and Steel

up after a fire bear large luscious berries. . . . [T]he natives know this and accomplish it in a drastic wholesale fashion by firing the woods” (Wacker 1979). In areas with more fertile soils where charcoal iron production and agriculture occurred side by side—a less than common occurrence— cutover forestland was sometimes converted to crops or pasture. This forest-to-agriculture conversion was sometimes hastened by grazing animals—particularly free-range cattle—that fed on tree sprouts, effectively eliminating coppices (Whitney 1994). Botanist Janice Beatley described the one-two punch of charcoal production and cattle grazing on the forests of Scioto County, Ohio: “A large proportion [of the forests] was turned into the charcoal to be used for smelting purposes in the large furnaces. . . . [A]fter the forests had been cut, nothing was done to ensure their rejuvenescence; cattle were permitted to eat the young trees that came up and to trample over them; in some instances the cleared districts were burned over to secure a better pasture” (Williams 1989). The charcoal-making process also had an effect on the forest beyond the impacts of cutting and coppicing. When possible, colliers preferred to reuse old coaling pits rather than create new ones. Intense heat and repeated charring sterilized the soil at coaling pits, creating patches in the forest, known as “coalings,” that were devoid of vegetation for several decades (Davis 2000; Wacker 1979). Forest fires—fueled by unused woody debris left by woodcutters—were caused by sparks from furnaces, forges, and poorly attended charcoal pits during dry periods. In places like the New Jersey Pine Barrens, the charcoal iron industry may have drastically increased the frequency and extent of forest fires in the nineteenth century (Wacker 1979). Moreover, colliers may have set fires intentionally in some areas to kill trees and render them worthless for any use but charcoal making. These devalued trees could then be bought more cheaply (ibid.). Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, commented on the use of fire for timber rustling in the New Jersey Pine Barrens in 1900: “Timber-stealing is very common, especially after fires. When the timber is killed many persons consider it better to use the dead trees for cordwood than to allow them to rot on the ground, and they cut such timber on tracts of land to which they have no right” (ibid.). The smoke generated from wood charring and iron smelting created local air pollution, especially in low-lying mountain valleys and

Environmental Impact

•

171

during temperature inversions (Hicock 1974; Tarr 1994). The smoke from charring wood was said to be dark, heavy, and of a disagreeable odor (Bining 1973), and for this reason colliers typically charred wood at a distance from furnaces and forges (Paskoff 1989). Furnaces also created “great clouds of smokes and fumes” when iron was smelted (Tarr 1994). The noxious smoke and fumes created by wood charring created a local nuisance that led many Pennsylvania boroughs to ban charcoal production within their limits in the mid- to late 1800s (Bining 1973). Toxic pollutants account for only approximately 15 to 20 percent of all elements in charcoal kiln smoke, but some of these elements— including methanol, acetic acid, carbon monoxide, and methane—are highly toxic to humans and other life forms (Hicock 1974). Chronic exposure to these airborne toxins could have created or aggravated respiratory health problems in those associated with charcoal iron production as well as those living downwind. With the advent of retort plants in the 1870s, local air pollution from charcoal production was greatly reduced. Charcoal transportation and use also generated dust, which settled locally and sometimes coated buildings, roads, and even people. A visitor to the Black Brook bloomery forge in New York’s Adirondack Mountains in the 1870s noted: “Everything was black and dusty. . . . Huge charcoal vans and loads of iron ore constantly passed. The road for miles was lined with the huts and cabins of the employees, populous with smutty faced children. . . . Coal dust filled every chink and crevice. It settled thickly upon the trees, and when it rained the leaves shed rivulets of ink” (Gordon 1996). Richard Parrot, visiting the Greenwood no. 1 blast furnace in Orange County, New York, during the Civil War, commented on the pervasiveness of charcoal dust: “A visitor would have pointed out features of the place that the inhabitants overlooked as being commonplace. He would have said that much of the charcoal escaped being fed into the furnace for it was being wafted about in clouds of dust settling on everything . . . including the face of the visitor. By nature the local color was green, but artificially, black was a good second and more general worn” (Ransom 1966). Charcoal iron furnaces and forges were often located next to streams and rivers in order to harness waterpower, which operated hammers and stampers before the advent of steam power. Dams were often constructed across streams to provide a greater fall of water to

172

•

Iron and Steel

turn waterwheels, and impoundments created by dams provided a source of water when needed (Davis 2000; Wacker 1979). In areas such as the New Jersey Pine Barrens, the charcoal iron industry left an environmental legacy of widespread alteration of the landscape, including stream and wetland habitat, through the building of dams and impoundments—some of which were converted in later times to commercial cranberry bogs (Wacker 1979). In the southern Appalachians, dams associated with charcoal iron forges sometimes inundated bottomlands that were valued as prime farmland in a rugged region where good agricultural land was rare. To counter this loss, Tennessee passed a law in 1807 that required ironmasters to produce ten tons of iron annually within three years of dam construction or else forfeit the land acquired for the dam (Davis 2000). Apart from the obvious environmental impacts of tree cutting, dams, and air pollution, the charcoal iron industry also required infrastructure to operate—localized development to support employees and transport materials and products. Land was cleared for haul roads and especially employee housing. In the 1840s, the charcoal iron industry in Kentucky’s Greenup County employed 440 workers who, along with their families, needed housing, food, and services. A typical iron community of the 1850s in Kentucky included fifty to seventy-five cabins, a boardinghouse, a general store, a school, and a church. Food for the labor force and draft animals was often produced on large acreages of agricultural land owned and cultivated by the ironworks. For example, in the 1840s, the Red River Iron works in Kentucky cultivated 800 acres of land to help meet its food and fodder needs. In some regions, like eastern Kentucky, the iron industry concentrated industrial workers and so promoted a shift from a rural lifestyle and landscape to an urban-industrial environment that persists to the present (Moore 1991).

Mineral Fuels for the Iron Industry: The Rise of Coal Anthracite or hard coal began to compete with charcoal as an iron smelting fuel in the 1830s. Anthracite is abundant in the Appalachian Ridge and Valley of northeastern Pennsylvania. Many anthracite-fueled iron furnaces were first located in this region, because there were few transportation networks available for shipping the fuel else-

Environmental Impact

•

173

where, and iron ore was also locally abundant. Anthracite was a good fuel for smelting iron: it burned hot, had a carbon content of as much as 95 percent, and was virtually smokeless (Gordon 1996; Stradling 1999). However, anthracite—like most coals—did contain some sulfur, which was undesirable as it imparts a brittle quality to iron. It also burned with a short flame, making it difficult to distribute heat over a large area (Gordon 1996). The key factor that initially limited use of anthracite as a smelting fuel was its high ignition temperature. The hot-blast iron furnace— developed in Great Britain in 1828—solved this problem by recycling waste heat to elevate internal temperatures. By 1858, there were 120 anthracite-fueled iron furnaces in the United States, including 92 (77 percent of the total) in eastern Pennsylvania, the center of the nation’s iron industry (Binder 1974). Indeed, it has been argued that the Industrial Revolution began in eastern Pennsylvania, fueled by anthracite (Best 1983). Anthracite reigned as fuel supreme from 1855 to 1875, when more iron was made with anthracite than with any other fuel (Gordon 1996). Bituminous or soft coal was used to some extent in raw form as an iron-producing fuel, but it was generally converted to coke—a cleaner burning fuel with less potential to contaminate the product. Bituminous coal has lower carbon content than anthracite, ranging from 70 to 90 percent, and often possesses greater sulfur content, sometimes reaching 2.5 percent (ibid.). However, it was an exceedingly abundant and easily mined fuel occurring throughout much of the Appalachian plateau, from Kentucky to Pennsylvania. Use of bituminous coal in the iron industry was initially limited by difficulties of transport but increased after 1852, when a railway linked Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to the great bituminous coalfields of western Pennsylvania. Outside of eastern Pennsylvania, bituminous coal was widely used as a fuel in the puddling process, in which pig iron was heated and stirred in the presence of oxidizing agents to produce wrought iron (ibid.). Contamination of iron by sulfur or phosphorus in bituminous coal was not a problem in puddling of iron, as fuel and ore were kept separate in the process (DiCiccio 1996). The shift from charcoal to mineral fuels for iron production incurred many environmental impacts relating to mining, transportation, and combustion of these fuels. In order for mineral fuels to be used at furnaces and forges distant from the coalfields, for example, a

174

•

Iron and Steel

transportation infrastructure had to be developed. At first, this need was met by development of a canal system linking the coalfields to commercial ports via large rivers such as the Susquehanna and Delaware. Pennsylvania eagerly—some say recklessly, because of cost overruns—embraced canal systems as a means to transport anthracite and other products, breaking ground for the Pennsylvania or Main Line Canal in 1826. Pennsylvania governor John Andrew Schulze summed up the value of canals at that time: “There can be no doubt of the superiority of transportation by water. It brings the articles and produce so much nearer to market, that it gives a value to what would otherwise have rotted on the surface, or lain neglected in the bowels of the earth.” (Stranahan 1993). By 1829, 7,000 tons of anthracite were shipped to market by water from Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Valley coalfields. One year later, 43,000 tons of anthracite left the valley via the Delaware and Hudson Canal and the North Branch Canal along the Susquehanna River. Canals had numerous, often unappreciated effects on the environment. They altered landscapes by their long, linear features. By capturing water and channeling it off in new directions or by raising water tables, canals also affected landscape hydrology and local water supplies. There was also a threat of flooding when canal embankments failed, inundating farmlands or local communities (Gordon 1996). Canals were also convenient dumps for industrial and domestic wastes—sometimes creating a toxic brew of chemicals, human wastes and diseases, and garbage—that became a local nuisance and a threat to environmental health. Finally, canals linked previously isolated water bodies, facilitating invasion by new aquatic life, sometimes with disastrous results for native fauna. A classic example of biological invasion aided by canals is the collapse of the fisheries of the Great Lakes when the Welland Canal—completed in 1833—linked them with the Atlantic Ocean. The parasitic sea lamprey entered the Great Lakes and devastated the whitefish and lake trout fisheries (Bogue 2000). Railroads gradually replaced canals for mineral fuel transport, especially with the advent of the steam engine. As early as 1829, a steam railroad was moving anthracite from Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Valley to the Delaware River, where it was transferred to ships (Miller and Pencak 2002). Like the effect of canals on aquatic resources, steam railroads had a significant influence on terrestrial resources—primarily forests, as they used wood for fuel and cross ties. Wood consumed

Environmental Impact

•

175

as fuel by railroads in the United States peaked in the 1860s, with an estimated annual consumption of 6 million cords a year (Schurr and Netschert 1960). Local deforestation around rail lines was often significant. In 1884, residents of Tuscarawas County, Ohio, noted that “railroads had culled the forests . . . to the extent that there is no first class or ‘heavily wooded’ lands left.” In some areas, timber cutting by railroads stimulated land-use change. In 1884, residents of Muskingum County, Ohio, commented that the Baltimore and Ohio line had “a mania for buying woodland, stripping it of its timber, and then selling it for agricultural purposes” (Williams 1989). Coal replaced wood as a railroad fuel beginning in the 1870s. By 1879, wood used as fuel by railroads accounted for only 1.3 percent of the nation’s fuelwood consumption (Schurr and Netschert 1960; Williams 1989). However, use of wood for cross ties continued to place a major demand on America’s forests well after its decline as a fuel. In 1910, for example, railroads cut 620,000 acres of forest to produce the 124 million cross ties needed for repair of existing railroad tracks and construction of new lines (Whitney 1994). Strong, elastic, rot-resistant hardwood species were preferred for cross ties, particularly white oak, black locust, and chestnut oak. Moreover, it was thought that cross ties hewn from second-growth timber—only the inner heartwood was used—was superior to cut wood, with the result that forest stands were timbered in a wasteful manner. In the 1880s, concern about wanton destruction of forests for cross ties was rising, prompting one lumber journal to report: “There is no branch of the lumber industry where there is more waste of raw material. . . . Each tie is split from clear wood, and it takes about 35 feet of clear lumber to make a merchantable tie. . . . When this is added to the ‘culls’ that are arbitrarily rejected by the inspectors on behalf of the railroads at the owner’s expense . . . each tie represents about 75 feet of good merchantable lumber in the standing timber destroyed for it” (Williams 1989). Consumption of wood by railroads for fuel, cross ties, and other needs—including fencing, telegraph poles, and bridges—had a significant impact on forests. But probably the most destructive impact of railroads was that they were the major cause of forest fires from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s. Wood-burning locomotives produced sparks in copious quantities that rained down on the tracks, the rights-of-way, railcars, and even the passengers—singeing clothes and skin. As aptly noted by historian John H. White Jr., “The light,

176

•

Iron and Steel

billowing gray smoke and its accompanying sparks . . . was the most spectacular and lethal aspect of the wood burner” (1981). Charles Dickens was captivated by the spectacular nighttime show of sparks on a rail journey from Lowell, Massachusetts: “I returned at night by the same railroad. . . . [G]lancing all the way out at window from the corners of my eyes, I found abundance of entertainment for the rest of the ride in watching the effects of the wood fire, which had been invisible in the morning, but were now brought out in full relief by the darkness: for we were traveling in a whirlwind of bright sparks, which showered about us like a storm of fiery snow” (1874). Sparks from locomotives often started fires in dry forests, particularly those with abundant slash or deadwood left after logging operations. In 1900, it was estimated that approximately half of the fires started in the New Jersey Pine Barrens were caused by locomotives (Wacker 1979). The mining of mineral fuels for iron smelting also had a significant impact on the environment—often greater than that caused by the mining of iron ore. Coal mining exposed sulfur-bearing rock, causing acid mine drainage in large areas of the Appalachian coalfields. Today, Pennsylvania alone has more than 3,000 miles of streams polluted by AMD, a legacy of nearly two centuries of coal mining (Sweigard and Ramani 1983). Large amounts of culm (fine particles of rock and coal waste) were produced by anthracite mining and dumped either in piles near the mine or sometimes in streams (Gordon 1996). Unreclaimed culm piles developed only sparse vegetation, if any—a condition that persists to the present in some areas. Coal waste was so abundant in some rivers that it became the focus of an extractive industry. From the 1850s to the 1950s, the “Hard-Coal Navy”—a fleet of steamboats and barges that numbered more than 200 vessels in its heyday—plied the Susquehanna River, vacuuming up waste coal for sale to power plants. In peak years, the Hard-Coal Navy extracted more than 300,000 tons of anthracite from the river (Stranahan 1993). Before the rise of strip-mining after World War II, shaft mining was the dominant mode of coal extraction, which led to many of the same environmental problems associated with shaft iron mining— subsidence, inundation, and so on. Just like the wood-subsidized railroads, shaft mines consumed significant amounts of wood—not as fuel, but as props to fortify shafts and tunnels. In the 1890s, more than 140,000 acres (55,000 hectares) of forest were cut yearly in

Environmental Impact

•

177

Pennsylvania for mine props (Whitney 1994). Oak forests in Pennsylvania’s anthracite region were repeatedly cut for mine props and frequently burned, inhibiting forest regeneration and creating “a menace to the prosperity of the Commonwealth” (Rothrock and Shunk 1896).

Improving on Coal: Coke as Fuel Supreme Coke—once commonly called the “bones of coal”—is produced through destructive distillation of bituminous coal. Volatile gases, tars, and oils are “cooked out” at high temperatures, leaving fused carbon and ash. Initially, coke was made in a manner similar to charcoal. Coal was piled in mounds on a “coking pit” around a brick chimney, covered with coke dust or other nonflammable material, and ignited. The coke burner controlled the rate of burning by varying the width of the chimney opening. Three to five days after firing, the burning pile of coal was covered with wet coke dust and left to smolder for several days. The fire was then smothered with water (DiCiccio 1996; Gordon 1996). A new coke-producing technology, the beehive oven, emerged in the United States in 1843 in Connellsville, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. The ovens were so named because the interior resembled a beehive. Beehive ovens were typically built in long banks or batteries, sometimes in a hillside and often in double rows that flanked a road for coal delivery. The ovens were preheated with a wood and coal fire and then loaded from the top with coal. The coal was burned until all volatiles were removed—forty-eight hours for blast-furnace coke or seventy-two hours for foundry coke (Gordon 1996; Tarr 1994). About 1 ton of blast-furnace coke—with 85 to 90 percent carbon composition—was yielded from coking 1.5 tons of coal (Tarr 1994). The number of beehive ovens producing coke in the United States grew phenomenally from the 1850s to the early 1900s. In 1855, 106 beehive ovens operated in the nation. By 1890, the number had grown to 12,000 ovens at 186 plants. And by 1909, nearly 104,000 beehive ovens were producing coke at 579 plants (ibid.). Coke production—especially in concentrated areas such as the Connellsville coke region of western Pennsylvania—was a grimy affair, generating both water and air pollution. Until 1914, when by-product coke

178

•

Iron and Steel

ovens became widely adopted, beehive ovens vented their emissions of hydrocarbons, sulfurous fumes, and ash directly into the environment. Coke makers often dumped coal wastes and ash into nearby streams, impeding their flow and causing flooding of farmlands and residences (Gordon 1996; Tarr 1994). Complaints of tarnished silver and brass, damaged trees and crops, and flooding and silting of bottomlands from residents living in the Connellsville coke region prompted the State of Pennsylvania to conduct an inquiry into coke-industry practices and environmental impacts in the late 1800s. W. A. Buckhout, a state botanist, noted that the “district becomes almost continually one of a highly vitiated air, seldom without the overhanging clouds of smoke” (Tarr 1994). Indeed, entering a coke yard on a sunny day was likened to “stepping into a gritty fog bank” (Gordon 1996). Buckhout verified that vegetation near coke ovens was generally in poor health: “The most conspicuous feature in coke oven surroundings is the general wretchedness of everything of the nature of shrub or tree, either individual or collective” (Tarr 1994). Moreover, Buckhout found evidence of poor tree health as far as three-quarters of a mile from the Mount Pleasant coke works, suggesting that coke production had impacts on vegetation and the environment over a broad area (Gordon 1996). Just as many Pennsylvania boroughs sought to limit charcoal production—and nuisance smoke—within their borders during the midto late 1800s, many cities tried to do the same with coke production. In 1869, Pittsburgh passed an ordinance forbidding construction of coke ovens within city limits, an act that went largely unenforced. In 1892, the city revised its ordinance and allowed coke-oven construction if the ovens were supplied with “approved smoke control devices”—mostly tall stacks that dispersed pollutants away from adjacent neighborhoods. Pittsburgh, known as the “Iron City,” passed several other smoke-abatement ordinances through the early 1900s, but either these were not enforced or the iron and steel industry was exempted (Tarr 1994). Indeed, smoke pollution had gotten so bad that steel baron Andrew Carnegie noted in 1898 that smoke was driving people “to leave Pittsburgh and reside under skies less clouded than ours. . . . The man who abolishes the Smoke Nuisance in Pittsburgh [will earn] our deepest gratitude.” Ironically, Carnegie moved from Pittsburgh to New York City, a city touted for its highquality air, in the early 1900s.

Environmental Impact

•

179

The by-product coke oven was a partial solution to the smoke and fume problem of emerging U.S. industrial cities in the early 1900s. Like the retort charcoal plant, the by-product oven was designed to capture volatile elements and salvage them for later use. Moreover, the by-product oven could produce high-grade coke from a blend of coals with a higher yield per ton of coal than the beehive oven. Gases were collected by a series of pipes and condensed by cooling—yielding a liquid composed of 70 percent tar and 30 percent ammonia in water. The ammonia was further distilled into numerous ammonium products. Other by-products of the coking process included the cancer-causing chemicals benzene, toluene, naphtha, and xylene (Tarr 1994). The problem with the by-product coke oven was that it shifted pollution from the air to the waters. Unlike the predominately rural beehive ovens, by-product coke ovens were typically located along rivers or lakes in or near urban areas, usually as part of an integrated steel mill. The water body provided cheap barge transportation for coal, water for mill operations, and a place to dump wastes. The waste stream of by-product ovens was noxious and toxic to humans and aquatic life, containing high concentrations of ammonia, cyanide, and phenols, along with acids, bases, and hydrocarbons (ibid.). Phenols created the most stir as they caused significant taste and odor problems in drinking water, especially when the water was chlorinated. By the 1920s, the United States Public Health Service found that twenty-five cities in the Ohio River Valley had undrinkable water supplies because of the interaction of chlorine and phenol. Phenol pollution stimulated state and federal governments to address industrial pollution—which had proceeded largely unchecked through the 1920s—by empowering health departments to prevent water pollution, creating sanitary-water boards, or cooperating with industry to achieve voluntary pollution reduction via compacts and agreements (ibid.).

Sources Atlas, Ronald M., and Richard Bartha. 1998. Microbial Ecology: Fundamentals and Applications. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. Best, Charles L. 1983. “History of Coal Transportation in Pennsylvania.” In Pennsylvania Coal, edited by Shyamal K. Majumdar and E. Willard Miller. Easton: Pennsylvania Academy of Science.

180

•

Iron and Steel

Binder, Frederick Moore. 1974. Coal Age Empire: Pennsylvania Coal and Its Utilization to 1860. Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Bining, Arthur Cecil. 1973. Pennsylvania Iron Manufacture in the Eighteenth Century. Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Bogue, Margaret Beattie. 2000. Fishing the Great Lakes: An Environmental History, 1783–1933. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Braun, E. Lucy. 2001. Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America. 1950. Reprint, Caldwell, NJ: Blackburn Press. Clarke, Mary Stetson. 1968. Pioneer Iron Works. New York: Chilton Book. Cox, Thomas R., Robert S. Maxwell, Phillip Drennon Thomas, and Joseph J. Malone. 1985. This Well-Wooded Land: Americans and Their Forests from Colonial Times to the Present. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Davis, Donald Edward. 2000. Where There Are Mountains: An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians. Athens: University of Georgia Press. DiCiccio, Carmen. 1996. Coal and Coke in Pennsylvania. Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Dickens, Charles. 1874. American Notes and Pictures from Italy. London: Chapman and Hall. Gordon, Robert B. 1996. American Iron, 1607–1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Goudie, Andrew. 2000. The Human Impact on the Natural Environment. Cambridge: MIT Press. Hicock, Henry W. 1974. “The Making of Charcoal: Man’s Oldest Chemical Industry.” Connecticut Woodlands 36, no. 2. Irland, Lloyd C. 1999. The Northeast’s Changing Forest. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kalm, Peter. 1972. Travels into North America. 1772. Reprint, Barre, MA: Imprint Society. Kimmel, William G. 1983. “The Impact of Acid Mine Drainage on the Stream Ecosystem.” In Pennsylvania Coal, edited by Shyamal K. Majumdar and E. Willard Miller. Easton: Pennsylvania Academy of Science. Miller, Randall M., and William Pencak. 2002. Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Moore, Tyrel G. 1991. “Economic Development in Appalachian Kentucky, 1800–1860.” In Appalachian Frontiers: Settlement, Society, and Development in the Preindustrial Era, edited by Robert D. Mitchell. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Paskoff, Paul F. 1989. “Charcoal Fuel.” In Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Paul F. Paskoff. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File. Pearse, John B. 1875. A Concise History of the Iron Manufacture of the American Colonies up to the Revolution and of Pennsylvania until the Present Time. New York: Burt Franklin. Perlin, John. 1989. A Forest Journey: The Role of Wood in the Development of Civilization. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Environmental Impact

•

181

Pierce, Arthur D. 1957. Iron in the Pines: The Story of New Jersey’s Ghost Towns and Bog Iron. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Ransom, James M. 1966. Vanishing Ironworks of the Ramapos: The Story of the Forges, Furnaces, and Mines of the New Jersey–New York Border Area. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Reynolds, Terry S. 1989. “Iron-Mining Machinery and Technology.” In Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Paul F. Paskoff. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File. Rothrock, J.T., and W. F. Shunk. 1896. Report of the Pennsylvania Forestry Commission Appointed by Act of Legislature Approved May 23, 1993. Harrisburg: Clarence M. Bush, State Printer. Schallenberg, Richard H. 1975. “Evolution, Adaptation, and Survival: The Very Slow Death of the American Charcoal Iron Industry.” Annals of Science 32. ———. 1981. “Charcoal Iron: The Coal Mines of the Forest.” In Material Culture of the Wooden Age, edited by Brooke Hindle. Tarrytown, NY: Sleepy Hollow Press. Schoepf, Johann D. 1978. Travels in the Confederation (1783–1784). New York: Burt Franklin, 1788. Schurr, Sam H., and Bruce C. Netschert. 1960. Energy in the American Economy, 1850–1975. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Stradling, David. 1999. Smokestacks and Progressives: Environmentalists, Engineers, and Air Quality in America, 1881–1951. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Stranahan, Susan Q. 1993. Susquehanna, River of Dreams. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Sweigard, R. J., and Raja V. Ramani. 1983. “Environment and Land Conservation.” In Pennsylvania Coal, edited by Shyamal K. Majumdar and E. Willard Miller. Easton: Pennsylvania Academy of Science. Tarr, Joel A. 1994. “Searching for a ‘Sink’ for an Industrial Waste: Iron-Making Fuels and the Environment.” Environmental History Review 18, no. 1 (spring). Temin, Peter. 1964. Iron and Steel in Nineteenth-Century America: An Economic Inquiry. Cambridge: MIT Press. United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). 1994. Extraction and Beneficiation of Ores and Minerals. Vol. 3, Iron. Technical Resource Document EPA-530-R-94-030. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. United States Geological Survey. 2001. “Silent Reminders: Geological Wonders of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, No. 3.” Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Wacker, Peter O. 1979. “Human Exploitation of the New Jersey Pine Barrens before 1900.” In Pine Barrens: Ecosystem and Landscape, edited by Richard T. T. Forman. New York: Academic Press. White, John H., Jr. 1981. “Railroads: Wood to Burn.” In Material Culture of the Wooden Age, edited by Brooke Hindle. Tarrytown, NY: Sleepy Hollow Press. Whitney, Gordon G. 1994. From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plain: A History of Environmental Change in Temperate North America from 1500 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

182

•

Iron and Steel

Williams, Michael. 1989. Americans and Their Forests: A Historical Geography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1990. “The Clearing of the Forests.” In The Making of the American Landscape, edited by Michael P. Conzen. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

Immigration’s Impact Jacqueline M. Cavalier

H

istorically, the United States has faced a labor shortage. The institutions of indentured servitude and slavery emerged in response to this dilemma—the latter with horrific consequences. Some immigrants came to the United States fleeing religious persecution, some escaping political turmoil, and some, as in the case of slavery, were forcibly brought against their will. Those who came willingly, however, came for economic reasons, went to work, and changed the shape and the face of the United States. Although nativists expressed concerns about whether immigrants were “fit” for democratic government, and complained about how they would take jobs away from American workers, lower the wages, corrupt the political process, and contaminate religion, the Industrial Revolution presented an intense need for labor—a need that had to be met. In response, the United States opened its gates and allowed millions of immigrants into the country to fuel the machines of industry. Whereas the U.S. economy required both unskilled and skilled workers through much of the nineteenth century, the demand after the 1880s was almost exclusively for unskilled workers to fill the growing number of factory jobs that emerged as a result of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. Coincidentally, the conditions in Europe accommodated this demand, as substantial economic changes occurred from the eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries as a result of industrialization. One obvious change was the transformation from a small, agricultural-based society to a manufac183

184

•

Iron and Steel

Immigrants recently disembarked from the Prinzess Irene at Ellis Island. (Library of Congress)

turing economy. This process began in England in the eighteenth century but had rapidly spread across Europe by the nineteenth century. Such factors as the subdivision of agricultural landholdings, political conflicts, and overpopulation—in addition to the potato famine in Ireland—resulted in a mass exodus of people from Europe to the United States. The 1850 decennial census was the first in which data were collected on the national origins of the population. From 1850 to 1930, the foreign-born population of the United States increased from 2.2 million to 14.2 million, reflecting the large-scale immigration from Europe during this period (Gibson and Lennon 1999). Immigration reached its historical peak in the years between 1880 and 1920, as some 23 million immigrants entered the United States, which numbered only 76 million in total population in 1900. Immigration occurring during this period is often referred to as the new immigration. The old immigrants of the years 1850 to 1880 were largely from China (which provided the majority of the labor force for the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad) and west-

Immigration’s Impact

•

185

ern and northern Europe—including Britain, Ireland, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. But during the 1880s and 1890s, southern and eastern Europeans from Russia, Serbia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and Italy, displaced from their land and possessing few skills, were attracted to the growing industries of the United States. The largest groups of immigrants from 1899 through 1924 included Italians (3.8 million), eastern European Jews (1.8 million), and Poles (1.5 million). This period also resulted in (to a much lesser extent) an influx of Mexican and Japanese immigrants. The transformation of the United States from an agricultural nation of farmers, merchants, and artisans to an industrial nation of “robber barons” and wage earners was rapid yet complicated. Although the new industrial age in the United States created vast amounts of wealth for some, workers shared little of the wealth enjoyed by the industrial giants. Because the supply of unskilled workers seemed endless, little attention was paid to the long working hours, poor wages, and overcrowded living conditions that made life quite difficult for the immigrants in the United States. One recurring theme in the history of immigration as it pertains to labor deals with the “streets of gold” myth—the belief that in the United States, opportunity was so great that even the streets were paved with gold. For many, the road to the American dream was paved with hardship—a hardship that began with the departure from their homeland. Immigrant labor was essential to the fledgling industrial nation of the nineteenth century. Nearly a century earlier, Alexander Hamilton, U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795, foretold of the phenomenon in his 1791 Report on the Subject of Manufactures: Manufacturers . . . would probably flock from Europe to the United States, to pursue their own trades or professions, if they were once made sensible of the advantages they would enjoy, and were inspired with an assurance of encouragement and employment. [They] will, with difficulty, be induced to transplant themselves. . . . [T]hat is the best interest of the United States to open every possible avenue to emigration from abroad . . . not only for extending the population, and with it the useful and productive labor of the country, but likewise for the prosecution of manufactures. (Dudley 1998)

In essence, the United States did open every possible avenue to emigration from abroad, and immigrants indeed “flocked” from Eu-

186

•

Iron and Steel

A detention pen on Ellis Island. (Library of Congress)

rope to the United States. About 70 percent of all European immigrants initially landed in New York City. Prior to 1855, however, there was no official immigrant-processing center. From August 1, 1855, through April 18, 1890, immigrants came through Castle Garden (also known as Castle Clinton), which was the first examining and processing center for immigrants opened by the State of New York. After certain states passed immigration laws following the Civil War, the Supreme Court in 1875 declared (under the commerce clause) the regulation of immigration a federal responsibility. However, immigration remained purely an affair of state rather than federal government until Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1882, which authorized the treasury secretary to contract with the states for enforcement of that law. Beginning in 1882, the admission of immigrants was handled through a joint state and federal system. Although the secretary of the treasury initially signed a contract with the New York state com-

Immigration’s Impact

•

187

missioners of emigration to continue services at Castle Garden, that contract was terminated on April 1, 1890. By April 18, 1890, the Treasury Department assumed total control of immigration at the Port of New York. New York State authorities refused to allow the federal government to use the Castle Garden facilities, however, so a temporary center was established at the southeastern end of Manhattan. The Office of Superintendent of Immigration of the Department of the Treasury was established by an act of Congress on March 3, 1891, and was designated as a bureau in 1895 with the responsibility for administering the alien contract-labor laws. This agency eventually became the Immigration and Naturalization Service under the Department of Justice. Ellis Island Immigration Station in New York opened on January 1, 1892. Due to the rapid increase in the number of European immigrants entering the United States between 1880 and 1900, it was rebuilt and reopened on December 17, 1900. Greeted by the Statue of Liberty in the New York harbor, European immigrants continued to enter through Ellis Island until 1924. Substantial numbers of European immigrants also arrived in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New Orleans (An Immigrant Nation 1991). By the turn of the twentieth century, it is estimated that more than 1 million immigrants entered each year, primarily from southern and eastern Europe. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 reduced immigration from Europe, but mass immigration resumed upon the war’s conclusion in 1918. Nativist sentiment, which favored the interests of native-born inhabitants over those of immigrants, was prevalent throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Future U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, for example, expressed apprehension toward the new immigrants in his 1902 History of the American People: “The immigrant newcomers of recent years are men of the lowest class from the South of Italy, and men of the meaner sort out of Hungary and Poland, men out of the ranks where there was neither skill nor energy, nor any initiative or quick intelligence” (Wilson 2002). Wilson largely embodied the views of the U.S. populace, which came primarily from northern and western European stock, in feeling that there were too many immigrants and that they were coming from the “wrong” countries. As one study observed, “These concerns led to quantitative as well as qualitative restrictions on immi-

188

•

Iron and Steel

Chinese immigrants were vital to the construction of railroads in the West. (Underwood & Underwood/Corbis)

gration in the 1920s to try to preserve and perpetuate the northern and western European majority” (Martin and Midgley 1999). The Immigration Restriction League (IRL), formed in 1894 and led by Massachusetts senator Henry Cabot Lodge, proposed a requirement for prospective immigrants to pass a literacy test—one that southern and eastern Europeans were sure to fail. Although the IRL failed to have its literacy requirement implemented, Congress responded with a new immigration policy: the national-origins quota system, passed in 1921 and revised in 1924. Immigration was limited by assigning each nationality a quota based on its representation in past U.S. Census figures. Also in 1924, Congress created the U.S. Border Patrol within the Immigration Service, and European immigration declined throughout the remainder of the twentieth century. In contrast to the European experience, most Chinese immigrants

Immigration’s Impact

•

189

entered the United States from the West Coast, via San Francisco. Mid-nineteenth-century disruptions in China such as the Taiping Rebellion and the opium wars resulted in a number of social and economic problems that threatened the traditional order and drove peasants to look far beyond China for new opportunities. Drawn initially to California by the gold rush, Chinese laborers eventually filled the ranks of workers needed for railroad construction, specifically the Central Pacific Railroad, which hired more than 10,000 Chinese workers to build the line from San Francisco to Utah. The Southern Pacific Railroad employed them throughout the Southwest as well. In 1855, there were approximately 20,000 Chinese immigrants in the United States. By 1870, there were 63,000—more than 50,000 lived in California and nearly 10,000 in Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. That number grew well beyond 100,000 within ten years’ time, most concentrated in California and the rest scattered about the western states (Olson 1979). As indicated in a letter dated October 10, 1865, from Governor Leland H. Stanford of California to President Andrew Johnson, the Chinese were a most valuable source of labor for the railroads: A large majority of the white laboring class on the Pacific Coast find more profitable and congenial employment in mining and agricultural pursuits, than in railroad work. The greater portion of the laborers employed by us are Chinese who constitute a large element in the population of California. Without them it would be impossible to complete the western portion of this great national enterprise within the time required by the Acts of Congress. . . . We have assurance from leading Chinese merchants that, under the just and liberal policy pursued by the company, it will be able to procure during the next year not less than 15,000 laborers. With this large force the company will be able to push on the work so as not only to complete it far within the time required by the Acts of Congress but so as to meet the public impatience. (Kraus 1969)

Though a valuable source of labor, the Chinese encountered widespread social and civil discrimination. A downturn in railroad construction, coupled with economic depression and mounting nativism in the 1870s, resulted in demands for restrictions on Chinese immigration. In response to the enormous pressure from politicians, labor unions, and other organizations, the Chinese Exclusion Law

190

•

Iron and Steel

Chinese laborers toil at a train trestle, one of many built in the 1860s and 1870s to negotiate the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains. (Bettmann/Corbis)

was passed in 1882 by the United States Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur. Under this law, Chinese laborers, unskilled or skilled, were excluded from entering the United States for ten years. Only merchants, diplomats, tourists, students, and teachers were allowed to enter the country. Under these categories, professional people such as herbalists were sometimes considered as laborers. Merchants could bring their wives to this country, but laborers could not. Chinese American workers were forced to decide whether they should return to China or remain in the United States to work and possibly never see their families again. In 1888, Congress passed the Scott Act, which barred reentry of Chinese laborers to the United States, even if they left the country only temporarily. Many men who had gone back to China to visit their families and left property and business ventures in this country were prevented from returning. As a result of the Chinese Exclusion

Immigration’s Impact

•

191

Law, the Scott Act, and racial discrimination, Chinese immigration to the United States showed a 40 percent decline between 1880 and 1890 (Wey 1988).

The Immigrant Experience in the United States Nineteenth-century railroad construction not only provided work for the thousands of Chinese immigrants in the United States but resulted, as well, in a transportation revolution that dramatically transformed the American landscape. Improvements in transportation stimulated economic growth, expanded the range of travel, and reduced the time and cost of moving both goods and people. Due to the rapid expansion of the railroads, particularly after 1850, many European immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island moved on by train from New York to other parts of the country. Approximately two-thirds of the newcomers were young men, especially after 1900, between the ages of fifteen and thirty-nine. Known as “birds of passage,” their intention was to stay in the United States only long enough to earn the money necessary to improve life for their families back home. Staying in America for a year or two would afford them the opportunity to purchase land or establish a business in the homeland. Roughly half of all the immigrants to the United States between 1880 and 1914 returned to their country of origin. It was not unusual for immigrants to know where they wanted to go, either because they had relatives or friends in a particular region or because they sought particular kinds of work. Ties to the Old World were strong. “America letters,” correspondence from those already in the United States to family and friends abroad, offered detailed explanations of where to go and how to get there once the newcomers arrived. This process of chain migration was common practice to many immigrant groups. In the early stages of nineteenthcentury immigration, intermediaries or labor agents often directed immigrant workers to various industries or cities in return for a small fee. In time, however, friends and relatives functioned so effectively that they nearly replaced labor agents and “middlemen” in directing the new arrivals to specific industries. Immigrants moved within these groups of friends and relatives and worked and lived in clusters or “kin” societies (Bodnar 1985; Goldfield et al. 2002).

192

•

Iron and Steel

If relatives were not present upon arrival, representatives of various aid societies based on immigrant race and nationality were on hand to greet the newcomers. A number of immigrant aid societies— Jewish, Swedish, Spanish, Russian, Norwegian, Italian, Greek, and Belgian—worked to meet people of their respective nationalities at Ellis Island, direct them toward their destination, provide housing and employment placement, and offer general guidance in the native language. Religious and missionary societies provided similar functions. Over the course of a single year, the Society for Italian Immigrants provided temporary lodging to more than 22,000 Italians and found employment and aided in various other ways as many as 45,000 (Leiserson 1969). As immigration exploded, the urban population surged from 6 million in 1860 to 42 million in 1910. Big cities got bigger: for example, Chicago tripled in size in the 1880s and 1890s. By 1900, three cities contained more than 1 million people: New York (3.5 million), Chicago (1.7 million), and Philadelphia (1.3 million). Immigrant settlement patterns became most obvious as ethnic ghettos formed in cities throughout the United States. In his 1890 exposé of conditions among immigrants in New York’s Lower East Side, How the Other Half Lives, Danish-born Jacob Riis detailed the poor living conditions of working-class immigrant groups. Inadequate housing forced thousands of immigrants to cram into tenements—four- to six-story buildings on small lots, notorious for their lack of light and ventilation. Overcrowding bred poverty, disease, crime, and other afflictions. Few buildings had indoor plumbing, and the only source of heat was usually a dangerous coal-burning stove. In 1890 there were approximately 37,300 tenements—defined as a house that was occupied by three families or more—in New York, with a total population of 1.25 million people. In some sections, the population density of New York’s tenement district exceeded 900 people per acre—the highest in the world at the time. Today, in comparison, the densest areas of U.S. cities rarely exceed 400 people per acre (Goldfield et al. 2002). In regards to the demographics of the Lower East Side tenements, “There was not a native-born individual in the court,” Riis wrote. “One may find for the asking an Italian, a German, a French, African, Spanish, Bohemian, Russian, Scandinavian, Jewish, and Chinese colony. Even the Arab, who peddles ‘holy earth’ from the battery as a direct importation from Jerusalem, has his exclusive pre-

Immigration’s Impact

•

193

The families of thousands of iron and steelworkers scraped out an existence in the tenements of New York City (shown here) and other major northern cities. (Library of Congress)

serves at the lower end of Washington Street. The one thing you shall vainly ask for in the chief city of America is a distinctly American community. There is none; certainly not among the tenements” (Riis 1957). Ethnic clustering was not unique to New York. Row houses in Baltimore; converted slave quarters in Charleston, South Carolina; dilapidated two- and three-story frame houses in San Francisco; and company towns throughout southwestern Pennsylvania all served to accommodate the swelling numbers of immigrants settling in U.S. industrial cities. “Swede Town” in Chicago in 1850 was home to a high concentration of Swedish immigrants, whereas “Polish Hill” in Pittsburgh was home to thousands of Poles and other eastern Europeans who were guided to the “Steel City” for work from 1880 to 1900. Ethnic enclaves such as this were commonplace in Pittsburgh, a city where the population nearly tripled between 1880 and 1930 due largely to the growth of the iron and steel industry and its growing

194

•

Iron and Steel

need for unskilled labor. Steel, the master metal of U.S. industry, was based largely on the backbreaking work of low-priced immigrant labor, working in two twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week.

Nineteenth-Century Industrial Growth in the United States The Industrial Revolution took shape in the United States between the onset of the nineteenth century and the American Civil War. A number of industries—including iron and steel, textiles, furniture, and coal mining—established the foundation for what became an explosion of industrial development in the last quarter of the century. During the antebellum era, most of America’s industrial affairs were concentrated in the Northeast, as the South continued to rely on black slave labor to fuel an economy based mainly on plantation agriculture and cash crops such as tobacco and cotton. The Civil War in many respects was the impetus for the growth of industry. Not only did wartime demands for weapons, uniforms, and supplies stimulate industry, but Congress assisted as well by introducing legislation that encouraged industrialization and economic development—including support for construction of a transcontinental railroad. After the Civil War, southerners and northerners alike reinforced what Alexander Hamilton had argued a century earlier—that the creation of a self-sufficient nation was contingent upon a diverse economy that could be achieved only through the development of industry. Leaders like Henry W. Grady (1850–1889), editor of the Atlanta Constitution and proponent of the “New South” movement, and Richard H. Edmonds (1857–1930), editor of the Manufacturers’ Record and leader of the “Farm to Factory” movement, reinforced the notion that the post–Civil War southern economy could no longer rely on plantation agriculture while the rest of the nation was rapidly industrializing. Whereas Grady promoted a closer relationship between the North and the South in achieving a greater prosperity for the nation, Edmonds had two goals in mind: first, encourage capital investment in the southern economy; and second, promote every possible form of industrial development. Such concepts did indeed materialize, as southerners tapped rich iron and coal reserves from the southernmost sections of the Appalachians so ef-

Immigration’s Impact

•

195

A worker at the South Chicago Works, a subsidiary of U.S. Steel. (Philip Gendreau/Bettmann/Corbis)

fectively that by 1900 the American South was a world leader in coal production. As a result, tremendous growth was achieved in the southern as well as the northern iron and steel industry during the period of 1880 to 1900. The reunited nation geared up for a period of rapid industrialization, and Alexander Hamilton’s vision for the United States was realized. In 1860, manufacturing accounted for just one-third of all U.S. production, and America still imported more manufactured goods than it exported. By 1890, however, the value of manufactured goods was almost four times that of agriculture. In fact, the value of goods produced by U.S. industry increased almost tenfold between 1870 and 1916, as industry replaced agriculture as the leading income source for Americans. America’s industrial growth in the decades following the Civil War was so rapid and extensive that business historian Alfred D.

196

•

Iron and Steel

Chandler Jr. has called this period of American history the “Second Industrial Revolution” (Dudley 1998). It was during this period that the steel industry would come of age. Immigrants were the labor source for coal, iron, and steel production that became the cornerstone of America’s rise to industrial empire, helping the nation to rank first in world in manufacturing output by the turn of the century.

Iron and Steel: The Changing Face of the Industry The two decades from 1860 to 1880 witnessed a considerable growth in the iron and steel industry, thanks in part to the introduction of the Bessemer steel-making process, perfected independently by Englishman Henry Bessemer (1813–1898) and American William Kelly (1811–1888), which made the large-scale commercial production of steel possible. During the period of 1860–1880, there were seven principal iron- and steel-consuming industries in the United States: railroads, machinery construction, shipbuilding, agriculture, oil, gas, and containers. Notably, a shift in the pattern of consumption from iron to steel soon became apparent, particularly in the case of the railroads, which saw a transition from iron to steel rails. At the start of the period, iron-rail output amounted to 205,000 tons, and no steel rails were produced, but by 1880, steel-rail output was 968,000 tons, nearly twice the iron-rail volume of 494,000 tons. In 1890, the nation’s steel output totaled 4.8 million tons, more than triple the volume of a decade earlier, and it was destined to reach 11.4 million tons ten years later (Hogan 1987). The twentieth century brought an important change in how most of the nation’s steel was made. In 1908, the Bessemer converter, which had remained the dominant steelmaking process for nearly forty years, was displaced as the number-one producer by the openhearth furnace. Abram Stevens Hewitt of New York introduced the open-hearth furnace to the steel industry in 1867. The new workhorse permitted the use of higher phosphorus iron, was able to refine a greater portion of scrap, and provided steel significantly more uniform in composition. Developments in the technology, structure, and sheer enormity of the iron and steel industry rested largely on the infusion of laborers, of which there are three obvious sources: a natural population increase; the migration of rural laborers to the city; and immigration.

Immigration’s Impact

•

197

Immigrants manned the most physically demanding and dangerous jobs in the steel mills, working with open fires and vats of molten steel on a daily basis. (Philip Gendreau/Bettmann/Corbis)

Although U.S. manufacturing flourished for many reasons—including the availability of natural resources, capital investment, and systematic inventions—the immigration of millions of laborers was a vital component in the industrialization of America and particularly in the steel mills of Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. Living and work conditions in Pittsburgh and other emerging industrial centers became the focus of social reformers and humanitarians whose goal it was to identify and address urban problems and develop programs for the improvement of society. For example, life and labor in the Steel City became the subject of a major study sponsored in 1907 and 1908 by the Russell Sage Foundation. The Pittsburgh Survey was published in six volumes between 1909 and 1914. One volume in particular, The Steel Workers by social scientist John A. Fitch (1881–1959), provided an in-depth examination of the

198

•

Iron and Steel

wages, hours, and working conditions in addition to the ethnic and skill composition of the labor force in the Pittsburgh steel industry (Greenwald and Anderson 1996). Fitch’s experiences in Pittsburgh in 1907 led to a broader study of the steel industry in 1911–1912, The Human Side of Large Outputs: Steel and Steelworkers in Six American States. The work of Fitch offered a glimpse into the lives of the working class, and his experiences in the Pittsburgh region had a lasting impact. Reflecting on his work in 1920, Fitch commented: “Working men have lived in an atmosphere of espionage and repression. The deadening influence of an overwhelming power, capable of crushing whatever does not bend to its will, has in these towns stifled individual freedom, initiative, and robbed citizenship of its virility” (Warren 2001). As the American steel industry became the wonder of the industrial world, the long hours, low wages, and dreary conditions of millwork dominated the lives of its workers, and the success of the industry relied heavily upon immigrant labor.

The Infusion of Immigrant Labor and the Growth of the Steel Industry Iron production required a strong, skilled workforce. Skilled workers comprised primarily old immigrants—those from northern and western Europe who arrived in large numbers prior to 1890—and native-born U.S. stock. Traditionally, they held key positions in the iron-making process, such as puddlers, boilers, rollers, molders, and pattern makers. Positions such as these required years of training, acquired through apprenticeships and experience. As technological innovation took hold and steel surpassed iron, however, these positions became unnecessary and, eventually, obsolete. The 1890s brought a dismantling of the iron mills, and the basic steel companies employed hardly a puddler among them in 1900. The workers that held such positions either had to settle for any job available or became unemployed. A concentrated few of these individuals made their way into “white-collar” positions—working in clerical or supervisory roles— whereas others were forced to exit the mill altogether and attempt to succeed in other trades (Brody 1969; Kleinberg 1989).

Immigration’s Impact

•

199

The transition from iron to steel production between 1880 and 1930, coupled with the rapid expansion of the industry, created new unskilled and semiskilled jobs that were increasingly filled by immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. The influx of foreign-born workers to the United States transformed the working class and created an “ethnic mosaic,” not only in the mills but in the cities as well. After 1850, immigrant workers dominated U.S. industry in most eastern and midwestern cities. The 1850 census of Pittsburgh shows that immigrants made up 69.5 percent of the workers. At the time research was conducted for The Pittsburgh Survey, approximately 70,000 to 80,000 men from a variety of nationalities were employed in the manufacture of steel in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh and surrounding areas). Increased mechanization of the industry meant fewer skilled workers were needed; therefore, the percentage of highly skilled labor decreased while the percentage of unskilled labor steadily increased. By 1907, 81.4 percent of the unskilled laborers in the plants of the Carnegie Steel Company of Allegheny County were eastern Europeans (Brody 1969; Faires 1989; Oestreicher 1989). Clearly defined separations between the old and new immigrants created patterns of prejudice both inside and outside the mill, and cultural differences often translated into obvious economic differences. Newcomers, handicapped by language barriers and unfamiliar with the labor conditions in the United States, were at the bottom of the wage scale. A 1912 commentary on immigration suggested that “this new immigrant is so alien, so ignorant, and so helpless, that it takes refuge in the first industrial harbor it finds” (Dunlevy and Gemery 1978). The U.S. Immigration Commission reinforced these prejudices in a 1911 report, claiming that old immigrants came from more progressive sections of Europe and tended to remain permanently in the New World. With agricultural backgrounds, they became landowners and were quickly assimilated by the natives. In contrast, the new immigrants were “unskilled laboring men from the less progressive and advanced countries of Europe [who came to the United States] in response to the call for industrial workers in the eastern and middle western states” (ibid.). Because the new immigrants congregated in industrial cities apart from natives and old immigrants, assimilation was much slower. In addition, for the period of 1899 to 1909, more than 35 percent of the new immigrant

200

•

Iron and Steel

group was considered to be illiterate, as compared to less than 3 percent of the old immigrants. Trends of return migration, the predominance of males, and different religious affiliations (new immigrants were largely Catholic and Jewish, whereas natives and old immigrants—with the exception of the Irish—were predominantly Protestant) further justified prejudice toward the newcomers and increased nativism. The clear distinction between old immigrants and new and skilled and unskilled labor in the steel industry contributed to a number of ethnic divisions within the mill that were apparent throughout the mill town as well. “The influx of foreign labor dramatically increased the social divisions in the town, chiefly because the policy that encouraged European immigration also segregated newcomers into certain departments in the mills,” one account noted. “At the same time, segregation became more noticeable in the town’s residential areas” (Bodnar 1977). The Irish constituted the bulk of the old immigrant population in 1850, as the famine drove approximately 1.5 million people to the United States. More than 10,000 Irish settled in Pittsburgh, constituting 21.4 percent of the city’s population. The second-largest immigrant group were Germans, who constituted 10–15 percent of Pittsburgh residents from 1850 to 1870 (Faires 1989). British residents, as well, represented a sizable component of the population. Black residents constituted only about 2 percent of Pittsburgh’s population in 1870. As the new immigration took hold, however, southern and eastern European immigrants easily surpassed the population of their northern and western European predecessors in America. This trend was reflected in Pittsburgh as well, where Poles, Italians, and Slavs made up the greater part of the population and held the majority of unskilled positions in steel production. Pittsburgh steel towns were dismal and dirty, but living within close proximity to the mill was necessary. Thus, Poles congregated within a mile of the mills in “Polish Hill”; Lithuanians lived on the South Side, near the National Tube Works and the American Steel and Wire Company; and Slovaks congregated in “Soho,” or Pittsburgh’s Sixth Ward, around the Jones and Laughlin works (Kleinberg 1989). Ethnic diversity and settlement patterns were equally apparent in Gary, Indiana—the location chosen by United States Steel in 1906 for the construction of an industrial complex in the Midwest. The “Pitts-

Immigration’s Impact

•

201

burgh of the West” was home to row houses and shacks, nicknamed “Hungary Row” and “Hunkyville.” Immigrants from fifty-two separate nationalities made their home in Gary by 1920, and the population of foreign stock (either foreign born or native born with at least one immigrant parent) reached 60.5 percent of the city’s entire population (Mohl and Betten 1986). A federal commission led by Senator William P. Dillingham conducted a survey of U.S. unskilled labor at the turn of the twentieth century. The commission’s findings were included in a final report in 1911 consisting of forty-two volumes. Research pertaining to the steel industry revealed that Slovaks made up the largest proportion of steelworkers at 13.1 percent of the total population, whereas Poles came in second with 7.5 percent. These immigrant groups were attracted to steel because the wage within the industry was the closest, at $12.93 a week, to matching the average wage of the native born ($14.37 a week). Slovak men in general made 17 percent less than the average nativeborn American at the turn of the century. Mill Hunkies was a popular slang term used to describe Slavs who worked in the mills and eventually became part of America’s middle-class culture (Stolarik 1974). The Carnegie Steel Company’s classification of employees by skill and race placed German (Teuton)- and Irish (Celt)-born workers in the “English-speaking white” category; Slavs and “all other” southern and eastern Europeans were totaled separately. “Colored” workers were not included in either total. The proportion of Slavs, who formed a solid majority of the employees of the Carnegie Steel Company, emphasizes the effects of turn-of-the-century immigration upon the labor conditions in the iron and steel industry. In mill towns, community ties often intersected with mill relationships. Company officials were often “leading” citizens, and their presence on school boards, chambers of commerce, and other councils often set the tone of life in the mill town. Homestead, with twelve mills, was one of the world’s largest industrial complexes in the late nineteenth century. Of its 11,000 residents, 3,800 men worked in the mills—virtually one person from every household. Steelworkers, and not only “company men,” were commonly involved in the community, city government, and police department. Skilled workers at Homestead, one of the most advanced mills in the world at that time, were unionized prior to 1892. Trade unions covering all the skilled crafts in the mills had been established in the early years of the iron and steel industry, and they joined together in

202

•

Iron and Steel

A rusting old sign marks the Homestead Works, one of numerous U.S. Steel facilities that employed thousands of immigrants during the “age of steel.” (Nathan Benn/Corbis)

1876 to form the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. At the height of its membership in 1891, the Amalgamated boasted more than 24,000 members and quickly became one of the country’s strongest unions. During contract negotiations at Homestead in 1889, skilled members of the Amalgamated secured wages one-third higher than those paid to their neighboring counterparts. In addition, the wages of unorganized, unskilled workers were gauged to those of the skilled craftsmen, making the contract beneficial to skilled, unionized workers as well as unskilled, unorganized workers. But Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick saw the union as an obstacle to their desire for a cheap and compliant workforce at Homestead and were determined to break its power. In June 1892, Frick used a dispute over wages and work rules as an opportunity to break off contract renewal negotiations, announcing that in the future, the company would bargain only with individuals—

Immigration’s Impact

•

203

not the union. The union responded by calling a strike. On July 2, Frick shut down the Homestead works, surrounded it with fence, and prepared to reopen it with nonunion workers, escorted by 300 armed Pinkerton Guards. Although the Amalgamated was able to mobilize the majority of Homestead residents in support, a full-scale battle between the strikers and the Pinkertons erupted, leaving nine strikers and three Pinkerton agents dead and many more wounded. Ultimately, the Pinkertons surrendered to the workers (Lichtenstein, Strasser, and Rosenzweig 2000). The Carnegie Steel Company persuaded the governor of Pennsylvania to send in a militia of 8,000 men to protect the strikebreakers, which allowed the plant to reopen with nonunion workers. Four months later, on November 20, 1892, members of the defeated Amalgamated surrendered, dealing a crushing blow to unionism in the mill. The victory of capital over labor, as embodied in the Homestead strike of 1892, was a recurring theme in the steel industry throughout the first quarter of the twentieth century.

Early-Twentieth-Century Unionism As steel production soared from the nineteenth century into the twentieth, the plight of labor became more apparent. The lives of immigrants were largely intertwined with the industry. Thousands of workers labored in the steel mills of the United States, their lives ruled by the economy and the modern steel masters. Labor was not a matter of sentiment, but primarily an item of cost, and every effort was undertaken to lower the labor cost per ton of steel. Wages were typically kept low, and laborers worked ten- to twelve-hour shifts, seven days per week. Safety standards for steel mills, as well as mines and other industries, were virtually nonexistent at the turn of the twentieth century, and countless immigrant workers were killed in steel mill explosions and other industrial accidents. Newspapers printed in the native languages reported such events to the immigrant community. The Hungarian publication Szabadság, for example, reported twelve Hungarians killed in a 1901 steel mill explosion in Pittsburgh, and fourteen Hungarians killed (out of thirty workers total) in a 1911 steel mill explosion in Youngstown, Ohio.

204

•

Iron and Steel

Many industrialists disregarded the welfare of immigrant workers, considering them inferior and, therefore, easily replaced. Thus, the availability of a “disposable” labor force gave employers the luxury of engaging in irresponsible and careless behavior toward their workers. In the mill, unskilled southern and eastern European workers had an accidental death rate twice that of the general male population. Steelworkers usually had the highest percentage of fatal work accidents, followed by railroad workers and miners. Steel companies realized the high element of danger associated with the industry but took few steps to ensure the safety of the mill workers and offered no death benefits to the widows and families of those killed in the mill. Prior to unions, mutual-aid societies established by churches and various immigrant groups were the only source of support, oftentimes providing burial funds and temporary financial assistance for food. Factory inspection and workers’ compensation laws were virtually absent in the industries of the early twentieth century, as were regulatory commissions to oversee such activities. Although companies contended that most accidents were due to negligence, physical and mental exhaustion was commonplace in the mills due to the long hours and tedious working conditions. A lack of mental alertness, coupled in many cases with the immigrant worker’s unfamiliarity with the English language, contributed to the dangerous conditions to which workers were exposed. By 1911, the United States had the highest rate of industrial accidents in the world. According to a 1910 federal government survey, the eastern European immigrants who constituted 75 percent of U.S. Steel’s workforce received less than $12.50 per week, significantly below the $15.00 per week that an urban family needed to subsist. The desire for better wages, shorter hours, and improved working conditions attracted more workers to unions in an attempt to protect their interests, but corporations continued to discourage union membership. Some workers were forced to sign contracts that bound them to reject unions in order to keep their jobs. Other businesses used boycotts to encourage antiunionism, and Bethlehem Steel went so far as to refuse to sell steel to companies that employed union labor (Goldfield et al. 2002). In 1909, U.S. Steel Corporation stopped negotiating with all unions. This decree alone, however, did not banish unions or ensure labor peace. U.S. Steel combined its antiunion policies with welfare

Immigration’s Impact

•

205

capitalism, a paternalistic system of labor relations that emphasized management responsibility for employee well-being. Stock option plans, pension benefits, accident insurance, health and safety programs, and housing plans were introduced but remained largely under the administration of individual plant managers. Such measures were not aimed solely at the skilled workforce, but affected also the unskilled and semiskilled worker, especially immigrants. U.S. Steel, for example, did not necessarily distinguish skill as a factor in its programs, which left managers at the individual plants free to provide pensions and company housing for unskilled and semiskilled immigrant workers (Rose 2001). The corporation’s welfare programs had a particularly strong effect on the immigrant labor force because these workers eventually came to view their steel employment as permanent. Although many had come to the United States with plans to make money and return to their homelands, by the end of the 1910s, greater numbers of immigrant steelworkers had settled permanently in the United States. Most immigrant steelworkers sought stability and security from their jobs. Welfare programs offered housing and pension programs that helped provide security, so they held particular appeal to immigrant workmen. Even during hard economic times, these workers remained in the mill towns and did not return to their homelands. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, many southern and eastern European workers had already labored in the mill for twenty years. Through sheer persistence, some had moved into semiskilled positions and welcomed the opportunity for corporate pensions and home ownership (ibid.). The scope of welfare capitalism was limited and did not resolve the problems faced by most industrial workers. Material poverty prevailed; in addition, the workers had virtually no leisure time and little family life. But life was quite different for the directors, managers, and stockholders of industry. For example, the average hourly wage for the workers of U.S. Steel was twenty cents in 1902, and it did not rise above twenty-six cents until 1916. In contrast, U.S. Steel directors received twenty dollars for attending the board meeting once a month and were paid ten cents for every mile they traveled to get to the meeting (Warren 2001). A climate of oppression, fear, and suspicion existed in the steel industry in the early twentieth century. Membership in a labor union was considered un-American, and organized labor was perceived as a

206

•

Iron and Steel

threat to democracy. Immigrants in particular were targeted for their questionable political ideologies and attachments to their homelands. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 fueled these concerns but also boosted industrial production, as the United States geared up for the manufacture of war machinery. “Red scare” hysteria swept the country in 1919, directed largely against labor activists, radical dissenters, and various ethnic groups. As a result, the promise of democracy was unattainable for many immigrants. Oppression from industry leaders and society at large could not contain the workers’ discontent, however, and more than 4 million workers from a variety of industries launched a wave of 3,600 strikes in 1919. The most important strike in the steel industry began in September of that year. Rhetoric about democracy during World War I inspired workers to demand their rights—including the right of union membership. On September 22, more than 350,000 steelworkers left their jobs, practically shutting down the industry. Strike ballots distributed by the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers were printed in English, Croatian, Hungarian, Italian, Slovak, and Polish, resulting in a mobilization of immigrant workers across the country. In spite of the mass mobilization, the steel companies—dominated by U.S. Steel—refused to address the workers’ demands and instead responded with a “reign of terror,” supported for the most part by local governments. Strikers met with violent opposition and in many cases were beaten, arrested, or shot. Outdoor meetings of workers were prohibited in Pittsburgh, and federal troops occupied the city of Gary, Indiana. The company brought in African American and Mexican American workers as strikebreakers, which only fueled the existing racial and ethnic tensions (Lichtenstein, Strasser, and Rosenzweig 2000). Immigrant steelworkers held their ground, and many native workers moved to the sidelines. Regardless, the strike eventually weakened, and the workers were defeated. The company once again dealt a crushing blow to unionism in the steel industry. Unions did not enjoy success in America until 1935, when a series of supportive laws were passed under the umbrella of the New Deal. The National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act, after New York senator Robert Wagner, who introduced it) guaranteed workers the right to select their own unions by majority vote and to strike, boycott, and picket their employers. It banned “unfair labor practices” by employers, such as the maintenance of company-

Immigration’s Impact

•

207

dominated unions, the blacklisting of union activists, and the firing or intimidation of workers who joined an independent union. It also established the National Labor Relations Board to address employee complaints. The Steel Workers’ Organizing Committee (SWOC) was formed in 1930. As its membership exceeded 700,000 in 1942, SWOC changed its name to the United Steelworkers of America. Finally, steelworkers across the country were afforded the rights of industrial democracy they had long sought (ibid.).

Sources Bell, Thomas. 1976. Out of This Furnace: A Novel of Immigrant Labor in America. 1941. Reprint, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Bodnar, John. 1977. Immigration and Industrialization: Ethnicity in an American Mill Town, 1870–1940. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ———. 1985. The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Brody, David. 1969. Steelworkers in America: The Nonunion Era. New York: Harper & Row. Chapman, Herrick. 1989. “Pittsburgh and Europe’s Metallurgical Cities: A Comparison.” In City at the Point: Essays on the Social History of Pittsburgh, edited by Samuel P. Hays. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Dudley, William, ed. 1998. The Industrial Revolution: Opposing Viewpoints. American History Series, edited by Bruno Leone. San Diego: Greenhaven Press. Dunlevy, James A., and Henry A. Gemery. 1978. “Economic Opportunity and the Responses of the ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Migrants to the United States.” Journal of Economic History 38, no. 4 (December). Faires, Nora. 1989. “Immigrants and Industry: Peopling the ‘Iron City.’” In City at the Point: Essays on the Social History of Pittsburgh, edited by Samuel P. Hays. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Fitch, John A. 1989. The Steel Workers. Vol. 3 of The Pittsburgh Survey: Findings in Six Volumes, edited by Paul Underwood Kellogg. 1911. Reprint, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Foner, Eric, and John A. Garraty, eds. 1991. The Reader’s Companion to American History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Gabaccia, Donna. 1994. From the Other Side: Women, Gender, and Immigrant Life in the U.S., 1820–1990. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gibson, Campbell J., and Emily Lennon. 1999. Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-Born Population of the United States, 1850–1990. Population Division Working Paper no. 29. Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census. Goldfield, David, et al. 2002. The American Journey: A History of the United States, 3d ed. Englewood, Cliffs, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

208

•

Iron and Steel

Greenwald, Maurine W., and Margo Anderson. 1996. Pittsburgh Surveyed: Social Science and Social Reform in the Early Twentieth Century. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Hogan, William T., S.J. 1987. “The Twentieth Century Metal.” World & I 2 (February). Hourwich, Isaac A. 1969. Immigration and Labor: The Economic Aspects of European Immigration to the United States. 1912. Reprint, New York: Arno Press and the New York Times. An Immigrant Nation: United States Regulation of Immigration, 1789–1991. 1991. Washington, DC: Immigration and Naturalization Service Historical Reference Library. Kleinberg, S. J. 1989. The Shadow of the Mills: Working Class Families in Pittsburgh, 1870–1907. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Kraus, George. 1969. “Chinese Laborers and the Construction of the Central Pacific Railroad.” Utah Historical Quarterly 37, no. 1 (winter): 41–57. Leiserson, William M. 1969. Adjusting Immigrant and Industry. 1924. Reprint, New York: Arno & the New York Times. Lichtenstein, Nelson, Susan Strasser, and Roy Rosenzweig. 2000. Who Built America? Working People and the Nation’s Economy, Politics, Culture, and Society. Vol. 2, Since 1877. American Social History Project, the City University of New York, edited by Stephen Brier. New York: Worth Publishers. Martin, Philip, and Elizabeth Midgley. 1999. “Immigration to the United States.” Population Bulletin 54, no. 2 (June). Miller, Marilyn, and Marian Faux, eds. 1997. The New York Public Library American History Desk Reference. New York: Macmillan. Mohl, Raymond A., and Neil Betten. 1986. Steel City: Urban and Ethnic Patterns in Gary, Indiana, 1906–1905. New York: Holmes & Meier. Morawska, Ewa. 1986. “The Immigrants Pictured and Unpictured in the Pittsburgh Survey.” In Pittsburgh Surveyed: Social Science and Social Reform in the Early Twentieth Century, edited by Maurine W. Greenwald and Margo Anderson, 221–241. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Murolo, Priscilla, and A. B. Chitty. 2001. From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend: A Short, Illustrated History of Labor in the United States. New York: New Press. Murrin, John M., et al. 2001. Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People. New York: Harcourt. Oestreicher, Richard. 1989. “Working-Class Formation, Development, and Consciousness in Pittsburgh, 1790–1960.” In City at the Point: Essays on the Social History of Pittsburgh, edited by Samuel P. Hays. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Olson, James Stuart. 1979. The Ethnic Dimension in American History. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Poole, Keith T. 2000. Entrepreneurs and Economic Growth: Andrew Carnegie. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University. Rose, James D. 2001. Duquesne and the Rise of Steel Unionism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Immigration’s Impact

•

209

Riis, Jacob. 1957. How the Other Half Lives. 1890. Reprint, New York: Hill and Wang. Stolarik, Marian Mark. 1974. Immigration and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 1870–1918. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Walling, William English. 1971. American Labor and American Democracy. 1926. Reprint, New York: Arno & the New York Times. Warren, Kenneth. 2001. Big Steel: The First Century of the United States Steel Corporation, 1901–2001. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Wey, Nancy. 1988. “The Chinese in California.” In Five Views: An Ethnic Historic Site Survey for California. Sacramento: California Department of Parks and Recreation, Office of Historic Preservation. Wilson, Woodrow. 2002. History of the American People. 5 vols. 1902. Reprint, N.p: University Press of the Pacific. Zinn, Howard. 1999. A People’s History of the United States, 1492–Present. New York: Harper Collins.

Societal Impact Leigh Kimmel

A

t the beginning of the nineteenth century, the manner of producing iron and steel in the United States was virtually unchanged from the methods used in medieval Europe. The processes consumed large quantities of time and resources yet produced only small quantities of metal. As a result, iron and steel were rare and valuable, and products incorporating the metals were limited. In the last few decades of the nineteenth century, however, several major technological innovations changed this situation dramatically, making iron and particularly steel less expensive and available in larger quantities than ever imagined possible. The increased availability of iron and steel led to other new technologies, which in turn drove social change both within the industry and in the United States at large. As the iron and steel industry developed, its production facilities made a gradual transition from small mills run by skilled craftsmen to large mills employing unskilled immigrant labor. The changing demographics of the workforce led to an industry focus on scientific management principles, which in turn fostered organized resistance among employees. Some of the capitalists who made their fortunes in iron and steel eventually tried to give something back to the workers, through either philanthropy or the introduction of employee-welfare programs. The rising iron and steel industry also contributed to a number of broad changes in American society. For example, the greater availability and higher quality of iron and steel products changed the look 211

212

•

Iron and Steel

of American cities by making possible the construction of skyscrapers. It also facilitated mobility among the American people by providing components to the nascent automobile industry. Furthermore, it led to the creation of steel-hulled warships that charted the future direction of the U.S. Navy.

The New Workplace In the early decades of the nineteenth century, the production of iron and steel products depended upon slow and difficult processes. Bog iron, limestone, and charcoal were combined in relatively small blast furnaces operated by bellows or waterwheels, and the resultant pig iron was worked on a forge to make wrought iron. Steel was made by cementation, a time-consuming process of beating together bars of iron that produced a metal of uneven quality, often contaminated and weakened by impurities in the fuel. A slightly better form of steel could be formed by cooking bars of wrought iron in a graphite crucible. All of these processes could produce only small quantities of metal. The iron industry’s dependence upon charcoal for smelting required access to large tracts of timber. As a result, most iron was produced on “iron plantations” in rural areas, and the industry retained an almost feudal character in the relationships between owner and employee. The difficulties involved in producing iron and steel made metal products rare and valuable, and a person who could make extensive use of them held great social cachet. Abandoned houses would be burned in order to recover the nails within them. In some frontier areas, nails were even used as a sort of barter currency due to their extreme scarcity. In other areas, wooden pegs were used as substitutes for nails in constructing barns and other buildings. Steel was even more valuable than iron, and such implements as files would often be subsequently reworked into knives or other tools as their original utility diminished from wear. The first major change in the iron and steel industry was the adoption of mineral fuels for blast furnaces in the 1830s. Both high-quality anthracite coal and lower-quality coking coals freed the blast furnace from dependence upon charcoal-producing timber. The essentially rural culture of the iron plantation gave way to the company town, an urban workplace running on clock time. The pater-

Societal Impact

•

213

nalistic relationship of employer to worker, in turn, gave way to a more impersonal, pay-driven relationship of management and proletariat. The change of fuels also led to the construction of much larger blast furnaces, driven by “hot-blast” technology in which the waste gases of the furnace were used to heat the air blown into the furnace and increase the rate of burning. Whereas a charcoal-burning blast furnace might be able to produce 1,000 tons of iron a year, a coalburning one might easily produce as much as 5,000 tons (Temin 1964). The introduction of the Bessemer process, independently discovered by Sir Henry Bessemer in England and William Kelly in the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century, allowed rapid production of large quantities of steel and completed the transformation of the industry. Earlier methods of steelmaking required large amounts of skilled labor using rule-of-thumb craft skills yet could produce only tiny amounts of steel. Bessemer converters, on the other hand, allowed the use of scientific controls and relatively unskilled labor to rapidly produce large quantities. Some of the larger crucible furnaces could produce 60 or 100 pounds of steel, but even small Bessemer converters measured outputs in tons. The demand for large numbers of cheap, unskilled laborers for the new mills led to a major change in U.S. demographics. Previous waves of immigrants had come from the British Isles and northern Europe—English, Scots, Irish, Germans, Dutch, and Scandinavians. With the exception of the Irish, who were Roman Catholic, these immigrants were Protestants. The new waves of immigrants came largely from eastern and southern Europe and included Slavs, Magyars, and Italians. Drawing from Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox traditions, these immigrants were very different in outlook from the British and northern European immigrants. Successive waves of immigration formed ethnic enclaves both on the job and at home. Newcomers looked to their cultural brethren for help getting jobs, leading to extensive corruption and practices such as bribing foremen in order to obtain employment. Management saw segregation in mills as useful to their purposes, because proletariats divided along ethnic lines were far less likely to work together for their betterment. These new immigrants came to the United States either hoping to escape rural serfdom or because they were displaced after its abolition, but they often exchanged harsh landlords for hard and often dangerous labor in the mills. It was a very grim life, characterized by

214

•

Iron and Steel

unsanitary, substandard housing, social and economic discrimination, political suppression, and a hideous rate of accidents and death at work. The fact that many of these immigrants spoke little or no English only served to increase the accident rates, because supervisors often could not communicate safety procedures effectively. Accidents and other misfortunes often spelled destitution for these immigrants, as they had no provisions for sick leave or workers’ compensation insurance. Immigrants’ ignorance of the ways of urban life made their situations even worse. They did not know where to turn for help when misfortune struck or when a trusted associate betrayed them. They were easy prey for dishonest or exploitative employers. They often continued to follow customs of living that, though quite suitable for a rural community, soon made an urban apartment block squalid and unsanitary. They were regarded as a threat to the American way of life by various nativist groups who wanted to keep the United States a primarily Protestant culture. Although some groups simply worked to deny eastern and southern European immigrant groups opportunities for betterment, others turned to outright violence. The immigrants lived rough lives in which their primary form of after-hours entertainment was drinking. No contemporary description of a mill town was complete without an enumeration of the saloons. The other major amusement was the numbers racket, an illegal lottery in which the men could bet on a draw of three numbers. These games could be found all over the steel towns in a time before legalized state lottery daily games. In addition to the immigrant steelworkers, there were also many African American workers in the steel mills. Although they were often resented by whites, they found less discrimination in the steel industry than they did in other sectors of post–Civil War U.S. society. A number of African Americans were skilled workers, having learned the trade as slaves at the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia. The owners of this premier steel mill of the South had turned to employing slaves—mostly rented from various owners but some owned directly by the mill—after free laborers proved difficult to direct and apt to strike for higher wages. Following abolition, many of the freedmen sought work in northern steel mills, because Tredegar and other southern foundries were falling on hard times as a result of the war’s devastation of their former markets.

Societal Impact

•

215

An African American steelworker’s family in Pittsburgh, ca. 1930s. (Library of Congress)

Thomas Bell’s novel Out of This Furnace drew a literary portrait of the hardships faced by steelworkers of the late nineteenth century. He rendered an unsparing account of the dangers they routinely faced, from explosions and unshielded mechanisms to diseasespreading trash and stagnant water in the vicinity of the mills. However, unlike his contemporary Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle, which dealt with the conditions of workers at the meatpacking plants and provided a vivid portrayal of contaminated foods, Bell did not elicit a visceral reaction of disgust from his readers, and his work resulted in relatively little in the way of reforming legislation.

216

•

Iron and Steel

Scientific Management The shift from small operations dominated by craft skills to large operations employing unskilled labor had profound implications for not only the culture of the steel industry but also workplace culture in general. It led to new ways of thinking about work as well as a scientific study of work methods and how they could be improved to increase both safety and profits. One of the leading figures in this process was Frederick W. Taylor, who lent his name to the leading philosophy of scientific management. His methods for speeding up processes were satirized by Charlie Chaplin in the comedy film Modern Times, which reflected substantial resentment by the working class toward the methods used by Taylor and his followers. Taylor was born on March 20, 1865, in Philadelphia. His Quaker family believed in stern self-discipline and plain living, in spite of their considerable wealth. As a child he was a compulsive measurer, always alert for better ways to do things, and even invented a harness to prevent himself from sleeping on his back in order to stop nightmares he had in that position. Although his parents expected him to study the liberal arts in a prestigious university, Taylor went to Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey for a degree in engineering. Determined to make the best use of his time, he also held down a full-time job in a factory, further alienating his genteel family. His degree completed, he then returned to Philadelphia to work in a machine shop. Taylor first developed his interest in principles of scientific management of industrial process while conducting experiments on ways of developing better tool steels. At that time, the very high-quality steels used in machine tools still had to be made in tiny quantities using the same craft techniques of crucible melting that had previously produced all steel. The growing demand for machine tools to furnish a steadily growing number of machine shops made the problem of tool steel a major bottleneck, and Taylor wanted to find a way of transforming tool-steel production as the Bessemer converter had transformed the production of lower-quality steels for railroad track. From this research grew Taylor’s ideas of there being “one best way” to perform each task. He believed that this best way could be discovered by breaking down each task into its component motions and analyzing them for wasted movement—the time and motion

Societal Impact

•

217

studies that were the target of Chaplin’s visual wit in Modern Times. One of Taylor’s earliest studies of machining on a lathe, for example, broke the process down into twelve variables that could be changed one at a time in a controlled way to attain the best output. He also introduced the use of the stopwatch to time industrial processes and developed a special circular slide rule from which one could read proper settings for any job. He was instrumental in the development of engineering as a profession, as opposed to a craft. At the same time, he faced significant opposition from those who saw his practices as a threat to the role of the skilled machinist. Under Taylorism, performance improvements could best be attained by stripping initiative from the individual worker, who effectively became an organic machine. This attitude was only reinforced by the influx of large numbers of unskilled immigrants with little or no knowledge of English to the steel mills. Taylor’s methods reinforced a strong tendency among managers to rely upon “control” methods of management, treating workers as replaceable parts who responded only to orders and would neither take initiative nor accept responsibility for their work. Such a view—which held that workers needed intense supervision and that low-level supervisors, such as floor foremen, were little better—led to a lengthy hierarchy like that of an army, with painfully slow promotion paths for anyone who had ambitions to climb from the shop floor to the office. Taylor also regarded the average employee as being primarily mercenary in his attitude toward his work and his employer. If workers were motivated primarily by monetary reward, Taylor theorized, the best way to get them to work better was to provide incentive systems, paying bonuses for excellent production levels. Conversely, the best way to keep them from doing things detrimental to the plant was to establish a system of financial penalties, docking workers a portion of their pay for violations of the safety code or other failures. To the Taylorist, there was no point in trying to develop any sense of commitment to the employer or the work, as the proletariat was viewed as incapable of such sentiments. As a result, such positive actions as safety measures were often implemented in a draconian fashion that was divorced from the realities of how the workplace functioned. The rules thus served only to create resentment among the employees, who often felt management had placed them in an impossible situation where they could not simultaneously do their jobs and follow safety regulations. One steel-

218

•

Iron and Steel

worker later described a situation in which he was expected to work on an open framework in the rain. When his safety goggles became spattered and fogged to the point that he could not see his fellow worker well enough to do the job safely, he took the goggles off. A supervisor then threatened to dock his pay for not wearing proper safety equipment (Misa 1995). As Taylor grew more well known, he came to rely more upon his books and speaking tours for his income. After a job with Bethlehem Steel in 1901, in which he was accused of trying to depopulate the entire Pennsylvania valley through his methods of increasing efficiency, he never worked as an employee again. In 1915 he contracted influenza while on a speaking tour and died the day after his fifty-ninth birthday. Although Taylor’s theories had their birth in the steel industry, their application was not restricted to it, and they spread rapidly throughout industrial America. Taylorism soon moved beyond factories to office work, where managers studied how secretaries and clerks went about their tasks in order to find ways to improve their productivity. In the exuberance so characteristic of the Progressive Era, efficiency experts and their disciples hoped to bring about a complete economic and moral transformation of society by applying Taylorist principles to all aspects of life. One of the best-known examples of this philosophy can be found in the book Cheaper by the Dozen, by Frank B. Gilbreth. The son of one of the earliest efficiency experts, Gilbreth chronicles his experience of growing up in a household run like a factory, with the parents continually teaching their twelve children how to find the quickest and most efficient ways to do everything in their lives, from washing and dressing to learning foreign languages and advanced mathematics. Although the tone of Gilbreth’s autobiographical account is humorous, the interest in improving all aspects of life through principles of scientific management was very serious among the reformers of those days.

Resistance from the Unions Such changes in the workplace did not come about easily. Efforts to improve efficiency through scientific management principles often met with intense resistance from the skilled workers who saw their

Societal Impact

•

219

The steel created in facilities like this Cleveland mill produced the materials needed for building skyscrapers and highways in the first half of the twentieth century—but these operations took a heavy ecological toll. (Charles E. Rotkin/Corbis)

livelihood being destroyed. These workers sought to use their organizational strength to fight the mill owners’ drive to erode their positions. On August 4, 1876, four organizations of iron- and steelworkers—the Sons of Vulcan; the Associated Brotherhood of Iron and Steel Heaters, Rollers, and Roughers of the United States; the Iron and Steel Roll Hands’ Union; and the United Nailers—joined together to form the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers. Membership in all of the parent organizations was restricted to highly skilled workers, and the Amalgamated continued the policy of excluding the unskilled workers who formed a steadily growing percentage of the workers in the plants. At first, the Amalgamated had enough power and prestige to negotiate high wages and good working conditions for its members.

220

•

Iron and Steel

The power of the Amalgamated peaked in 1891, at which time it had 24,000 workers (Misa 1995). However, its leverage was already eroding as the management of steelmaking companies grew more virulently antiunion. In 1892, Carnegie Steel became determined to break the power of the Amalgamated when the union led a strike at the company’s plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania. Carnegie’s number-two man, Henry Clay Frick, took charge of the situation and summoned Pinkerton guards to break the strike. The Pinkerton guards were known in organized labor circles for their brutality in handling strikes. Atrocities were common on both sides. Determined not to go down quietly, the workers fought back so fiercely that a number of the Pinkertons actually surrendered to them. The surrendered agents were forced to run a gauntlet of angry workers and their families. Nine strikers and three Pinkerton men died in the ensuing violence, and more than sixty were injured. The survivors subsequently fled across the Monongahela River to the marginal safety of the other side. The fighting only ended when the governor called in the National Guard. More than eight thousand troops came to quell the strikers and restore order at the mill. Resentment remained intense, however, and an attempt was made on Frick’s life shortly after the strike was crushed. Determined to show no weakness, Frick returned to work immediately, then attended the funeral of one of his children, whose fatal illness has often been directly attributed to the strike (Bridge 1991). The Amalgamated was further hurt by corporate mergers throughout the late 1890s. In the era of cutthroat competition among many small companies, the threat of a strike had often been enough to bring worried management to heel, lest their competitors gain a fatal advantage during the shutdown period. As the industry became concentrated in fewer, larger corporations, however, it became easier for management to shift work to nonunion plants and continue operations. This was exactly what the newly formed United States Steel Corporation did in 1901 when the Amalgamated tried to demand union rates. U.S. Steel’s stated policies were antiunion, and the corporate officials were crudely hostile toward the workers’ demands. In this face-off, the Amalgamated’s long-standing refusal to admit unskilled workers came back to haunt them, as the excluded workers were quite willing to cross picket lines and work as “scabs” to keep the plants running.

Societal Impact

•

221

By 1909 U.S. Steel no longer recognized the Amalgamated as a collective-bargaining unit, although it survived as a name in the official files of the American Federation of Labor. For the next several decades, the workers of the steel industry would remain unorganized. This period is often referred to in labor history as the “nonunion era” of steel. Only in 1936 would the Council of Industrial Organizations begin the first tentative steps of reorganizing labor in the steel industry, with the Steel Workers’ Organizing Committee (SWOC). As it gained recognition, it changed its name to the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) in 1942. One of the leading organizers of the USWA was Philip Murray. Born in 1886 in Scotland to Irish Catholic parents, he left school at the age of ten to join his father in the mines. His father was a union official and inculcated unionism in his son from an early age. In 1902 the family emigrated to the United States and took jobs at the mines at Madison in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. After a fight with a crooked pit boss resulted in both father and son being fired, Philip was permanently convinced of the necessity of unionization—not just to secure an adequate wage but also to protect workers from abuses by their supervisors. By 1905 he had risen to become the president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) local at his new location in Horning, Pennsylvania. Murray was a softspoken man who preferred persuasion and conciliatory tactics to the brutal confrontations common at the time, but he never collaborated with the owners of the mines in order to reach an agreement. By 1915 Murray had become president of UMWA District 5, which covered all of western Pennsylvania. By this time his reputation for fair dealing had spread throughout the union. In 1920 he supported John L. Lewis for the UMWA presidency, and in return he was made vice president and chief aide to Lewis. Two more opposite men could hardly be imagined. Lewis enjoyed good living and regularly socialized with men of wealth and station. Murray remained close to his laboring roots, preferring plain clothes, simple entertainment, and the fellowship of other workingmen. Murray’s new position put him near the top of the UMWA at the time when the coal operators were putting considerable effort into crushing the union. Lewis took the position of “not one step backward,” refusing to accept the mine owners’ attempts to reduce wages from rates agreed upon during World War I (Perlman and Taft 1935). By the 1930s, Murray called upon the SWOC for assistance in hold-

222

•

Iron and Steel

ing the line against the continual encroachments of the mine owners, thus developing the common interest between the miners and the workers in an industry that was one of the principal consumers of coal. In spite of those bitter conflicts with the mine owners, Murray later began to believe that it might actually be possible for labor and management to cooperate for the mutual benefit of both Philip Murray addresses delegates at the 1941 sides. In 1939 Murray Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIP) coauthored Organized convention in Detroit. (Hulton-Deutsch Labor and Production Collection/Corbis) with Morris Cooke, a liberal with strong ties to capitalist interests. In fact, Murray did little actual work on the book, and only at the end of the process did he actually read it and discover that it espoused ideas offensive to him. Although this book with his name on it did acknowledge that workers could have worthwhile suggestions, the overall tone suggested that workers remember their place and not presume upon the authority of management. After this bitter betrayal, Murray retreated from leadership roles. He died on November 9, 1952.

The New City Even as the company towns in which the steelworkers lived grew steadily more squalid and miserable, the corporate offices downtown underwent a transformation of their own. As land for office buildings in New York, Chicago, and other major metropolitan areas of

Societal Impact

•

223

the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries became more expensive, there was a strong incentive to build upward. However, structural considerations limited how high one could push a masonry building before the load-bearing piers and walls became impractically thick and the windows too small to admit sufficient light. At first, builders attempting to achieve greater height turned to cast-iron columns, often formed from four quarter-circle pieces that were bolted together to form a single tubular column. Cast iron possessed good compression strength, important for load-bearing members, but it simply could not be worked rapidly enough to keep up with the demands of a rapidly growing construction industry. Furthermore, it was not possible to set a cast-iron column inside a masonry pier because weather-related expansion and contraction in the metal would soon destroy the brickwork. In 1884 Carnegie Steel won the structural contract for the Home Insurance Company Building in Chicago. One of the earliest tall buildings in the United States, it was often referred to as the father of the skyscraper (the building was demolished in 1931 to make room for the downtown headquarters of Marshall Field’s, the famous Chicago retailer). The construction of this nine-story structure pioneered the use of steel beams, which led to new techniques of designing and constructing downtown office buildings. The architect, William Le Baron Jenney, hit upon the idea of extending the lintels over the windows to connect with the columns and the floors, creating a structure rather like a birdcage. This technique was known as a skeleton structure, because the iron or steel structural members formed an internal framework upon which thin walls hung. Though this technique was popular in Chicago, New York building codes were intensely hostile to it. As a result, skyscraper builders in New York City shifted to a style called cage construction, in which the exterior walls supported their own weight and the steel “birdcage” supported the floors. Steel beams had the advantage of being produced rapidly, but the U.S. steel industry had become so heavily focused on Bessemer steel for rails that it had difficulty adapting to the different demands of structural work. A relatively poor steel that could handle the weight of trains would fail catastrophically when used for load-bearing beams, possibly causing an entire building to collapse and leading to the deaths of hundreds or thousands of people. Thus, the changing form of the U.S. downtown led back to changes in the steel industry, particularly a shift from Bessemer tech-

224

•

Iron and Steel

Two iron workers straddle steel girders on top of the Empire State Building as it nears completion, 1931. (Library of Congress)

nology to the Siemens-Martin open-hearth furnace. Whereas the Bessemer converter could produce steel rapidly, in a matter of minutes, it produced a less uniform product. By contrast, the openhearth furnace cooked its iron to steel over a period of hours, resulting in a product relatively free of impurities. Open-hearth steel generally had a much greater tensile strength than Bessemer steel and could be relied upon to produce structural beams that would bear up under the loads of tall buildings. With the development of a material that could support height, the shape of U.S. cities moved from relatively low buildings to increasingly tall towers. By contrast, European cities generally rejected the drive for height in favor of spreading outward and as a result maintained their character, unchanged well into the twentieth century. Church steeples continued to dominate their skylines, quite unlike the most prominent structures in Manhattan or Chicago’s Loop.

Societal Impact

•

225

Smokestacks and railroad tracks bristle from this Carnegie steel plant in Pittsburgh. (Bettmann/Corbis)

By the close of the 1920s, New York City was already producing such ambitious superskyscraper projects as the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, art-deco giants that would provide potent imagery for motion pictures such as King Kong. The Great Depression put an end to this exuberance, and skyscraper building remained more modest in scope until the 1960s, the era of the World Trade Center and the Sears Tower, which used new structural and elevator-control technologies to press height beyond all previous limits. (After the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center in a terrorist attack, however, many city planners began to argue that hundred-plus-floor skyscrapers were not economical uses of resources and that the optimal range for an office tower was around eighty floors.) The distinctive skylines created by giant skyscrapers, with clusters of more modest fifty- to eighty-floor towers around them, lent such

226

•

Iron and Steel

cities as New York and Chicago an image almost phallic in nature. The very existence of such giants, even early ones such as the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, presented a clear statement about the power of the nation that had erected them. As the United States was coming into its own as a great power after World War I brought it out of its traditional isolationism, such statements seemed appropriate ways of flexing metaphorical muscles. In the face of the threat represented by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the growth Innovative use of steel enabled Manhattan’s of communist sentiment Flatiron Building to become the tallest in the West, the conbuilding in the world (approximately 300 feet high) at the time of its completion. struction of gleaming (Charles R. Ritzmann/Corbis) towers in the heart of America’s greatest cities was seen by business leaders as a way of showing that capitalism worked and was capable of making a better life for everyone.

The New Navy The growing availability of large quantities of steel also changed naval shipbuilding, with attendant social consequences. The use of

Societal Impact

•

227

metal armor on warships had its beginning in the American Civil War, when the ironclads Merrimack (or Virginia) and Monitor met for their historic battle at Hampton Roads. The ironclads were wooden ships with a layer of iron or steel plates over them, and that metal was not easily come by. In fact, the Confederate navy was so desperate for suitable armor that they ordered several minor railroad lines pulled up so that the Tredegar Iron Works could remill them into armor plate. In the period after the Civil War, improvements in engine and drive technology (particularly the move to screw propellers) made it possible to build ships entirely of iron and steel. At first, many admirals of the earlier era of wooden ships fought these changes, insisting that an iron ship would surely sink. They also worried that the use of steam propulsion rather than sails would destroy seamanship, reducing sailors to little more than drivers (Bonnet 1968). However, there was little arguing with the sheer power of the guns a steel-hulled steamship could bring to bear. Soon every great power was building such vessels so that they would be prepared to respond in kind to an enemy’s attack. During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote a number of works expounding his theories of sea power. He argued that naval power equaled national power and that a nation unable to project power overseas could not be considered a great power (Mahan 1890). Mahan’s works influenced world leaders of the time, several of whom engaged their nations in a race to build fleets of steel-hulled battleships. Mahan was born on September 27, 1840, at West Point, New York, where his father was an instructor at the United States Military Academy. After two years at Columbia College, he entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis despite his father’s wishes. Mahan subsequently graduated second in a class of twenty in 1858. Mahan’s career as a line officer was marked by bad luck, often brought about by the egotism that was a prominent feature of his character. He often blamed others for problems caused by his own poor seamanship. He later said that he collided or ran aground every ship he ever commanded, save the Iroquois (Hubbard 1998). He spent the Civil War on blockade duty and subsequently made some tours abroad. After a leg injury ended his line career, Mahan found success as an instructor at the Naval War College. While there he wrote the book

228

•

Iron and Steel

that secured his permanent place in naval history, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783. In this 1890 book he laid out his theories of sea power, illustrating them with historical examples of important sailing-ship engagements and expounding on how those lessons should properly be applied to the changed circumstances of warfare under steam power. In 1896 Mahan retired from the navy and subsequently devoted himself entirely to scholarship. All his subsequent books, including his biographies of David Farragut and of Horatio Nelson, built upon the foundation of that book, further defending and expanding his thesis that only through naval power could a nation attain national security. Mahan’s work heavily influenced the thinking of important world leaders, including President Theodore Roosevelt, who used Mahan’s arguments to support his call for the construction of the Great White Fleet and its subsequent tour around the world. The United States constructed its first battleship in 1890, the very year Mahan published his magnum opus, and by the time the Arizona was built in 1912, it was already America’s thirty-ninth battleship. This was no small achievement when one considers the expenditures that go into building, outfitting, and operating a capital ship. The U.S. Navy set forth strict specifications for the steel used to construct the armor plates on its new battleships. Whereas old-style cannonballs, or roundshot, would simply bounce off metal armor (as had been the case in the famous battle at Hampton Roads), modern naval shells were tapered and designed to pierce armor. The navy’s special demands led to a new round of debates on the merits of Bessemer versus open-hearth processes, because it was very difficult to make steel to withstand the impact of such shells with the technologies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Steelmakers might be able to use only the bottom half of each ingot of steel for battleship armor, whereas they could routinely use as much as two-thirds or even three-fourths of each ingot when making rails or beams. (Even after ingots of steel were poured, impurities continued to rise to the surface until the steel cooled and solidified, leading to the practice of cutting off the top part of each ingot and returning it to the furnace). The battleship race, in which each of the great powers built increasing numbers of large ships, was hastened even more by the launching of the HMS Dreadnought in 1906. This all-big-gun battleship instantly rendered obsolete all other nations’ fleets, with their

Societal Impact

•

229

mix of large and small guns on the battleships. All subsequent battleship construction would be of the Dreadnought style, with the main guns concentrated in three or four large turrets on the deck and no smaller guns at bow and stern. The battleship loomed large in the world politics of the time, a critical component of being considered a great power. Many historians regard the battleship race as one of the chief drivers of the buildup toward World War I. With the outbreak of the war in August 1914, there were many calls for Mahan to become a military adviser for one group or another. However, the president and the Navy Department had issued an order prohibiting officers from commenting upon the situation, and Mahan was not able to obtain an exception to it. He died on December 1, 1914, having seen his theories proved by the first few naval engagements of that global conflagration. Following World War I, several treaties limited the numbers and sizes of battleships each great power could possess. As a result, several nations subsequently converted battleships under construction into aircraft carriers, which were a novelty of unproved worth at that time and thus were not covered by these arms-limitation treaties. These disregarded vessels would become critical in subsequent warfare, however, and the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by a Japanese carrier battle group sealed the fate of the battleship. The U.S. Pacific Fleet’s entire battle line sank at anchor on that fateful day, and only the four carriers, fortuitously at sea, remained to fight the first critical battles of World War II in the Pacific.

The New Highway Although steel-armored battleships were transforming the manner in which world leaders thought about their nations’ power and prestige, these changes had little effect upon ordinary citizens who were not members of the navy, at least until the actual outbreak of hostilities. During that same period, however, another heavy user of steel began working a complete transformation of U.S. society. The automobile industry changed the United States in a wide variety of ways. The United States had always been a mobile society, compared to the European nations its landed immigrants had left behind. In the absence of feudal restrictions upon land tenure, it was al-

230

•

Iron and Steel

ways easy for unhappy people to move to a more satisfactory region. In terms of day-to-day travel, however, Americans had continued to rely upon the same methods that had been in use from time immemorial. Railroads did increase speed, but they were owned by companies and traveled between fixed points. Individual transportation remained dependent upon horse-drawn vehicles. Early automobiles were luxury goods, individually handmade and so expensive that only the wealthy could afford them. When Henry Ford’s creation of the assembly line allowed him to price his Model T within the reach of ordinary individuals, everything changed— from shopping habits to courtship customs. Rural families were no longer dependent upon local general stores but could make trips into nearby towns without having to spend a day or more in travel. Young people could meet outside the careful chaperonage of their elders, creating the modern custom of dating. The automobile was made possible only by the availability of high-quality steels in large quantities. In order to function at the high pressures and speeds that an internal combustion engine required, engine blocks, pistons, and other parts had to be made to specifications far higher than those required by buyers of rails or structural beams. Other automobile parts, such as transmissions and gearboxes, needed to be both strong and relatively small, compared to the parts in the large steam engines of locomotives and battleships. Automobile manufacturers turned to a new process, the electric arc furnace, to make a steel that would meet their needs. Many of the automobile manufacturers built their own electric steel furnaces or whole foundries in order to gain better control over the quality of steel that would go into critical engine and drive-train systems. Ford Motor Company even advertised its use of only the finest steels in its automobiles.

The New Philanthropy The rapid rise of the U.S. steel industry in the second half of the nineteenth century created enormous fortunes, often for people who had not previously belonged to wealthy families. Suddenly blessed with an embarrassment of riches, these workingmen-turned-millionaires found various ways to deal with their new status. Some chose to indulge themselves in material goods they had not previously been able

Societal Impact

•

231

to afford—for example, by building mansions and furnishing them with antiques and imported furnishings. However, others were profoundly uncomfortable with the use of their wealth for self-indulgence, particularly when they had built that wealth largely by careful reinvestment of their income into industrial growth. Some of these men chose to invest their newfound wealth in U.S. society. The best-known member of this latter group was Andrew Carnegie, whose name became almost synonymous with the steel industry in the last decades of the nineteenth century. He came from a background of self-improvement and often spoke of himself as the son of a weaver who founded a library (Bobinski 1969). True to his Scottish Calvinist heritage, he believed that it was shameful to use one’s wealth to indulge in idleness and ostentation and that the wealthy man should instead live modestly and regard himself as merely a trustee of that wealth. Carnegie believed even more adamantly that passing money unearned to one’s children would do them a grave disservice by encouraging them to live idle lives. Merely leaving one’s wealth as a bequest to be distributed after one’s death was little improvement, for it evaded the responsibility to be sure that the funds were used well. Poorly used, he believed that charity could actually worsen people’s lives instead of bettering them, particularly if such money encouraged the recipients to become idlers and wastrels. In Carnegie’s mind, the finest way for a wealthy man to use his money was to distribute it during his life to benefit such causes that would improve the lives of many people by giving them the means to better themselves (Carnegie 1962). Because his father had founded a library in their native town of Dunfermline, Scotland, it was not surprising that Carnegie’s interest would quickly turn to the possibility of funding libraries. However, he had also had experience with some of the problems of library funding. Social or subscription libraries—voluntary associations in which a group of people would pool their funds to create a collection—often started with grand ambitions, only to fall into neglect as members lost interest and funding declined. As a result, Carnegie sought a mechanism to ensure that his libraries would continue to be funded and operated in good order after the initial grant had been expended on the building and initial collection. To attain that end, Carnegie attached two important stipulations to his gifts of public libraries. First, the local community had to provide a suitable site upon which to build the library. By providing the land,

232

•

Iron and Steel

The Carnegie Library in Washington, D.C. (Library of Congress)

the community had an investment in the success of the library and provided a clear up-front demonstration of its commitment to its success. Second, the local community had to provide for funding the ongoing operating expenses of the library through a tax levy. This second stipulation helped to solidify the concept of the public library as a tax-supported institution in American society. In spite of Carnegie’s attempts to ensure that his gifts would be used wisely, he encountered problems with many communities. In a number of cases, architects and local city fathers allowed their imaginations to run wild in the design of the library building, adding grandiose features such as enormous domes that increased the cost of the structure while providing no useful space for storing or using the collection. One of the most glaring cases of architectural excess occurred in Springfield, Illinois, where Carnegie’s gift was received with great enthusiasm and fanfare. Wanting to show their gratitude, Springfield citizens originally planned to name their new library the Lincoln-Carnegie Memorial Library. However, Carnegie found this

Societal Impact

•

233

celebration of his person distasteful and requested that the library simply be named the Lincoln Library. The exuberance that went into the naming of the library also extended to the building plans. By the time it was complete, the structure incorporated sixteen different architectural styles in an insane fantasy of columns and wasted air space. Worse, several of the “innovative” features—such as the iron sliding door that was supposed to be lowered to protect the stacks in case of fire in the reading rooms— never worked properly and finally had to be modified or removed altogether. By the time the library finally opened, Carnegie himself regretted the waste of his money on an impractical design, whereas a more modest building could have housed a far larger collection and greater working space for the same price (Natale 1987). After this fiasco, Carnegie had his secretary, James Bertram, draw up a document known as the “Notes on Library Buildings” that laid out Carnegie’s philosophy on how a functional library building ought to be constructed. These guidelines mandated simplicity in all design features and particularly called for the rejection of such ostentatious architectural features as domes, winding stairways, columns, and large atrium areas. By putting a little judicious pressure on architects and local leaders, he strove to prevent further incidences of cost overruns, in which the entire sum of his gift was spent on the structure itself with nothing left over for purchasing the necessary equipment and furniture or a collection of books. Unfortunately, even all of Carnegie’s careful safeguards could not completely guarantee that his gifts would not go to waste. In several cases, a new city council simply reneged on the commitment to ongoing funding, abolishing the tax levy that was supposed to support the library. In the worst case, the library ended up being closed, vandalized by vagrants, and finally put up for auction. When a civicminded person pointed out that the proceeds from the sale should be returned to Carnegie instead of going into the town coffers, the city fathers gave up on the entire idea and simply built a large fence with no gate around the entire building, so that it could be used by no one at all. Even in municipalities that did maintain their commitment to funding, the tax base was often simply inadequate to support the library on an ongoing basis, even following Carnegie’s prudent formula. Carnegie’s philanthropy was not limited to the endowment of public libraries. Although he began giving to public libraries earlier

234

•

Iron and Steel

and gave to a greater number of them, his gifts to college and academic libraries were generally larger. Typically, academic libraries would already be established and have their buildings and core collections in place, while Carnegie would provide funds for a specialized collection in a particular subject area, often in fields in which the necessary books and periodical subscriptions were expensive and difficult to come by (Radford 1984). In total, Carnegie endowed 1,679 public libraries in 1,412 U.S. communities, 108 academic libraries, and 159 libraries in the British Commonwealth. Although he handled the process directly in the early period of his giving, successive years made it plain to him that he would not be able to dispose of his fortune completely within the span of his life. Determined that his money should not be wasted by profligate heirs, he founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911 specifically to continue the process of disbursing his wealth after his death. As the years went by, the Carnegie Corporation would broaden its mission to include other causes beyond libraries, but it was always guided by the principle that it should offer people the means to better themselves. Not everyone saw Carnegie’s generosity as a genuine desire to empower the ordinary worker. Rather, there was some question as to whether Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth” might be a modern secular version of buying indulgences. Certainly, the steelworkers seemed to think that their former employer’s generosity was a way of buying them off after exploiting them for so many years, and they generally avoided the libraries Carnegie had endowed in each of his mill towns. He was, after all, the same man who had authorized the brutal suppression of the Homestead strikes. Many of his workers argued that it would have been far better for Carnegie to be more generous to them than to accumulate his wealth from their sweat and blood and later try to give it back to them like a gift.

Welfare Capitalism As the Gilded Age gave way to the Progressive Era, the idea of welfare capitalism arose among the leaders of industry. Some of these concepts may have been the product of cynical self-interest on the part of corporate stockholders who wanted to defuse the growing agitation of socialists from such organizations as the Industrial Work-

Societal Impact

•

235

ers of the World, but there were more than a few corporate executives who believed that they had a genuine obligation to their employees and society at large. It was not enough to simply accumulate wealth at the expense of one’s workers and then return it in the form of gifts, as Carnegie did with his library endowments. Rather, these executives believed that one had a moral duty to conduct business in such a way as to increase the general prosperity instead of merely one’s own pocketbook. One of the notable leaders of this movement was himself a protégé of Andrew Carnegie, having been brought up from the factory floor to a responsible position with the company. William Brown Dickson was born in Pittsburgh on November 6, 1865, the son of a Scotch Irish immigrant family who had found success in the coal-mining business. Shortly after his birth, his father moved the family to nearby Swissvale in order to personally supervise the mining operations there. Fate then dealt the family two hard blows in succession. First, Dickson’s father’s health failed, leaving him a semi-invalid unable to work. Second, a bank in which his father was an important stockholder was destroyed by an embezzler. According to Pennsylvania law of the time, the bank’s stockholders were liable for the company’s debts to the amount of twice their investment, which ruined the Dickson family financially. The children had to give up their schooling and find work in order to keep the family afloat. When young William was nine years old he began working summers as a fan tender in the mines, although he was able to continue attending school for two more years. At that time, he went to Pittsburgh to work for a shopkeeper, running errands. He subsequently held several jobs before finding work at the Pittsburgh telephone exchange. Even in their impoverished state, the Dicksons refused to relinquish their middle-class values. They continued to hold the belief that success could be attained through hard work, and they treasured good books and music. Although Dickson’s formal education ended at age eleven, he read widely and taught himself to be an excellent public speaker. In 1881 Dickson moved to Homestead and took a position at the steel mills. While working there he had his first encounter with labor unions and formed an intense distaste for them. During a strike in early 1882, he was attacked by strikers as a “scab,” a person who

236

•

Iron and Steel

crosses picket lines to work. Always quick-minded, Dickson recognized his assailants and pressed charges, getting them tried and imprisoned. Even after the strike was over, he was subjected to continual harassment, including an incident that cut his leg so severely he was left with a permanent scar. Trouble continued until the mill’s owners sold the plant to Carnegie. In 1886 Dickson left manual labor behind to take a clerical position. Now that his work no longer demanded so much of his energy, he was able to enroll in night classes at Duff’s Business College in Pittsburgh, where he studied bookkeeping, accounting, and penmanship. He began to consider his prospects for a permanent career, a choice now complicated by his efforts to win the hand of his beloved, an orphan whose guardians disapproved of his uncertain prospects. Everything changed for Dickson three years later, when he received the call summoning him to the Pittsburgh office. He now became one of Carnegie’s handpicked “Young Geniuses,” a group of young men who had displayed a combination of ambition, ability, ingenuity, and leadership potential in their upward climb from manual labor (Eggert 1981). Carnegie gave them key managerial positions, and for a few of the most successful he would grant the ultimate favor—junior partnerships in the firm—that would open the doors to a share of its ownership and its attendant wealth. However, Carnegie carefully arranged their stock options so they could not cash them in but had to maintain their investment in the company. This policy was consistent with Carnegie’s philosophy of frugality in one’s personal affairs and careful reinvestment of one’s profits. Carnegie appears to have hoped that he could not only protect his protégés from the temptations of a sudden increase in wealth but also inculcate in them his own values about money. Unlike many of his fellows, Dickson spent a relatively extended period as a manual laborer and relatively little time supervising laborers. As a result, he was predisposed toward sympathy with the problems of the workingman rather than harboring the contempt and instrumentalist attitudes of many whose prosperity depended upon driving workers hard. He was also less likely to look back upon the period with excessive nostalgia or idealize it as a time of spiritual growth. Instead, he recalled the seven-day workweek as a regimen destructive to both the physical and the spiritual health of the worker.

Societal Impact

•

237

After Andrew Carnegie sold out his interests to U.S. Steel, Dickson and the other Young Geniuses were able to transform their theoretical wealth into actual cash. Although Dickson built himself a fine house in New Jersey, within easy commuting distance of the corporate offices in New York, his displays of wealth were not ostentatious. He preferred to develop his library rather than his wine cellar, and his extensive collection of books was no mere showpiece. Rather, he read extensively from them and regularly incorporated ideas taken from them into his letters and conversations. Dickson’s concern with labor reform began in earnest in 1906. In that year, the Chicago Tribune ran a series of articles intensely critical of the corporation’s hospital at its South Chicago plant, and in particular the routine concealment of deaths in the mills from city authorities. Disturbed by this bad publicity, Dickson made inquiries within the corporation and opened discussions on how matters could be improved. These discussions were still ongoing when William Hard published his landmark article “Making Steel and Killing Men” in Everybody’s magazine, giving not only allegations but also actual figures of men killed and disabled during the previous year. With this additional negative publicity, Dickson was able to push through a comprehensive package of changes to better working conditions for the ordinary employee. These changes included a safety program, care and payments for workers injured on the job, pensions, and community-health work (clean rest rooms and eating areas, fresh drinking water, and so on). By 1912, 22 percent of the corporation’s welfare-capitalism expenditures went toward communityhealth work and welfare, and by 1918 that number had expanded to 54 percent, although often at the expense of payments to injured workers (ibid.). Dickson’s next effort to better the lot of steelworkers did not fare so well, however. Dickson had long considered the industry’s practice of working its employees all seven days of the week both physically and spiritually destructive, leaving no time for worship or recreation. But when he sought to abolish the seven-day workweek, he met with intense opposition from the board of directors. They pointed out the impracticality of shutting down a mill on Sunday and letting furnaces and other critical equipment cool down, but he countered that there was no reason that the same men had to work all seven days of the week. The other officers then protested that a re-

238

•

Iron and Steel

duced workweek would only serve to reduce the income of the employees, who in actuality were actively seeking a seven-day week. Dickson wrote a satirical poem in response to that argument. In 1911 Dickson was passed over in the selection of a new corporate president, which brought about an irreparable rupture with chairman of the board Judge Elbert H. Gary. In the nonconfrontational way Dickson chose to resign from U.S. Steel, however, he threw away an opportunity to publicly champion his cause. Instead, he retreated to a country home in New Hampshire, where he devoted himself to cultural affairs. World War I offered Dickson an opportunity to come out of retirement and work with Midvale Steel Company. There he continued to implement some of his theories of welfare capitalism and industrial democracy in hopes of weaning employees away from the lure of unionism by showing them that the company could look out for their interests instead of merely exploiting them. However, his reformism put him at odds with other company leaders, and after the war he went back into retirement, this time far less happily. His fortunes declined, and his efforts to implement various plans for the betterment of humanity often came to naught. The passing years brought the deaths of the various men with whom he clashed, while Dickson himself lived until January 27, 1942.

The World Steel Made By the opening decades of the twentieth century, not only had there been enormous changes in the manner in which iron and steel were made in the United States, but these changes had also brought about an enormous change in the society that produced and used them. Gone was the bucolic land of yeoman farmers that Thomas Jefferson and many of the other Founding Fathers had considered essential to democracy. It had been replaced by a resolutely urban and rapidly industrializing society.

Sources Barnett, Donald F., and Louis Schorsch. 1983. Steel: Upheaval in a Basic Industry. Cambridge, MA: Balinger.

Societal Impact

•

239

Bobinski, George S. 1969. Carnegie Libraries: Their History and Impact on American Public Library Development. Chicago: American Library Association. Bodnar, John. 1977. Immigration and Industrialization: Ethnicity in an American Mill Town, 1870–1940. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Bonnet, Stanley. 1968. The Price of Admiralty: An Indictment of the Royal Navy, 1805–1966. London: Robert Hale. Bridge, James Howard. 1991. The Inside Story of the Carnegie Steel Era. 1903. Reprint, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Brody, David. 1960. Steelworkers in America: The Nonunion Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1980. Workers in Industrial America: Essays on the Twentieth Century Struggle. New York: Oxford University Press. Carnegie, Andrew. 1962. The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. Edited by Edward C. Kirkland. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Clark, Paul F., Peter Gottlieb, and Donald Kennedy, eds. 1987. Forging a Union of Steel. Ithaca: ILR Press. Dickerson, Dennis C. 1986. Out of the Crucible: Black Steelworkers in Western Pennsylvania, 1875–1980. Albany: State University of New York Press. Eggert, Gerald G. 1981. Steelmasters and Labor Reform, 1886–1923. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Fitch, John. 1910. The Steel Worker. New York: New York Charities Committee. Gilbreth, Frank B. 2002. Cheaper by the Dozen. New York: Perennial Classics. Hoerr, John P. 1988. And the Wolf Finally Came: The Decline of the American Steel Industry. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Hogan, William T. 1971. Economic History of the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States. Lexington, MA: Heath. Hubbard, Charles M. 1998. “Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Reluctant Seaman.” American History, August. Lancaster, Jane. 2004. Lillian Moller Gilbreth: A Life beyond “Cheaper by the Dozen.” Boston: Northeastern University Press. Livezey, William Edmund. 1981. Mahan on Sea Power. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Mahan, Alfred Thayer. 1890. The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783. Boston: Little, Brown. Misa, Thomas J. 1995. A Nation of Steel: The Making of Modern America, 1865–1925. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Natale, Joe. 1987. “The Springfield Lincoln Library Building, 1904–1974.” Illinois Libraries 69, no. 9 (November): 621–624. Nelson, Daniel. 1980. Frederick W. Taylor and the Rise of Scientific Management. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Perlman, Selig, and Philip Taft. 1935. History of Labor in the United States, 1896–1932. New York: Macmillan. Popplewell, F. 1906. Some Modern Conditions and Recent Developments in Iron and Steel Production in America. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Radford, Neil A. 1984. The Carnegie Corporation and the Development of American College Libraries, 1928–1941. ACRL Publications in Librarianship 44. Chicago: American Library Association.

240

•

Iron and Steel

Seager, Robert. 1971. Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. Taylor, Frederick W. 1911. The Principles of Scientific Management. New York: Harper and Brothers. Temin, P. 1964. Iron and Steel in Nineteenth Century America: An Economic Enquiry. Cambridge: MIT Press. Walker, Charles R. 1950. Steeltown. New York: Harper and Brothers. Warren, Kenneth. 2001. Big Steel: The First Century of the United States Steel Corporation, 1901–2001. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Gilded Age Art and Literature David Treviño

D

uring the mid- to late nineteenth century, in the period commonly called the Gilded Age, the United States became one of the world’s leading industrial powers and one of its wealthiest nations. The population exploded, in large part due to immigration, and the country experienced rapid urbanization. These changes produced dramatic accumulations of wealth that coexisted with widespread poverty. The widening gap between the rich industrial magnates and the poor working classes—as well as such social and political developments as industrial capitalism, laissez-faire government, political scandals, class struggles, and economic fluctuations—was echoed in the literature and art of the Gilded Age. Although Gilded Age authors and artists clearly reflected the growing cultural tensions of the industrial age, most did not portray industrial workers and their lives in any great detail. Industrial settings, such as iron and steel factories, were not common in works produced during this period. Many authors and artists considered them unsuited to the fine arts. Even William Dean Howells, a respected nineteenth-century literary critic and leading advocate for realism in literature, believed that realism had its limits: “If our writers were to begin telling us on any extended scale of how mill hands, or miners, or farmers, or iron puddlers really live, we should very soon let them know that we did not care to meet such vulgar and commonplace people” (Denning 1998). A late-nineteenth-century art critic echoed Howell’s statement when he noted in the American Art Review that industry was a neglected subject matter (Pauly 1988). 241

242

•

Iron and Steel

The rarity of industrial subject matter in the early Gilded Age also reflected the plight of authors and artists who faced an increasingly commercialized literary and artistic world. Unable to count on the federal government for arts funding, they found it necessary to please their patrons and audiences. Popular cultural forms of artistic expression, which enjoyed large working-class audiences in addition to their middle-class patrons, treated industrial subjects much more frequently than fine arts forms. They also tended to present a more detailed view of working-class life. Middle-class works by authors such as Rebecca Harding Davis and artists such as Thomas Anshutz and John Ferguson Weir were trendsetting exceptions that provide insights into Gilded Age cultural beliefs and contradictory attitudes toward industrialization and its societal impacts.

The Iron and Steel Industry in Literature Gilded Age fiction came in a variety of forms—some of which aimed to educate or impart a moral lesson, others to entertain—and appealed to a variety of audiences. Commercial mass-produced fiction included the story paper, the dime novel, and the cheap library. These forms represent the beginnings of a mass urban-based popular culture. Most popular fiction was produced in New York or Philadelphia, but technological developments—such as the steam-powered press that made cheap mass production possible—allowed popular fiction to reach national audiences. Popular fiction also cost less than the standard novels of the day, which sold for approximately one dollar to one dollar and fifty cents. Its popularity was also aided by the rise of the middle class, new school attendance laws that increased literacy rates, the rise of urban audiences, and its affordability to the working class (Salzman 1988). The paper backings made popular fiction light and easily portable. Story papers were weekly newspapers containing five to eight stories. Dime novels were pamphlets of about 100 pages and were also known as “yellow-backs.” Publisher Erastus F. Beadle, part of Beadle and Adams, is known as the father of the dime novel. In 1860, the first of the Beadle’s Dime Novels series appeared. Beadle and Adams sold approximately 5 million dime novels in their first four years of business, and competitors quickly sought to copy their success. Other popular series included Sinclair Tousey’s American

Gilded Age Art and Literature

•

243

Tales; Elliott, Thomas, and Talbot’s Ten Cent Novelettes; George Munro’s Ten Cent Novels; and Robert DeWitt’s Ten Cent Romances. Cheap libraries consisted of collections of nickel and dime pamphlets. All three formats shared the same publishers, readers, and subjects. Hundreds of anonymous authors wrote most of the stories, being paid by the story or by the word. Some authors, such as Horatio Alger and Edward S. Ellis, became well known. The use of pen names and pseudonyms was a common practice. The popular literature was often criticized as being sensationalistic and as instigating bad behavior and morals. The most common popular literature genres were westerns and detective novels, but there were also series centered on working-class heroes. Some of these, most notably a series by Frederick Whittaker, were set in the iron and steel mills. Dime novels died out by the early 1900s due to postal-rate changes and the rising popularity of fiction magazines. Middle-class fiction with economic themes appeared intermittently in the 1870s but rose to a steady stream by the 1890s and into the twentieth century (W. F. Taylor 1969). These works addressed the need for reform of the injustices caused by the contemporary capitalist system, but most did not advocate fundamental changes to the system. These short stories and novels were serialized in prestigious periodicals, such as Century, Scribner’s, Harper’s, and the Atlantic, and in the more popular magazines, such as Ladies’ Home Journal, Munsey’s, McClure’s, and Cosmopolitan. Most fiction aimed at middle-class audiences portrayed small-town struggles between employers and workers rather than the problems of large national trusts driving out individual producers. Iron and steel mills appear in only a handful of these works. The economic novels of the period, including those centered on the iron and steel industry, are usually categorized as works of realism or naturalism—two new literary movements of the Gilded Age. Both of these movements sought to portray the everyday life of ordinary people truthfully and accurately. Both realism and naturalism were responses to the romanticism that had dominated antebellum American literature. Realism came to prominence in the mid- to late 1800s and presented the negative aspects that accompanied the urbanization and industrialization of the period, including poverty, harsh working and living conditions, prostitution, alcoholism, and misery. William Dean Howells, one of the most influential literary

244

•

Iron and Steel

critics and authors of the late nineteenth century, is the individual most associated with realism. Naturalism, also known as literary determinism, rose to prominence in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Literary historians characterize realism as more optimistic, whereas naturalism is darker in tone. Naturalists portrayed characters with little control over their own lives whose fates were determined by heredity, their environment, and chance. Naturalists employed common Gilded Age scientific and philosophical beliefs, such as social Darwinism (applying Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection and survival of the fittest to human society). Naturalists included such noted Gilded Age authors as Stephen Crane, Jack London, Frank Norris, and Theodore Dreiser. One of the earliest works to deal extensively with the iron and steel industry, Rebecca Harding Davis’s Life in the Iron Mills, contained elements of both realism and naturalism and is considered a pioneering literary work of its time.

Rebecca Harding Davis and Life in the Iron Mills Rebecca Harding Davis was born on June 24, 1831, in the town of Washington, Pennsylvania. Her father, Richard Harding, was an English immigrant, and her mother, Rachel Wilson, was the daughter of a prominent Washington family. She spent five years in Florence, Alabama, before her family moved to Wheeling, Virginia (later to become West Virginia) in 1837. She enjoyed reading as a child and claimed Nathaniel Hawthorne as a favorite author and as an influence on her choice of everyday subject matter in her own writings. She received home schooling from her mother and later tutoring during her childhood. Her formal education consisted of three years at the Washington Female Seminary beginning at the age of fourteen. She lived with her mother’s sister during this period and graduated with honors as her class valedictorian in 1848. After graduation, she returned home to help her mother raise her younger siblings. Harding’s years in Wheeling, a prominent iron mill town, exposed her to the industrial setting featured in her best-known work. She began her writing career with the Wheeling Intelligencer and achieved national recognition when the prestigious Atlantic Monthly paid her fifty dollars for her story “Life in the Iron Mills,” which appeared in the journal’s April 1861 edition. The journal’s editor also asked her

Gilded Age Art and Literature

•

245

for additional material, which it published as a serialized work titled “A Story of To-day.” Harding later had the work published as a book titled Margaret Howth. During this period, she traveled to Boston, where she met Atlantic Monthly editor James Fields and his wife, Annie, who became a lifelong friend and correspondent. She also traveled to Concord, New Hampshire, where she met her childhood favorite Nathaniel Hawthorne as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bronson Alcott. During her journey home, Rebecca Harding stopped in Philadelphia and met with L. Clarke Davis, an apprentice lawyer who later became one of the country’s leading newspaper editors and an outspoken abolitionist. They had first become acquainted through letters that he wrote to Harding praising her writings. They were married in March 1863. They eventually had two sons and a daughter. One of their sons, Richard Harding Davis, was himself a prominent playwright, novelist, and war correspondent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their other son, Charles Belmont Davis, served as U.S. consul to Italy under President Grover Cleveland, a friend of Rebecca’s husband. In 1870, the family moved to Philadelphia, where Clarke Davis became the managing editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The remainder of Davis’s literary career focused on works that sought to publicize and improve the conditions faced by the poor and outcast groups of Gilded Age society, such as minorities, women, immigrants, and workers. The working-class themes expressed in her works included the poor living and working conditions of the mills and the negative effects of class divisions on all of society. Her career spanned nearly fifty years and produced hundreds of novels, short stories, and essays on a variety of subjects, including current events and issues, children’s stories, historical events, Gothic thrillers, romances, and travel sketches. She also served as contributing editor to the New York Tribune beginning in 1869. Rebecca Harding Davis died on September 29, 1910, at her son’s home in Mount Kisco, New York. She was buried in Philadelphia alongside her husband. Davis’s works were largely forgotten after her death, but she once again rose to a place of prominence in American literary history when Life in the Iron Mills was reprinted in 1972. Her works have marked her as both a notable social historian and a pioneer of realism in American literature. They are forerunners to the later writings of

246

•

Iron and Steel

William Dean Howells, Emile Zola, Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, and Upton Sinclair. Life in the Iron Mills was also notable because its style and subject were departures from the innocent, genteel domestic world that society expected women to belong to and write about. Her literary reputation, both in her time and in modern times, has centered on Life in the Iron Mills. Life in the Iron Mills portrays an industrial working class unable to break the chains that bind it to the system of industrial capitalism that rose to dominance in the Gilded Age. The story is set about thirty years in the past, but it is told from the point of view of a present-day (1860) narrator who lives in the house whose basement rooms were once occupied by the story’s Welsh immigrant workers. Davis’s story addresses issues and settings that were uncommon in the literature of the day and that were unfamiliar to the everyday lives and experiences of the majority of the book’s middle-class readers. The narrator invites the reader to hide their disgust and “come right down with me,—here, into the thickest of the fog and mud and foul effluvia. . . . I want to make it a real thing to you” (1985). Davis was aware of the readers’ ignorance and distaste for such subjects but challenged them to overcome those feelings and realistically examine her characters’ lives and stories. The bulk of the story takes place in the Kirby and John’s iron mills in Wheeling, Virginia, where industrial workers are reduced to lives of desperation without hope. Davis’s story poses the question of how to prevent this loss of spirit among those forced to endure abusive living and working conditions in the iron mills. Technological innovation only makes conditions worse for the workers. The mill adopts the new Bessemer steel-smelting process, which allows the factory to keep operating all day and night. The town is covered with the mill’s omnipresent smoke, which covers everything and everybody, “clinging in a coating of greasy soot.” The dismal slum setting in which the characters live also contributes to their misery and helps determine their fate. The main characters in the story are Deborah, a physically deformed cotton mill picker, and her cousin Hugh Wolfe, an iron mill puddler who longs to be an artist free from the constraints of his working-class life. Hugh is only nineteen years old, but his weak nerves and thin appearance show the effects of hard work on his health. He, like the other mill workers, spends his life “breathing from infancy to death an air saturated with fog and grease and soot,

Gilded Age Art and Literature

•

247

vileness for soul and body.” His natural artistic creativity and his longing to find beauty are frustrated by his class circumstances. Davis describes the mill workers’ lives as follows: “Their lives were like those of their class: incessant labor, sleeping in kennel-like rooms, eating rank pork and molasses, drinking—God and the distillers only know what; with an occasional night in jail, to atone for some drunken excess.” One night, when Deborah brings Hugh dinner after her shift at the cotton mill, three visitors tour the iron mill. The visitors are the iron mill owner’s son, Kirby; local reformer Dr. May; northern intellectual Mr. Mitchell; the mill’s overseer, Clarke; and a reporter gathering information for a story. The working-class characters speak in a dialect that marks their class, while the middle-class visitors to the mill speak without it. Hugh watches Dr. Mitchell with keen interest, picturing him as the fine gentleman he himself wishes to be but realizing the great gulf of class circumstance that stands between them. The visitors notice Hugh’s sculpture of a woman that he has formed out of korl, a flesh-colored material that is a refuse product of the steel-making process. This woman, with her expression of desperate longing and her outstretched arms, represents Hugh’s frustrated artistic soul longing for freedom. The men then engage in a discussion about the working class. The mill owner’s son, Kirby, feels no responsibility outside of paying his workers. The other two visitors’ responses reveal sympathy coupled with detachment and a lack of commitment (Rose 1993). Hugh directly asks Dr. May for help, but May claims that he does not have the money to take him in and educate him. The doctor instead believes that a kind word of encouragement and a prayer that the degraded workers will someday rise are enough to fulfill his duty. Mitchell argues that a working-class savior must come from the working class, listing historic examples to prove his case. Hugh’s life reaches a crisis point that night, when he realizes that his class circumstance will forever prevent him from fulfilling his artistic longings and views his dirty body and stained soul with disgust. Deborah, who is in love with Hugh, seeks to help him by picking the pocket of Mitchell as the visitors leave the mill. Hugh initially refuses the money, but during his journey to return it to Mitchell he becomes tempted to keep it. His conscience wrestles with the feeling that his soul is smothering and the belief that God made money “for his children’s use. He never made the difference between poor and rich.”

248

•

Iron and Steel

Before Hugh can return the money, he is arrested and sent to jail for nineteen years. Deborah is sent to jail for three years as his accomplice. Hugh, feeling like a caged animal, commits suicide by slitting his wrists with a piece of tin. The narrator describes his final hour as follows: “I think in that one hour that came then he lived back over all the years that had gone before. I think that all the low, vile life, all his wrongs, all his starved hopes, came then, and stung him with a farewell poison that made him sick unto death. He made neither moan nor cry, only turned his worn face now and then to the pure light, that seemed so far off, as one that said, ‘How long, O Lord? How long?’” Deborah realizes what he has done but does not call for the help that could possibly save him from death. A Quaker woman then comforts Deborah and offers her a life with the Quakers upon her release from prison. She also promises that she will bury Hugh on the hillside in the fresh air rather than in the town yard under the mud and ash from which he so longed to break away. She is the only one to take action by providing comfort. The closing scene shows Deborah as an old woman walking into the Quaker meetinghouse, years removed from the working-class world but still bearing the scars from her life there.

Iron and Steel Workers in Gilded Age Fiction Unlike Rebecca Harding Davis’s Life in the Iron Mills, most early Gilded Age middle-class novels did not explore the living and working conditions of laborers in any great detail. Most novelists only had secondhand knowledge of such conditions and often simply do not describe workers at their jobs. Their middle-class audiences would not want to read such details anyway, so authenticity was not the goal of most novelists (Blake 1972). By the late 1800s and early 1900s, however, factory settings became much more authentic and detailed as rising literacy rates increased the number of working-class readers. Many later Gilded Age novelists also had previous careers as journalists and had visited factories and slums firsthand. Fictional iron- and steelworkers, like their real counterparts, typically work in unsafe and unsanitary conditions in dark and filthy factories. These factories, with their constantly bellowing black smokestacks, also pollute the air and water in the nearby towns and

Gilded Age Art and Literature

•

249

cities where their workers live. Fictional factory workers suffer the effects of hard work, long hours, monotonous repetition, and unsanitary conditions on their physical health and stamina as well as on their spirit and enjoyment of life. Margaret Deland captures this physical and mental toll in “The House of Rimmon,” one of the short stories she published in The Wisdom of Fools (1897). She describes human beings who had to stand half naked in the scorch of intense furnaces, reeking with sweat, taking a breathless moment to plunge waist deep into tanks of cold water; to men who worked where the crash of exploding slag or the accidental tipping of a ladle might mean death; to gaunt and stunted creatures, hollow-eyed, with bleared and sodden faces, whose incessant toil to keep alive had crushed out the look of manhood, and left them silent, hopeless, brutish, with only one certainty in their stupefied souls: “men don’t grow old in the mills.” (W. F. Taylor 1969)

Such realistic and detailed descriptions became increasingly frequent as the Gilded Age came to a close. Descriptions of living conditions in the tenements and slums most workers inhabited also became increasingly frequent by the turn of the century. The low wages and long hours of unrelenting labor in iron and steel mills made it impossible for workers to maintain a decent standard of living. The workers lived in inadequate housing in an unhealthy slum environment. They also had little security, as an accident or sickness could quickly break the thin line between poverty and utter destitution. Gilded Age poets commonly portrayed labor as a human figure in chains, suggesting the image of the wage slave whose long hours left workers with little time for other pursuits. Some Gilded Age writers and poets sentimentalized such hard work as noble, dignified, and necessary for advancement, whereas others concentrated on the degradation of labor and poverty. Popular fiction, with its broad audience that included many workers, was much more likely to portray working-class characters and their lives in detail. Many of these novels center on skilled workers and benevolent factory owners who treat workers humanely in a family-like atmosphere. Even these works, however, tend to avoid glorifying the truly poor. As minor Gilded Age novelist W. H.

250

•

Iron and Steel

Bishop noted in his 1879 survey of popular literature, “The deserving characters are almost sure to be secretly of good families, and in reduced circumstances only for a short time. Ordinary origin and a humdrum course of life at honest, manual labor are not much wanted even here” (Bishop 1970). The authors seem nostalgic for a rapidly fading way of life, often setting their stories in the recent past before the rise of large trusts and monopolies. Their works often contain descriptions of peaceful rural village life that contrast with the dangers and noises of the city. They lament the passing of a simpler age when skilled laborers, artisans, and craftsmen enjoyed producing beautiful products. Many of the heroic workingmen in Gilded Age dime novels are skilled laborers who work their way to positions of respectability, improving themselves in the process. These stories equate work with manhood. The worker often shows his manliness through a series of contests, such as fistfights, romantic rivalries, tests of work skill, courtroom battles, strikes, and political elections. The successful working-class hero also learns self-control, education, thrift, hard work, and temperance (Denning 1998). They rise to positions of management or ownership without resorting to speculation and trickery and do not seek great fortunes. Their rise to respectability is often marked by a loss of the dialect that marked their lower-class standing. Frederick Whittaker, one of the top dime novel authors for Beadle and Adams, wrote a series of stories with working-class heroes that were serialized in the pages of Beadle’s Weekly. Whittaker was born in London in 1838 and moved to the United States with his family in 1850. He worked his way up from private to second lieutenant in the Sixth New York Cavalry during the Civil War and was wounded in the lung at the 1864 Battle of the Wilderness. After his discharge in 1865, he began teaching and had several articles and poems printed in various periodicals. He also inherited some money and married, moving with his wife to a house in Mount Vernon, New York. Whittaker wrote the best-selling work A Complete Biography of General George A. Custer, which received negative reviews for its flowery praise and factual inaccuracies. His accusations of cowardice against Major Marcus A. Reno, Custer’s second in command at the tragic Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876, led to a war of words that ended in an 1879 army tribunal that did not find sufficient evidence to back Whittaker’s assertions. Frederick Whittaker died in 1889 af-

Gilded Age Art and Literature

•

251

ter accidentally falling down the stairs with a loaded pistol, leaving behind his wife and three daughters. Whittaker’s work for Beadle and Adams provided him with a steady income. One of Whittaker’s best-known stories, titled “John Armstrong, Mechanic; or, From the Bottom to the Top of the Ladder: A Story of How a Man Can Rise in America,” is set in the Excelsior Iron Works of New York City. John Armstrong works his way up to become foreman of the ironworks while attending night school to educate himself. He later marries, becomes a manager, and is elected mayor of New York as a Reform candidate. The story concludes with the optimistic words: “Look up, then, workman of the land, man with the muscle hardened by labor, brain trained in the struggle for life. In America everything is possible for a workingman” (Denning 1998). Heroes like Whittaker’s John Armstrong share both an individual commitment to hard work and self-improvement and a communal commitment to helping fellow workers during strikes and times of trouble (ibid.). A dime novel hero does not rise at the expense of others, nor does he abandon his fellow workers along the way. In Whittaker’s Larry Locke, the Man of Iron; or, A Fight for Fortune: A Story of Labor and Capital, steelworker Larry Locke advances in the mill but turns down a chance to share in the mill’s profits, preferring to remain a master workman. Self-made men like John Armstrong and Larry Locke are found in many Gilded Age novels. They usually come from poor but respectable homes. Sometimes a loan or inheritance or job in the mill office helps them get started. At other times a lucky break, such as rescuing the mill owner’s child, provides a needed mentor. Others turn out to be long-lost members of the upper class. Very few of these hardworking and intelligent men fail. These types of works are most popularly associated with Horatio Alger, who authored more than 100 short stories and novels, many of which were serialized in the popular weekly fiction sheets. Many historians and literary critics credit Alger with a prominent role in shaping U.S. attitudes toward businessmen. Alger’s name has become synonymous with the rags-to-riches story of the self-made man. Many Gilded Age Americans viewed Andrew Carnegie and his rise from a poor Scottish immigrant to a dominant steel magnate as a reallife embodiment of the rags-to-riches story. Most of Alger’s heroes, however, rose to respectability and comfort rather than great wealth.

252

•

Iron and Steel

By the turn of the century, both middle-class and popular literature began to reveal doubts and contradictory thinking as to the cultural beliefs of social Darwinism and the self-made man. The image of the industrial worker as a wage slave with no time, energy, or spirit to rise begins to appear alongside the earlier image of the industrial worker as a free man who could make a living, even prosper, through his own character and effort. Literature, like culture, began to question whether workers were innately inferior and owners were innately superior. Earlier Gilded Age writers and poets often differentiated between the deserving and undeserving poor, blaming some poverty on large families, alcohol abuse, laziness, lack of intelligence, or immorality. Later Gilded Age writers and poets seemed to struggle to explain the fact that some hardworking, moral men did not get ahead while other men who lied and cheated enjoyed great success without punishment (Blake 1972). Some authors also begin to portray unskilled workers more favorably. For example, the iron- and steelworkers in John R. McMahon’s 1907 Toilers and Idlers and Gwendolen Overton’s 1904 Captains of the World take pride in their job performance.

Portrayals of Mill and Company Owners in Fiction The characterizations of iron and steel mill owners and other industrialists in art and literature also reflect the cultural conflicts of the Gilded Age. Industrialists can be presented as captains of industry, celebrated for their shrewd business sense and economic success, or they can be portrayed as robber barons who exploit workers and unfairly stifle competition to get ahead. The struggle to succeed in business is merely part of the overall struggle for survival outlined by social Darwinism, and success is not always determined by grace, intelligence, or virtue. Whereas many working-class characters inhabit a world of undeserved poverty, many of their bosses inhabit a world of undeserved wealth. Fiction of the period featured condemnations of corrupt business practices and political scandals that mirrored those so frequently exposed in Gilded Age America. These attitudes fitted within the tradition of the negative image of the businessman that can be found throughout American literature (Watts 1982). Both middleclass and popular fiction portrayed monopolies, trusts, combines,

Gilded Age Art and Literature

•

253

pools, and syndicates as antidemocratic, greedy, and destructive to competition and small businesses. Financiers, speculators, bankers, bondholders, and moneylenders received the most criticism, along with corrupt, greedy politicians who worked to aid big businessmen rather than for the common good. Self-made industrialists and industrialists who used their wealth to benefit the community were more likely to receive praise. Gilded Age authors often portrayed wealth as a disease with psychological effects that could destroy the “finer human values” (W. F. Taylor 1969). Many fictional businessmen lack ethics because the quest for money has made them selfish, heartless, and dishonest. They are also characterized as uncultured and either apathetic or hostile to the arts. They either work too hard at making money to enjoy educational and cultural experiences or they live idle lifestyles of conspicuous consumption. Many writers criticize the common guideline of using a person’s wealth to determine their value or status, instead emphasizing the importance of moral and intellectual qualities. The industrialist’s emphasis on money also hurts his wife and children, who are often ignored. They enjoy the material benefits of wealth but suffer from a lack of love and attention. Families also often get caught up in the social climbing that new wealth fosters. Many wealthy children in middle-class literature either follow selfdestructive paths or reject their fathers’ business ideals and pursue social work. Industrialists often force their children into arranged marriages based on improving the families’ wealth and social standing. Industrialists and their families also face the potential humiliation of being used for the sake of their money (Watts 1982). Newly wealthy industrialists and the old-money society in which they sought acceptance were the targets of a number of middle-class novels of society and manners. Such leading authors as Edith Wharton and Henry James, as well as lesser-known novelists, wrote novels that portrayed and often satirized the social ambitions and materialism of the newly rich industrialists in a Gilded Age environment that censured free expression in favor of social conventions. Authors of the period judged businessmen on how they spent money, not just on how they made it. Both middle-class and popular fiction explored the prevalent Gilded Age cultural idea of the wealthy man’s social responsibility, as outlined by such leading industrialists as Andrew Carnegie, who wrote of this responsibility in the “Gospel of

254

•

Iron and Steel

Wealth.” Carnegie gave away millions of dollars to libraries and other educational and cultural institutions during his lifetime. Several Gilded Age poets praised Carnegie as one of the leading spokesmen for this doctrine of stewardship. One poet described Carnegie as Lord Rector of Saint Andrews University Giver of Organs and Libraries Promoter of Peace among Nations The American People having, of their Generosity, Granted to you a magnificent Share in the Natural Monopolies of the great Country, you have accumulated A colossal Fortune which you have splendidly Recognized as a sacred Trust to be administered for the Benefit of your Fellow Men. . . . (Walker 1969)

This praise of the “Gospel of Wealth” paled in comparison to the protest against economic wrongs as discontent over the widening gap between the rich and the poor grew. Some authors agreed with Carnegie that the wealthy man had a moral obligation to help the community. Other authors, however, criticized the charitable donations of wealthy industrialists as tainted money donated in the name of shameless publicity seeking or as guilty apologies for their exploitation of the working class (ibid.). In the later years of the Gilded Age—as unionization and strikes became more frequent—other authors noted that the working poor would be better served by an eight-hour workday, sick benefits, and government legislation than by the hope of a paternal owner’s benevolent charity (Blake 1972). A number of fictional works of the period explore class differences through romantic relationships. Many strike leaders desire higher-class girls, for example, and many upper-class men seduce poor, innocent working-class women (ibid.). A cross-class marriage ends the story in John E. Barett’s “Knight of Labor; or, The Master Workman’s Vow,” which was serialized in the New York Weekly in 1884. Ruth Watkins, daughter of a steelworker, marries Basil Brandon, son of the president of the steelworks. “But it is only after he has taken the guise of a workingman, and been accepted as a Knight of Labor, that Basil is worthy to marry Ruth, the daughter of the master workman. The cross-class marriage required an imaginary crossing of class by the young steel

Gilded Age Art and Literature

•

255

baron; rather than the workman revealed to be a gentleman, the gentlemen becomes a knight of labor” (Denning 1998).

Portrayals of the Relationship between Labor and Capital Many middle-class and popular works sympathize with the plight of the laborers but also warn against the potential dangers of organized labor, especially in its radical, anarchistic, or communistic forms. Labor and trade unions are sometimes portrayed as irresponsible or even criminal. Many authors portrayed organized workers as agents who stirred up trouble, often for selfish purposes. There was almost universal condemnation of the “walking delegate,” a union officer elected to travel from shop to shop to ensure adherence to the union contract, to collect union dues, and to process workers’ grievances (Blake 1972). Immigrant characters receive especially bad treatment, especially in stories written during times of economic trouble, when job competition grew fierce. Many strike organizers in Gilded Age novels are foreign-born radicals. Gilded Age authors worked at a time when thousands of strikes swept the country, including the well-publicized Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the 1886 Haymarket bombing in Chicago, the 1892 Homestead strike against the Carnegie Steel Company, and the 1894 Pullman strike. Such events often made their appearances in fiction as well. Literary condemnation of anarchists grew even more intense after the 1886 Haymarket bombing in Chicago. Strikes in middle-class fiction almost always break out suddenly, sometimes for no apparent cause, frequently turn violent, and usually fail. In reality, most Gilded Age strikes occurred after long periods of negotiation and union organization, rarely turned violent, and almost always succeeded in getting the workers’ demands met. The strikes that did turn violent were the ones that made the newspaper headlines, however, where they attracted the attention of and served as inspiration to many novelists. Strikers in middle-class fiction generally appear like ungrateful children, and many of the strike agitators end up dying during the strikes they foment. In such fiction, authors could impose the order, justice, and retribution they often found missing in the real world (ibid.).

256

•

Iron and Steel

By contrast, workers who strike in the dime novels and story papers are usually successful in getting their demands met. Authors of popular literature also portray organized labor, including such reallife groups as the Knights of Labor, in more favorable terms. Agitators and radicals, however, still receive condemnation. In Frederick Whittaker’s “John Armstrong, Mechanic,” for example, Armstrong speaks to the mill’s striking ironworkers. He shows his solidarity with his fellow workers but also cautions the workers and is able to prevail over troublemakers and win the strike. Whittaker’s Larry Locke, the Man of Iron, features the Knights of Labor and their principles of raising the workingman’s condition. Locke becomes an organizer for the Amalgamated union of ironworkers and a master workman of the Knights (Denning 1998). Likewise, John E. Barett’s “A Knight of Labor” emphasizes the solidarity and just principles of the Knights, as well as the fact that they are not associated with radicals or communists. These fictional Knights of Labor say they oppose strikes in general but participate when there is no other option. Barett himself was an Irish immigrant who was a grand master workman of the Knights of Labor and an editor of the Scranton Truth. He was also an associate of Gilded Age labor leader Terence Powderly (ibid.). In the story line, the Knights of Labor stand behind fellow worker Reese Watkins when he is falsely accused of murdering Basil Brandon, the son of the president of the steelworks. In fact, the young man has secretly run off to New York with Watkins’s daughter, Ruth. As disillusionment with the price of technological and industrial progress rose in the late Gilded Age, both middle-class and popular literature began to explore labor/capital conflicts from the industrial worker’s point of view. Novels of the late 1800s and early 1900s began to attribute the anger of striking workers to their alienating work and search for dignity, rather than their blind acceptance of agitators or childlike behavior (Blake 1972). Some fiction and poetry carried the message that labor unions or the federal government should impose controls on the irresponsible industrialists who were unwilling to provide living wages and humane working conditions. Even some strike leaders became sympathetic figures. In Margaret Deland’s 1897 story “The House of Rimmon,” Mrs. Eaton—a widow and mother— leaves the shelter of her brother’s house as an act of conscience. When she realizes that her brother’s workers are on strike because he will

Gilded Age Art and Literature

•

257

no longer pay them fourteen cents an hour, her disgust at his greed will not let her remain in his care (W. F. Taylor 1969). A few proletarian and utopian novels and poems went ever further, portraying workers as wage slaves chained to the machines of industrial capitalism and advocating socialism. Many of these authors and poets used socialism as a generic term, failing to differentiate between types of socialism. They claimed that laissez-faire capitalism resulted in competition and class conflict and alienated individuals from each other. Utopian novels contrasted the current industrial strife with a collectivist, cooperative future of state ownership of businesses, profit-sharing, and cooperative factories. Notable writers in this tradition included Edward Bellamy, who wrote of a future socialistic utopian society in his 1888 novel Looking Backward, and Upton Sinclair, who wrote the 1906 meatpacking industry exposé The Jungle. These few works were the early forerunners of the great number of left-wing proletarian novels that appeared in the 1930s as the country struggled through the Great Depression.

The Iron and Steel Industry in Gilded Age Art Just as in Gilded Age literature, the fine arts for the most part did not feature industrial subject matter. Wealthy patrons and viewers preferred pastoral and genteel images. Popular subjects included nudes, depictions of genteel society, religious and mythological images, flowers, and nostalgic rural landscapes. European art was the most desirable, as it conferred sophistication and respect. Private patrons wielded much influence in an era when there was little to no federal government support of the arts. Gilded Age American artists who wished to be commercially successful had to please their audiences. By the end of the Gilded Age and into the twentieth century, painting saw a slow movement from romanticism to realistic attempts to portray the increasingly industrialized and urbanized everyday world. This change occurred much more slowly than it did in literature. Some wealthy industrialists, like Andrew Carnegie, were philanthropists who invested much of their fortunes in education, culture, and the arts. They helped found and finance museums and art education. They also began collecting art as a serious pursuit, a new phe-

258

•

Iron and Steel

nomenon in the United States. Art collecting became one more avenue of social climbing in an era known for its materialism and conspicuous consumption. Fierce competition over the acquisition of art for private collections ensued because such collections conferred social status on their procurers. A notable fine art collection was what art historian Annie Cohen-Salal called “the ultimate trump card of snobbery” (2001). This was especially important for the nouveaux riches, who sought not just a place in the high society of old The cover of the official catalog for the 1876 money but also to Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. erase the memory of (Bettmann/Corbis) their prior backgrounds and lifestyles. Many of these private art collections were exhibited in the palatial estates of the newly wealthy industrialists. Industrial patrons also helped finance new avenues of artistic exhibition during the Gilded Age. The 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia drew 10 million visitors, who viewed, among many other exhibits, a large display of artworks by both American and foreign artists. Memorial Hall and its annex—two of the exposition’s largest buildings—were devoted to the fine arts. Numerous other exhibitions throughout the country in the late nineteenth and early

Gilded Age Art and Literature

•

259

twentieth centuries featured artwork displays and received tremendous publicity. Industrialists, politicians, and academic scholars worked to organize these popular mass entertainments. Their selection of artworks to display corresponded with the general aesthetics of the time in that few of the featured artworks portrayed industrial subjects. New arenas of display also included the art shops, commercial galleries, exhibitions, and museums that became increasingly common features of the rapidly growing Gilded Age cities. New museums opened often, in large part due to funding provided by industrial magnates. Notable examples include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, opened in New York in 1870; the Museum of Fine Arts, opened in Boston in 1870; and the Art Institute of Chicago, opened in 1879. Prominent art organizations and schools, like the prestigious National Academy of Design, held annual exhibitions featuring works of both foreign and American artists. Wealthy industrialists and art collectors were often in attendance. Many industrial capitalists, including iron and steel industry leaders, also commissioned portraits of themselves and their families as another mark of their social status. Renowned Gilded Age American artist John Singer Sargent spent most of his life in London and Paris but frequently traveled to the United States to paint portraits of the wealthy. Having a portrait painted by Sargent or another prominent painter was a symbol of high society. Helen Clay Frick, daughter of Andrew Carnegie’s manager Henry Clay Frick, even had a portrait of her spaniel Fudge painted by American artist Percival Leonard Rosseau (1859–1937) in 1908. The oil-on-canvas painting hung in the dog’s bedroom in Frick’s Bedford, New York, home. Although the influences of wealthy patrons and European art standards made painted industrial scenes rare in the Gilded Age, there were some notable exceptions. Magazine illustrations, some made from engraved reproductions of well-known artworks, appeared in popular journals like Harper’s Weekly. Harper’s illustrator Walter Shirlaw (1839–1909) created several steelmaking scenes for the magazine. Shirlaw was also a well-known painter noted especially for his images of Indian tribes in Montana and Wyoming. Some of his titles include Rolling Steel Plates and Emptying the Crucible. There were also a few painters, most notably John Ferguson Weir, Thomas Anshutz, and Robert Koehler, who created powerful representations of industrial scenes. These rare works were forerunners of the early-

260

•

Iron and Steel

twentieth-century movement in American art toward realism and depictions of everyday life. These Gilded Age artistic representations of iron- and steelworkers did, however, have predecessors in both European and American art. They grew out of an artistic tradition of depicting blacksmiths at a forge, including such works as John Singleton Copley’s portraits of Paul Revere (1768–1770) and Nathaniel Hurd (ca. 1765), John Neagle’s Pat Lyon at the Forge (1826–1827), and Bass Otis’s Interior of a Smithy (ca. 1815). Representations of blacksmiths continued into the Gilded Age, as seen in Thomas Hovendon’s painting The Village Blacksmith (ca. 1880) and Christian Schussele’s painting The Iron Worker and King Solomon (1864). Philadelphian Joseph Harrison Jr., a prominent railroad industry inventor and engineer, commissioned Schussele’s painting based on a rabbinical legend that he had heard during childhood. A reproduction was included in Harrison’s 1868 book of the same name. Harrison associated the modern ironworker with free labor and the North’s industrialization, which had helped it win the Civil War (Dinnerstein 1979). His book included an original poem, memoirs, essays, poems, and several accounts of the legend on which the painting was based. The legend told the story of a feast honoring the workers given by King Solomon at the newly built Temple of Jerusalem. The blacksmith appeared at the celebration, sweaty and dirty from his labors. King Solomon demanded to know why he had come when there was no iron used in the temple. The blacksmith showed that each of the other workers—the stone carvers, the woodworkers, and the gold and ivory artificers—used tools made by the blacksmith. Solomon then recognized the blacksmith’s exalted position among workers, and the blacksmith sat by his side for the rest of the event.

John Ferguson Weir’s Foundry Scenes John Ferguson Weir was one of the first American artists to depict groups of iron- and steelworkers in modern industrial settings. He was also known for his landscapes and portraits. Weir was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1841. He was one of sixteen children. Weir received his early art training from his father, the notable Amer-

Gilded Age Art and Literature

•

261

ican artist Robert Weir, who was an art teacher at West Point Military Academy known for his portraits and historical paintings. His brothers, Julian Alden Weir and Charles Weir, also became well-known American artists. John Ferguson Weir became a member of the National Academy of Design in 1866 and served as the director of the Yale School of Fine Arts from 1869 through 1913. He painted several scenes of industrial interiors in the 1870s. His painting The Gun Photograph of John F. Weir, ca. 1899. Foundry was one of the (Smithsonian Institution) few paintings with industrial subjects exhibited at the 1876 Centennial Exposition. It depicted men at the forge producing cannons for the Civil War. He had studied these men while at West Point with his father. The work was a critical success and brought Weir recognition at the 1866 National Academy of Design exhibition. Weir’s 1877 oil-on-canvas painting titled Forging the Shaft: A Welding Heat depicted a similar scene of foundry workmen, this time straining to forge a steamboat shaft. They are lit by the glow from the furnace and the white-hot metal. Weir had originally painted the work in 1867, but that original was destroyed in a fire. Forging the Shaft was exhibited at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The owner of the forge depicted in both paintings admired the works’ romantic quality and purchased The Gun Foundry before its completion (Dinnerstein 1979). John Ferguson Weir described the image he had in his mind while working on the painting as follows:

262

•

Iron and Steel

[It] shows a forge, with grim men forging—forging shafts for floating engines, huge and ponderous—glowing hot . . . hammered ’till its form is got—Swung in chains—from huge cranes—fancy makes them groan and squeak—Smiths do swing these great huge masses, glowing hot with flaming gas’s—from the furnace to the anvil—to the anvil ’neath the hammer—then in anger it sputters—as it’s hammered into shape— like a thing of life it mutters—groans, and sputters, sputters flaming drops of sweat. Swarthy Smiths with brawny arms, arms of muscle strong and large—with their tools and bars of iron, turn the monster on its back—hammer well its upper cranium—hammer well its spinal bone—makes it groan in monotone, and flare at them in anger, flaming gas—and sputtering all the while its horrid sweat of anguish, flaming sparks—these fall upon the Smiths—upon their brawny arms and leather aprons—leather aprons stiff and black. But no heed have they for ought, save welding into shape the sublime monster—white with heat—with rage—with anguish—till at last the thing is done. (ibid.)

This description captures a prominent Gilded Age theme on industry and technology: the image of manly, straining workers in competition with the machine as monster.

Thomas Pollack Anshutz and The Ironworkers’ Noontime Gilded Age American artist Thomas Pollack Anshutz (1851–1912) is best remembered for his depiction of ironworkers on their midday break in the 1880 painting The Ironworkers’ Noontime. His work, like Weir’s, captures the image of manly, muscled workers—but it is different in that it emphasizes those workers, rather than the establishment in which they worked. Its portrayal of workers was unique in American art at the time and contrasted with more negative European industrial images, such as the one in German realist painter Adolf Menzel’s 1875 work Iron-Rolling Mill (Modern Cyclops). Thomas Anshutz was born in 1851 and grew up in Kentucky and West Virginia. He studied under the well-known American painter Thomas Eakins (1844–1916) at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. By 1879 he was assisting Eakins with his anatomy classes at the academy. In 1881 Anshutz became chief demonstrator, and in

Gilded Age Art and Literature

•

263

1882 he joined Eakins on the academy’s faculty. Four years later, Anshutz succeeded Eakins as a professor of painting and drawing when the academy fired Eakins over a controversy involving his use of a nude male model in a class containing female students. Anshutz left his position at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1892 and studied further in Paris. Both Eakins and his former pupil encouraged an independent American art, rather than a continued reliance on European trends. Both men also encouraged American artists to use their everyday worlds as subject matter. Eakins’s 1875 painting The Gross Clinic, depicting a surgeon at work, is considered one of the earliest U.S. masterpieces of realism. Anshutz primarily painted women, children, and landscapes and worked in both oils and watercolors. He was a more influential teacher than artist during his lifetime, receiving little recognition until the twentieth century. Thomas Pollack Anshutz died in 1912. Anshutz’s most famous painting is most commonly known as The Ironworkers’ Noontime, but it has also been exhibited as Ironworkers-Noontime, Steelworkers-Noontime, and Ironworkers’ Noonday Rest. The painting is a crowded composition showing steel mill workers resting during their midday break. Some of the workers are washing up at a water pump, some are eating cold meals, and some are resting. The mill and its smokestacks are visible in the picture’s background, but the workers are the primary focus. The workers’ pale skin contrasts with the grays, blacks, and browns of their surroundings. Many historians of American art credit this work with legitimating industrial scenes as fine-art subjects. The painting is from the workers’ perspective, something new in American art at that time. Anshutz utilized photographs, paint studies, studio sketches, and antique sculptures to aid in his depictions of the muscular figures shown in a variety of positions. The setting is most likely the iron mills of Wheeling, West Virginia, a town notable in the late 1870s and early 1880s as a nail-making center. Anshutz had spent many of his childhood years in the Wheeling area. His selection of workers in an occupation requiring close proximity to intense heat allowed him to portray many of the men as shirtless or sleeveless. Many of the subjects are striking poses that show off their musculature, including one man in the foreground who is feeling his biceps. The workers’ youth and strength correspond to the general cultural ideology of manliness prevalent in the Gilded Age. Art histo-

264

•

Iron and Steel

rian Hilton Kramer described Anshutz’s figures as “manly proletarians striking balletic poses in the noonday sun” (Kramer 2004). The men also appear tired. Twentieth-century art critics and historians have debated whether this aspect of the workers’ appearance carries a romantic overtone that signifies the tiring but ennobling effects of hard work—a virtue celebrated in Gilded Age society—or whether it carries a realistic overtone that signifies a critique of the long working hours in hazardous conditions commonplace during that same age. Anshutz first showed the work in the 1880 annual exhibition of the Philadelphia Sketch Club, of which he was an active member. He next showed it in the 1881 annual exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under the title Dinner Time. He then exhibited the painting in New York. Despite receiving praise for the work, Anshutz was unable to sell it. Thomas Clarke, an American industrialist and emerging collector and dealer of American art, purchased the painting in 1883. Clarke had also founded a cash prize for the best figure painting by an American artist, which was awarded annually by the National Academy of Design. Clarke exhibited Anshutz’s painting, along with the rest of his collection, at the American Art Gallery for several weeks during the end of 1883 and the beginning of 1884. Clarke had developed a relationship with the editor of Harper’s Weekly, S. R. Koehler. Journals such as Harper’s frequently ran sketches of artworks, including a reproduction of The Ironworkers’ Noontime by the engraver Frederich Juengling that appeared in the August 30, 1884, edition. The engraving helped bring the painting to the public’s attention and also led to its use in advertising. Procter and Gamble created a billboard for Ivory soap based on the painting that featured ironworkers washing up after work (Pauly 1988). Clarke sold his U.S. paintings, including Anshutz’s work, in 1899. Anshutz was disappointed by both the painting’s early failure to sell and its later commercial use. The painting remained his bestknown work, selling for a record $250,000 at auction in 1972—the most paid for a nineteenth-century U.S. painting to that time. The painting has also appeared in numerous late-twentieth-century textbooks as an illustration of Gilded Age working conditions. The Ironworkers’ Noontime was a forerunner of an 1890s movement to break away from artistic traditions and portray the reality of the everyday world, which paralleled the rise of naturalism in Amer-

Gilded Age Art and Literature

•

265

ican literature. Anshutz’s work influenced renowned American artist Robert Henri, who stood at the center of a group of late-nineteenthand early-twentieth-century American artists known as “The Eight” or the “Ashcan School.” Several of the Ashcan School painters— Robert Henri, John Sloan, Everett Shinn, and William Glackens— studied under Anshutz at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. They depicted life in the working-class neighborhoods of New York, holding a groundbreaking exhibition in New York City in 1908 after the National Academy of Design excluded them from its exhibitions. The Ashcan School was the first concerted movement to depict the daily life of ordinary people in the city and one of the first significant U.S. art movements of the twentieth century. The Ironworkers’ Noontime was also a forerunner of a 1930s artistic movement to sentimentalize the working class.

Robert Koehler’s Painting The Strike Robert Koehler (1850–1917), an American painter who mostly lived abroad but returned frequently to exhibit his works, painted another groundbreaking portrayal of a common industrial scene focusing on workers. His uncommissioned oil-on-canvas work The Strike (1886) is a large exhibition picture. The form of the painting is traditional, reflecting Koehler’s European training. Koehler stated that he had the idea for the painting for several years, having been inspired by a strike in Pittsburgh (probably the 1877 railroad strike) (Dinnerstein 1979). Koehler’s father was a skilled machinist, and his mother was a sewing teacher, so he was familiar with the working-class world. He is also known for Her Only Support (exhibited 1883), a painting depicting a seamstress with a broken sewing machine seeking repairs, and The Socialist (exhibited 1885), depicting a politician speaking with his fist raised in the air. Koehler first showed The Strike at the 1886 National Academy of Design exhibition in New York. The Strike depicts a confrontation between a plant owner and his employees that seems on the brink of violence. Koehler used studies of English industrial sites and of coal miners in Belgium to aid in his work. Notable European works of his time, such as Alfred-Philippe Roll’s painting The Coal Miners’ Strike and Paul Soyer’s work The Iron Workers’ Strike, may also have provided inspiration (ibid.). In Koehler’s crowd of workers, one man is

266

•

Iron and Steel

gathering stones, and many more men have their fists clenched. Several women are also pictured, including a woman with two children. The Strike mirrors the increasingly troubled relations between labor and capital and the growing number of strikes that took place as the Gilded Age came to a close.

Reflecting Hopes and Fears of the New Industrial Age The Gilded Age—with its creation of industrial capitalists with large disposable incomes, its growth of a comfortable middle class, and its development of a concentrated urban working class—provided new audiences and patrons for popular culture and the fine arts. Its art and literature reflected early Gilded Age society’s celebration of industrial and technological progress and the self-made industrialists with their newfound fortunes. It also reflected late Gilded Age society’s growing uneasiness with some of the negative by-products of such progress, such as the growth of slums, hazardous working conditions, political corruption, the rise of big businesses, and labor disputes. Although portrayals of average iron- and steelworkers may have been rare, their shifting images provide a window into how Gilded Age American culture and society dealt with the rapid changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution.

Sources Bishop, W. H. 1970. “Story-Paper Literature.” In The American Culture Series: Democratic Vistas, 1860–1880, edited by Alan Trachtenberg. New York: George Braziller. Blake, Fay M. 1972. The Strike in the American Novel. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. Brettell, Richard. 1999. Oxford History of Art: Modern Art, 1851–1929. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brodhead, Richard H. 1988. “Literature and Culture.” In The Columbia Literary History of the United States, edited by Emory Elliott. New York: Columbia University Press. Burns, Sarah. 1996. Inventing the Modern Artist: Art and Culture in Gilded Age America. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Gilded Age Art and Literature

•

267

Butler, Joseph T., Wendell D. Garrett, Alan Gowans, and Paul F. Norton. 1969. The Arts in America: The Nineteenth Century. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Cohen-Salal, Annie. 2001. Painting American: The Rise of American Artists, Paris 1867–New York 1948. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Davis, Rebecca Harding. 1985. “Life in the Iron Mills.” In Provisions: A Reader from Nineteenth-Century American Women, edited by Judith Fetterley. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Denning, Michael. 1998. Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and Working Class Culture in America, rev. ed. New York: Verso. Dietrichson, Jan W. 1969. The Image of Money in the American Novel. New York: Humanities Press. Dinnerstein, Lois. 1979. “The Iron Worker and King Solomon: Some Images of Labor in American Art.” Arts Magazine, September. Doezema, Marianne. 1980. American Realism and the Industrial Age. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, in association with the Cleveland Museum of Art. Eisenman, Stephen. 2002. Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History, 2d ed. New York: Thames and Hudson. Fahlman, Betsy. 1997. John Ferguson Weir: The Labor of Art. Newark: University of Delaware Press. Fienberg, Lorne. 1988. A Cuckoo in the Nest of Culture: Changing Perspectives on the Businessman in the American Novel, 1865–1914. New York: Garland. Glubok, Shirley. 1974. The Art of America in the Gilded Age. New York: Macmillan. Griffin, Randall C. 1990. “Thomas Anshutz’s The Ironworkers’ Noontime: Remythologizing the Industrial Worker.” Smithsonian Studies in American Art, summer–fall. ———. 2004. Homer, Eakins, and Anshutz: The Search for American Identity in the Gilded Age. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Kramer, Hilton. 2004. “Arcadian Painter Anshutz Sentimentalized Workers.” New York Observer, June 3. Lasseter, Janice Milner. n.d. “Introduction to Rebecca Harding Davis, 1831–1910.” http://www.samford.edu/schools/artsci/english/lasseter/introrhd.htm. Lucie-Smith, Edward. 1994. American Realism. New York: Thames and Hudson. Mathey, Francois. 1978. American Realism: A Pictorial Survey from the Early Eighteenth Century to the 1970s. New York: Portland House. Minter, David. 1996. A Cultural History of the American Novel: Henry James to William Faulkner. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pauly, Thomas H. 1988. “American Art and Labor: The Case of Anshutz’s The Ironworkers’ Noontime.” American Quarterly, September. Prelinger, Elizabeth. 2000. The Gilded Age: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, in association with the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Richardson, E. P. 1965. Painting in America: From 1502 to the Present. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. Rose, Jane Atteridge. 1993. Rebecca Harding Davis. Twayne’s U.S. Authors Series. Edited by Nancy Walker. Boston: Twayne.

268

•

Iron and Steel

Salzman, Jack. 1988. “Literature for the Populace.” In The Columbia Literary History of the United States, edited by Emory Elliott. New York: Columbia University Press. Simpson, Marc. 1994. The Rockefeller Collection of American Art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. New York: Henry N. Abrams, in association with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Taylor, Joshua C. 1979. The Fine Arts in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Taylor, Walter Fuller. 1969. The Economic Novel in America. New York: Octagon Books. Trachtenberg, Alan. 1982. The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age. American Century Series. New York: Hill and Wang. Walker, Robert H. 1969. The Poet and the Gilded Age: Social Themes in Late Nineteenth Century American Verse. New York: Octagon Books. Watts, Emily S. 1982. The Businessman in American Literature. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Weinberg, H. Barbara, ed. 1977. The Art Experience in Late-Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Garland.

Iron and Steel in the Modern Era Kevin Hillstrom

I

n the first four decades of the twentieth century, the U.S. steel industry endured periodic economic setbacks and progressively more turbulent relations with both unions and the U.S. government. During World War II, however, it became the “arsenal of democracy,” providing steel vital in building ships, tanks, trucks, aircraft, and other essentials of war. In the postwar era, it was “a welllubricated industrial gargantua” that accounted for more than 60 percent of world steel production (Scheuerman 1986). But rising competition from steelmakers in Europe and Japan, soaring operating costs, slow-footed management, questionable government policies, and the emergence of steel substitutes (primarily aluminum and plastics) triggered a gradual fall from grace. By the 1980s, the U.S. steel industry was in complete disarray, prompting the closure of numerous plants and other facilities, which in turn devastated regional economies in parts of the country that had become extremely dependent on the industry over previous generations. By the early years of the twenty-first century, the domestic industry bore little resemblance to the one of even thirty years earlier. But many analysts—citing aggressive cost-cutting measures, industry-wide consolidation, and nimble business movements—believe that an era of leaner, smarter, and more productive U.S. steel companies may be dawning. 269

270

•

Iron and Steel

U.S. Steel: A (Mostly) Peaceable Titan Historians unanimously concur that the modern U.S. steel industry was born in April 1901, when financier J. P. Morgan officially unveiled the United States Steel Corporation. U.S. Steel was the progeny of a series of earth-shaking industry mergers, the most momentous of which was the acquisition of Carnegie Steel, the steelmaking kingdom of tycoon Andrew Carnegie. Morgan’s machinations created a company that controlled 37 percent of the nation’s pig-iron capacity, 55 percent of its open-hearth production capacity, and almost 75 percent of its Bessemer steel–production capacity. In addition, its far-flung manufacturing facilities produced at least 50 percent of every major steel product sold in the United States. With a market capitalization of more than $1.4 billion, U.S. Steel was the first billion-dollar entity in U.S. corporate history (Seely 1994). Morgan and the other men who held the reins at U.S. Steel promptly set the company on a course that made it one of the most successful and profitable companies of the twentieth century—in any industry. “Few companies ever had such a glorious reign as United States Steel Corp.,” observed Business Week. “Over the next 100 years, it produced the steel for the Panama Canal, the Empire State Building, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, 911 ships during World War II, the Superdome in New Orleans, railroads, oil pipelines, tin cans, and upwards of 150 million automobiles. The company built cities, altered the national economy, and lifted generations into the middle class” (Arndt 2003). U.S. Steel’s dominance was rooted in the huge competitive advantages it enjoyed at the beginning of the twentieth century. By that time, the manufacture of large volumes of steel had become a tremendously capital-intensive proposition, with the construction of a single large steel mill requiring an outlay of several million dollars. Labor, transportation costs (which included moving bulk loads of raw materials to the steel mill and transporting finished products to customers), and acquisition of iron ore and other raw materials were also significant capital expenses—although by virtually any measure the ownership of U.S. Steel and other industry participants received a great deal of work for the modest per-worker wages they laid out. As the industry’s sole giant, U.S. Steel could absorb these costs much more easily than could other U.S. (or foreign) steelmakers.

Iron and Steel in the Modern Era

•

271

U.S. Steel’s sheer size also made it much less vulnerable to cyclical downturns in the economy than its smaller steelmaking brethren. “Steel is essentially a producer’s good that is bought by a wide variety of other manufacturers who incorporate it into products that are eventually sold to ultimate consumers. Yet demand is not disproportionately influenced by any one group of users; rather, steel is so pervasive to the products of an industrialized economy that its demand rises and falls with larger economic conditions that exist at any given time” (Tiffany 1988). In periods when steel demand fell in accordance with larger economic trends, U.S. Steel simply bided its time until the picture changed, while other less financially secure steelmakers anxiously tracked each week’s sales.

The Steady Hand of Elbert Gary The man who was most responsible for U.S. Steel’s success in the first three decades of the twentieth century was Elbert Henry Gary, a lawyer and business executive who directed the company’s day-today operations from 1901 to 1927. Gary instituted and adhered to a management philosophy that emphasized industry stability and good relations with competitors and employees. Most significantly, he kept government regulators mostly at bay in an era when antitrust legislation and regulatory oversight of industries were on the rise. Gary was born on October 8, 1846, into a farming family near Wheaton, Illinois. He was the youngest child of Erastus and Susan Vallette Gary. A bright and studious youth, he became an attorney in 1868 and in 1871 was named a partner in the Illinois law firm of Van Armen and Vallette (founding partner Henry Vallette was Gary’s maternal uncle). Over the ensuing years, he built a fine reputation in the Chicago legal community, acquiring a stable of prestigious business clients. By the 1880s and 1890s, he was serving on the boards of directors of a variety of companies, including the Illinois Steel Company. He also served an eight-year stint as a judge in DuPage County, Illinois, from 1882 to 1890. Gary was an important figure in the founding of the American Steel and Wire Company, and in 1898 he was named president of the newly created Federal Steel Company. It was during this period of his career that he began a professional relationship with J. P. Morgan. When Morgan decided to buy out Carnegie and create the U.S. Steel

272

•

Iron and Steel

Corporation, Gary was one of the first men he recruited. Gary served as chairman of the company’s executive committee during the first two years of the company’s existence, then ran the company as chairman of the board from 1903 until his death in 1927. From the outset, Gary emphasized policies of industry cooperation, price stability, and labor tranquillity. Keenly aware that U.S. Steel was being examined with a skeptical eye by antitrust advocates, he rarely flexed the company’s Elbert Gary ushered U.S. Steel into full economic might. In fact, the modern era. (Corbis) U.S. Steel occupied such a dominating position in the industry that Gary allowed the company to lose market share in every major product line. This undeniable reality may have saved U.S. Steel from being dismantled in 1915, when a congressional committee was formed to examine the firm’s adherence to antitrust laws. Gary was also helped by the assertions of numerous competitors who testified under oath that U.S. Steel did not operate in a predatory fashion. In the end, the committee had no choice but to conclude: “Where no competitor complains, and much more so, where they unite in testifying that the business conduct of the Steel Corporation has been fair, we can rest assured that there has been neither monopoly nor restraint” (Seely 1994). As time passed, Gary mastered an understated but undeniably effective management style to steer the industry in the direction he wanted it to go. In 1907, for example, he inaugurated regular “Gary dinners,” in which he gathered with leading personages in the industry to discuss various issues of interest to them all. “All participants insisted that only common problems were to be discussed. But Gary had great leverage, although he cloaked his comments in moral terms

Iron and Steel in the Modern Era

•

273

as he encouraged cooperation among the firms in the steel industry” (ibid.). When complaints about the “Gary dinners” surfaced, Gary simply suspended them and established a formal trade organization, called the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), which he used to disseminate his views on pricing, labor relations, and other issues to other leading steel men. He served as president of the AISI from 1910, the year of its founding, until 1927. In 1919 a famous steel strike tested Gary’s reputation as a calmer of turbulent labor waters. The strike centered on the right of independent unions to organize and to participate in collective bargaining. Gary bluntly rejected this idea. U.S. Steel eventually triumphed in the bitter clash, setting back organized-labor efforts at least a decade in the industry. But despite Gary’s harsh behavior in 1919, his open antipathy toward union organizations—and his bedrock support for twelve-hour workdays and seven-day workweeks—he was not as tyrannical to workers as had been earlier generations of steelmakers. For example, pension and profit-sharing plans were both introduced at U.S. Steel under his watch. Gary died on August 15, 1927. His name is commemorated by the steel town of Gary, Indiana, which originated as one of U.S. Steel’s company towns.

The Great Depression In the 1920s, the domestic steel industry entered a period of general prosperity that bred a level of complacency. Buoyed by a seemingly robust national economy and by its continued upper hand over organized labor, the nation’s steel executives became lax in their pursuit of new technologies and innovations, even as the industry showed signs of serious overcapacity. Then, like all other U.S. manufacturing sectors, the steel industry was rocked by the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. From 1929 to 1932, national steel production dropped from 63 million tons to 15.2 million tons, as buyers dramatically curtailed orders or shut their doors altogether. Not surprisingly, only one U.S. steel manufacturer reported a profit in 1932 (the National Steel Company), and the industry’s top twenty firms lost nearly $150 million combined. Industry giants U.S. Steel and Bethlehem Steel suffered particularly heavy losses during this time, given their re-

274

•

Iron and Steel

liance on production of heavy steel goods (industrial machinery, locomotives, and the like) for which there was suddenly no market. Even by the mid-1930s, the industry rarely operated at more than 50 percent of its manufacturing capacity, and at times it was utilizing less than 30 percent of capacity. Not surprisingly, employment in the industry dropped precipitously during this time, with the workforce shrinking from 420,000 to 210,000 from 1929 to 1932 (Hogan 1971; Seely 1994; Tiffany 1988). Because steel was the nation’s largest single employer, its plight attracted widespread attention. But steel executives and the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt failed to establish a productive relationship capable of effectively addressing the industry’s ills. This failure—attributed by historians to shortcomings on both sides— gave further fuel to the antagonistic relationship that had been simmering between steel and the government since the 1910s. In 1934 the Roosevelt administration signed into law the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act, which allowed the president to unilaterally revise existing tariff rates up or down by 50 percent for countries that would agree to reciprocate on trade concessions; it also permitted insertion of most-favored-nation clauses in the agreements. Steel executives were alarmed by this economic stimulus measure, interpreting it as an invitation for foreign steelmakers to flood the United States with lower-priced imports. Then, in May 1935, the National Labor Relations Act was passed. This act, which formally legitimated collective bargaining for labor in the eyes of the federal government, was also condemned by industry management. Steelmakers watched with mounting concern as union drives soared in their mills and other facilities. Workers, meanwhile, celebrated this landmark legislation, fully aware that the negotiating playing field had suddenly become far more balanced. In 1936 labor’s momentum crystallized with the founding of John L. Lewis’s Committee for Industrial Organizations, dedicated to organizing the workforces of the automobile and steel industries.

World War II and the Postwar Era The steel industry made a dramatic turnaround during World War II, when demand for steel to power the war effort put a premium on production. Setting aside for the time being their problems with organized labor, which was becoming a formidable power, and the gov-

Iron and Steel in the Modern Era

•

275

B-24 bombers under construction at a plant in Willow Run, Michigan, during World War II. February 12, 1943. (Corbis)

ernment, with which it remained locked in a mutually distrustful relationship, the industry roared back to life. Extracting high-quality iron-ore deposits at a frantic pace, U.S. steel companies put their mills on an exhausting schedule. By 1944 the industry was producing almost 90 million tons of finished steel, six times more than it had been producing twelve years earlier. By war’s end, steelmakers were understandably—and legitimately—jubilant not only about the industry’s revival but also about their important role in the Allied victory. “Through five fateful years the steel plants in the country have stood as a bulwark protecting human liberty and enlightenment from the threat of totalitarian darkness,” proclaimed Walter S. Tower, president of the AISI. “It has been the task of those plants to provide material for building the greatest war machine that the world has ever seen. . . . That has been conspicuously well done” (Seely 1994).

276

•

Iron and Steel

By 1950 the United States was producing almost 100 million tons of steel—more than all the rest of the steelmaking nations combined—as the industry switched seamlessly from making steel for tanks and aircraft carriers to making steel for refrigerators, automobiles, skyscrapers, and other manifestations of the nation’s startling economic growth in the era. These were by any measure heady days for the industry. “Expounding on the benefits of the United States’s uncontested political and economic hegemony, prophets of the U.S. celebration draped garlands of praise on the powerful domestic steel industry,” wrote one industry historian. “And why not? . . . Steel played a critical role in the nation’s industrial success, and the industry’s infallibility quickly became part of the conventional wisdom” (Scheuerman 1986). During this period, eight steelmakers accounted for more than 75 percent of all steel produced in the United States. With a stranglehold on the booming domestic market and virtually no foreign competition to speak of, the management philosophy at these firms came to emphasize tonnage shipped over all other considerations, including quality, operational efficiency, and the environmental impact of their activities. During the 1950s these firms raised and lowered their prices in virtual lockstep, a classic example of “followthe-leader” pricing designed to keep business for all on an even keel. This oligopolistic dynamic produced wholesale prices for steel that rose more rapidly than for other industries and enabled steelmakers to rake in profits above the nation’s manufacturing average (ibid.). Tectonic shifts in the steel industry’s labor situation also accelerated in the postwar period. Union leaders gained significant concessions from management in terms of wages, workplace rules, pension benefits, and other areas. One particularly noteworthy event in this area was the beginning of industry-wide collective bargaining between the United Steel Workers (USW) and integrated steel companies in 1956. Prior to this milestone, U.S. Steel had been the industry’s chief negotiator with the union over the previous decade, with the contracts it hammered out accepted with only minor alterations by all other steel manufacturers. After a brief strike, the USW and the integrated steelmakers agreed to a contract that increased hourly employment costs by 30 percent over three years (including a cost-ofliving-allowance provision). By 1959 steelworker hourly earnings

Iron and Steel in the Modern Era

•

277

were nearly 40 percent above the all-manufacturing average in the United States, and U.S. Steel and other major manufacturers were regularly announcing price hikes for the cost of steel (Hall 1997; Tiffany 1988.)

The Revival of Foreign Steel Meanwhile, the U.S. government’s obsession with containing the alleged expansionist designs of the communist world had led it to formulate a foreign policy that was heavily weighted toward providing economic assistance to wartime allies (such as European nations that had seen their infrastructure pulverized during the war) and countries that were thought to be “in play” in sociopolitical terms. This infusion of aid quickly resuscitated steelmakers in Germany, Japan, Great Britain, and other countries whose leaderships recognized that a robust steel industry would be key to rebuilding their national economies and infrastructures. Europe was the earliest beneficiary of this aid, but by 1957 Japan was the major recipient. From 1957 to 1960, the U.S. government and various international agencies in which the United States was a major force provided $585 million in direct aid to foreign steelmakers, with Japan alone receiving $176 million of this total. “The amount and terms of the American aid were critical to Japan’s overall steel-development program,” summarized one study. “It signaled the soundness of the investment to other lenders and thus opened up larger funding. The United States provided more than just direct financial assistance to Japan’s steel companies. Technical know-how was liberally offered, and numerous trade missions made their way between the two countries” (Tiffany 1988). The financial assistance offered by the United States improved the daily lives of millions of people around the world, and its years of generosity—even if prompted in part by cold war concerns—provide a historical milestone of which the nation is justifiably proud. But when new, technologically advanced steel mills began to proliferate in Europe and Japan, U.S. steelmakers became nervous, especially since the administration of President Dwight Eisenhower was pursuing policies of open trade that included removal of tariffs on imports.

278

•

Iron and Steel

By the mid-1950s some U.S. steelmakers were pointing to foreign steelmakers as a legitimate threat, but the U.S. government had come to view the complaints with skepticism. “A major reason for this was the historical burden of distrust that surrounded steel-government relations in America,” claims historian Paul Tiffany. “Not only were there traditional antistate attitudes held by steel leaders, but as well there was a strong sense of antisteel sentiment on the part of public policymakers” (ibid.). Indeed, in 1952 clashes between steelmakers and the government over unionization, workforce wages, and steelmaking capacity had grown so inflammatory that President Harry Truman briefly seized the industry’s assets (this action was later ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court). Meanwhile, steel imports continued to rise. Between 1953 and 1957 steel imports rose by 88 percent on the West Coast, which was easily accessible for Japanese manufacturers. Two years later, the St. Lawrence Seaway opened the gates of the entire Great Lakes region to foreign steelmakers. The six-nation European Coal and Steel Community accounted for 70 percent of America’s imported steel between 1953 and 1959, but Japan loomed as the most formidable long-term challenge. From 1953 to 1959, Japan doubled its share of the U.S. market (ibid.). America’s giant integrated steelmakers watched these gathering thunderclouds on the horizon with a gnawing sense of trepidation, despite the fact that in 1955—a year in which they accounted for 40 percent of world steel production—they had set a new production record of 117 million tons. “Already in steel, there is a straw in the wind,” affirmed steel executive Roger Blough in 1958. It may be only a straw, but I give it for what it may be worth. Exports of steel from the United States in 1958 will fall off roughly 40 percent from 1957. But what is more significant, in this year when our industry operated far below its capacity, our steel imports are expected to be 10 to 15 percent above those of a year ago. And may I add that while recognizing the value of such expedients as tariffs and quotas, increased tariff protection is not the ultimate or basic answer because free nations must depend upon trade. Trade is mutually beneficial. Moreover, if experience teaches us anything, then certainly we have learned that the power to erect tariff walls is not one in which America enjoys a monopoly.

Iron and Steel in the Modern Era

•

279

The Strike of 1959 It was in this uncertain atmosphere that the United Steel Workers and the nation’s steel executives sat down at the negotiating table in 1959 to cobble together a new three-year contract. The USW strongly objected to management’s insistence on a much lower rate of wage increases, but the companies were becoming increasingly uneasy about price competitiveness against foreign imports, and they were being pressured by an inflation-wary Eisenhower administration to keep their prices down, anyway. The two sides became deadlocked, setting the stage for the longest major industrial strike in U.S. history. The July 15, 1959, walkout lasted for 116 days, sidelining an estimated 519,000 workers who accounted for 87 percent of the industry’s production capacity. Moreover, as the strike dragged on, it triggered layoffs of an estimated 250,000 other workers in steel-dependent industries (Hall 1997). Finally, with domestic mills fallen silent, annual steel imports into the United States in 1959 exceeded exports for the first time in the twentieth century. On November 7, the union membership returned to work after a Supreme Court ruling. The two sides finally reached a settlement in January 1960 under federal mediation. The contract called for much smaller wage increases—thirty-nine cents an hour increase in base pay over three years—than the 1956 contract, but it also included a cost-of-living-allowance (COLA) provision for inflation. In addition, the contract gave the workers long-sought access to severance pay under the supplementary unemployment benefits program, and it strengthened health care and pension benefits. All in all, it was a contract that left the integrated steelmakers unhappy.

Chinks in the Armor During the 1960s, America’s integrated steel companies spent an estimated $15 billion on new mills and facilities in a clear attempt to ward off the growing threat of Japanese and European steel. But these investments failed to neutralize the compelling advantages that overseas producers enjoyed. The foreign plants, noted one analyst, were modern mills

280

•

Iron and Steel

Labor unrest in the steel industry sometimes even triggered violence within the unions, as in this 1959 clash between striking members of Steel Workers’ Local 1272 in Pittsburgh. (Bettmann/Corbis)

with optimal layouts and well-matched component parts. They had been built after 1955, sited at deep-water ports to take advantage of the new, large bulk ore and coal carriers. They had large blast furnaces with hearth diameters in excess of 10 meters, double the average unit size for the U.S.; steelmaking was exclusively by the BOF [basic oxygen furnace] method; hot-strip mills were continuous and high-powered. Many of the new plants had capacities in excess of 5 million net tons per year. (Hall 1997)

The U.S. steel industry’s lethargic response to the introduction of the revolutionary basic oxygen furnace (BOF) and other innovations such as continuous casting became a particular problem as the 1960s

Iron and Steel in the Modern Era

•

281

wore on. Many U.S. executives simply failed to recognize the strategic importance of these innovations, or their efforts to move their companies in those directions withered on the vine, done in by inflexible and unresponsive organizational structures. In 1960, for example, the United States generated only 3.4 percent of its total steel production from BOF installations, whereas Japan generated 11.9 percent of its output from BOF-furnished mills. As the 1960s progressed, U.S. steelmakers did make significant new expenditures on their facilities in an effort to blunt the competitive advantage of foreign firms. But analysts observe that these big capital investments were fatally flawed. “[They] were focused on Brownfield, incremental investments at plants that were already mismatched in terms of the coordination and relative scales of their component parts, and that became more cluttered and inefficient with additional investment,” wrote Christopher Hall. By 1974, he said, the majority of America’s integrated steel plants were located on pre-1920 steel mill sites, and resembled almost randomly collected vestiges of different waves of expansion on a confined site plan—prewar, wartime emergency construction, and the 1950s and 1960s waves of investment. Replacement or upgrading of one unit, whether a steelmaking, rolling, or finishing unit, might address one bottleneck but could not address the overall problem of coordination of the several parts. Only at a Greenfield site could the components be evenly matched and physically sited in line to minimize handling costs and the buildup of work-in-process inventory. (Hall 1997)

Losing Market Share to Substitute Materials During the 1960s, rising steel prices—a product both of the integrated steel companies’ desire for profit and of their soaring production costs (especially labor)—also opened the door for alternative building and construction materials. From 1945 to 1959, steel prices had jumped by 165 percent. Concrete, plastics, and other substitute materials, meanwhile, had risen much more modestly in price. “After seven price increases in eight years, the possibility that other materials could substitute for steel no longer seemed impractical to industrial buyers; indeed, it seemed essential to many of them” (Reutter

282

•

Iron and Steel

Kennedy versus Big Steel In 1961 new president John F. Kennedy became actively involved in contract negotiations between U.S. steelmakers and the United Steel Workers (USW) union. The Kennedy administration believed that acrimonious negotiations—or even worse, a devastating strike like the one that had brought the industry to a grinding halt in 1959—would hurt the profitability of steel companies and prompt them to raise steel prices, which would in turn exacerbate inflationary conditions and dampen other manufacturing activity. In January 1962 Kennedy and his labor secretary, Arthur Goldberg, held a secret session with Robert Blough, the president of U.S. Steel, and David McDonald, president of the USW. The men eventually worked out a wage agreement acceptable to both sides. In essence, the terms of the agreement gave union members an expansion of fringe benefits but held the line on base-wage increases. On March 31, 1962, the contract was formally signed. Kennedy was pleased with the deal, which avoided a catastrophic strike and—he thought—ensured that U.S. Steel and the other integrated steelmakers would not raise their prices. On April 10, 1962, however, Blough paid a visit to the White House in which he informed Kennedy and Goldberg that U.S. Steel intended to hike their prices by six dollars a ton. Not surprisingly, the country’s other major steelmakers followed the lead of the market-share leader and announced virtually identical hikes. President Kennedy felt personally betrayed by the price hike, and he made no attempt to hide his displeasure. He responded by attack-

1988). As the 1960s progressed, manufacturers of concrete, aluminum, and plastics plucked away some of the steel industry’s biggest clients, from automakers to construction companies. Aluminum makers, for example, swooped in and took the enormously lucrative metal-can business away from the steel companies in the space of a few years. Yet even in this fast-moving business environment, where innovation and creativity were clearly emerging as keys to long-term business success in myriad industries, American steelmakers were reluctant to invest in research and development. A 1966 report by the National Science Foundation, for example, found that the nation’s leading steelmakers were spending only 60 cents of every $100 in rev-

Iron and Steel in the Modern Era

•

283

ing the patriotism and integrity of steel executives during an April 11 press conference. The government then delivered a cascade of blows at Big Steel, from congressional threats to investigate the industry’s monopolistic practices to Pentagon musings that it might divert all of its considerable business to steel companies that had refrained from raising their prices. In addition, the Justice Department, headed by the president’s brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy, announced its intention to investigate price-fixing in the steel industry. Stunned American steelmakers scrambled to respond, but it quickly became clear that their only tenable position was to beat a retreat and admit defeat. On April 13, Inland Steel, the fourth-largest steel company in the country, announced that it had decided to retract its price hike. Other companies quickly followed suit, and on April 14 Blough agreed to cancel U.S. Steel’s scheduled price increase. Mollified, the Kennedy administration quietly dropped its investigative threats. Over the ensuing months, Blough and other steel executives gradually raised prices on individual products. But they were extremely careful to proceed individually rather than as a single monolithic entity, and they purposely made the announcements in a low-key fashion that would not arouse the ire of the Kennedy brothers. Clearly, the era of “follow-the-leader” pricing had come to an end.

Sources McConnell, Grant. 1963. Steel and the Presidency—1962. New York: Norton. Tiffany, Paul A. 1988. The Decline of American Steel: How Management, Labor, and Government Went Wrong. New York: Oxford University Press.

enue for research and development, whereas the average for all manufacturing sectors was $1.90 for every $100 in revenue. The industries producing aluminum, concrete, plastics, and other steel substitutes, meanwhile, were investing a far greater percentage of their resources in research than the steel firms (ibid.). Despite these growing problems, the U.S. steel industry managed to tread water during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Rising world steel demand, coupled with trade measures designed to slow steel imports, kept U.S. mills humming and gave them an opportunity to introduce some much needed modernization to their facilities. These factors pushed American domestic steel production to a record 141 million tons in 1969, and the bottom lines of the integrated steelmak-

284

•

Iron and Steel

ers were further buttressed by a variety of tax breaks and pollution abatements. In 1973 the U.S. steel industry reported historic levels of production, steel shipments, and inflation-adjusted sales and profits. Indeed, the industry operated at or above its nominal capacity for virtually the entire year. These earnings enabled many steelmakers to reduce their long-term debt and get their fiscal houses in order. By 1974 numerous executives were convinced that the worst was over. “In the heady atmosphere of these years, each company’s dream plans for future expansion were dusted off” (Hall 1997). American steelmakers were so confident that they had regained their competitive footing that they even embarked on a dramatic new course in labor relations. Determined to avoid another damaging strike, they initiated secret negotiations with I. W. Abel and the rest of the USW leadership. The union, meanwhile, had been sufficiently unnerved by the turbulence in the industry to adopt a more conciliatory approach with management. The two sides eventually settled on a no-strike agreement known as the Experimental Negotiating Agreement (ENA). This 1974 contract, which was essentially renewed in 1977 and 1980, stipulated that wages to union workers would automatically rise 3 percent a year plus the COLA inflation rate. The USW in turn pledged that it would accept binding arbitration on disputed contract issues. The steel industry had secured labor peace but at a high price. In accordance with the terms of the ENA, the wage base in the industry soared from $4.81 an hour in 1972 to $13.01 in 1982, growth far exceeding the rate of inflation. Total employment costs, meanwhile, including the costs of benefits, rose from $7.075 per hour in 1972 to $23.781 in 1982 (ibid.). Mere months after management and labor signed off on the ENA, the U.S. steel industry abruptly plummeted into a frightening tailspin. Imports of inexpensive foreign steel surged, in part because of declining transportation expenses and in part because it constituted a smarter buy than the high-priced product the domestic manufacturers were hawking. A recession that was spreading among virtually all corporate sectors further diminished demand for U.S.-made steel products. In 1975 the environment at steel mills changed dramatically in the space of a few months, morphing from outfits that were running at full capacity and rationing the distribution of their product to

Iron and Steel in the Modern Era

•

285

various clients to mills that were issuing pink slips to entire shifts of workers. From 1974 to 1980, in fact, about 15 percent of the industry’s union workforce was eliminated via downsizing. Over the next several years, the situation became progressively more dire. “From a position of world domination, [America’s integrated steelmakers] were reduced by the 1980s to a struggle for existence” (Seely 1994). According to one account, the late 1970s’ “meltdown” of America’s integrated steel companies could be compared to the bursting of a dam that had held back the growing waters of competition, investment, technological innovation, and social accountability for three-quarters of a century. A flood of pent-up problems hit the industry simultaneously: the collapse of pricing toward world market levels; the obsolescence of much of the industry’s plant and equipment; the power of (and the obligations to) the Steelworkers union; and the environmental and safety issues companies had long ignored. Most important, three new competitive elements entered the U.S. steel market: imported steel, domestic minimills, and the independent distributors upon whom the first two depended. These factors undermined the long-established system of mutually understood pricing and market shares. (Hall 1997)

U.S. Minimills Minimills first emerged in the United States in the late 1950s. The first facilities that wore this moniker were electric-furnace mills that shared certain characteristics: they were small in size (until 1969 having less than 200,000 short tons of annual capacity), focused on local markets, and were independently owned and operated (although they often had beneficial links to scrap processing or fabricating operations). Most important of all, they shared a lowcost, streamlined operating sensibility that was at odds with the bloated, top-heavy operations of the integrated steel giants that dominated the industry at the time. The minimills enjoyed steady growth in the 1960s and early 1970s, and when the industry giants staggered in the mid-1970s, the minimills made their move. Their efficiency and low prices enabled them

286

•

Iron and Steel

to seize a lot of new business, and inevitably they expanded to the point that they no longer fit the previous definition of a “minimill.” Minimills with 1 million tons of production capacity at a single facility and firms armed with multiple mills were no longer the small niche players of twenty years before. But these outfits continued to be known as minimills because they adhered to the same operating philosophy as before—one that emphasized speed, efficiency, and low capital costs (most notably through reliance on nonunion labor). By the early 1980s, minimills enjoyed a far better reputation among investors and customers alike than integrated steel giants such as U.S. Steel and Bethlehem Steel, which were increasingly dismissed as business dinosaurs.

A Dispirited and Battered Industry In 1982 the U.S. steel industry experienced its worst year in terms of shipments since the Great Depression. That year, shipments fell to 61.6 million tons, a stunning decline from a mere three years earlier, when steel shipments exceeded 100 million tons. With steel orders drying up, the integrated steelmakers operated at less than 50 percent capacity and collectively lost $3.3 billion, or 11 percent of their total equity (Hall 1997). The specter of impending bankruptcy prompted the industry to slash its workforce and engage in other belt-tightening activities. In the first half of 1982, more than 110,000 steelworkers were laid off, and numerous mills that were cornerstones of regional economies cut shifts, shut down furnaces, or suspended their operations entirely. But for many companies, these actions were insufficient to counteract other grim business factors, ranging from higher operating costs associated with increased environmental controls on integrated steelmaking (especially coke making) to high interest rates (which reduced expenditures on steel-intensive products like automobiles and snuffed out capital spending) to the strong dollar (which made foreign steel more appealing than domestic steel). From 1981 through 1985, in fact, foreign steel flooded the U.S. market, driving imports to a record high of 26.4 percent of domestic consumption in 1984— despite the presence of import controls. The Reagan administration

Iron and Steel in the Modern Era

•

287

In 1980 United Steel’s Youngstown mill shut its doors, despite workers’ feverish attempts to buy the plant and keep it running. (Bettmann/Corbis)

responded to these economic problems with a 25 percent tax cut, but this failed to provide the intended “supply-side” boost to the economy that would lift steel and other besieged corporate sectors. Instead, the administration’s fiscal policies drove up the deficit and thus added to the pressure on interest rates by increased government borrowing (ibid.). As Americans became all too familiar with the images of shuttered steel mills and grim-faced union workers in such cities as Pittsburgh and Youngstown, Ohio, the only bright spot in the industry was the continued growth of minimills and the emergence of specialty steel companies. The growth of both of these sectors was driven by a recognition of the importance of new technology and continued determination to hold down capital costs.

288

•

Iron and Steel

Seeking Relief from Washington By the mid-1980s, the steel giants were so badly wounded that they were able to gain major concessions from policy makers in Washington, D.C. They received major tax breaks, as well as waivers on a number of environmental regulations contained in the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. The latter exemptions were hailed by executives that had long railed against environmental regulations requiring any capital investments on their part, but some analysts claim that environmental expenditures actually helped companies increase their productivity by forcing them to reduce waste and recognize that recycling of inputs actually constituted good business practice. “In the long run,” said one analyst, “the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] helped the steel industry to adjust from a culture of profligacy to one of efficiency” (ibid.). By the late 1980s, U.S. steelmakers had made meaningful improvements in their operating efficiency. In 1988, for instance, steel executives reported that annual steel production per worker that year was more than three times what it had been a mere thirteen years earlier. But in many ways, the industry picture remained stark. “The American steel industry has degenerated to an apparent state of permanent contraction,” wrote one analyst in 1988. “Steel mills, once surging with orders to be filled, are now forever shuttered in many parts of the nation. Numerous companies have filed for bankruptcy, while others escaped by only the thinnest of margins. Workers, once ‘idled,’ were then permanently eliminated, and steel imports displaced an ever larger share of the domestic market” (Tiffany 1988).

Steel in the 1990s By the mid-1990s, the U.S. steel industry bore little resemblance to the one in existence in 1975. In 1995, eighteen of the twenty-one integrated steel companies in operation two decades earlier had been merged, reorganized in bankruptcy court, or shut down permanently. Moreover, of the forty-eight integrated steel mills operated by those companies in the United States in 1975, more than half had been shut down or reconstituted to operate as nonintegrated plants. Integrated steelmaking capacity (excluding electric furnaces), mean-

Iron and Steel in the Modern Era

•

289

while, had plummeted from approximately 125 million tons in 1975 to 65 million tons in 1995 (Hall 1997). The painful retrenchment of integrated steelmaking extended to the industry workforce as well. At the beginning of 1979, the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) included 1.2 million dues-paying members, including more than 500,000 workers in aluminum and other nonferrous-metals industries and a range of manufacturing plants. By the beginning of 1995, the USWA’s dues-paying membership had declined to 413,000 workers in the United States and 152,000 in Canada. Still, the bloodletting of the previous decade and a half seemed to be at an end. Industry analysts agreed that trailblazing specialty steel companies and dynamic minimills were important parts of the industry’s mid-1990s stabilization. But they hastened to add that the traditional giants’ increased emphasis on efficiency, quality, and cost control played an important role as well. The triumph of minimills . . . does not seem surprising. They have seemingly every advantage that fashion or public relations could confer to attract investors: they are (or were, or have been portrayed as) small-sized, small-town, independent, innovation, entrepreneurial, allAmerican Davids fighting the Goliaths of the bad old steel industry. What may be more surprising is that many of the Goliaths are still around. . . . While the minimills may have become heroes of Wall Street and business schools, it is no disrespect to them to say that selfrenewal of the integrated mills is at least as important a story. (Hall 1997)

U.S. Steel in the New Century In the late 1990s, however, American steelmakers once again found themselves struggling against a surge of imports triggered by the strong dollar, which drove up the price of U.S. steel relative to steel coming out of Germany, Japan, and other steelmaking nations. Worldwide steelmaking capacity, meanwhile, topped 1 billion tons a year, exceeding global demand by an estimated 200 million tons—or twice the annual output of the entire U.S. steel industry.

290

•

Iron and Steel

From 1998 to mid-2002, thirty-three American steel companies filed for bankruptcy protection, including LTV, the nation’s thirdlargest producer of steel. In the meantime, U.S. Steel—once the most powerful corporation on the planet—posted a $218 million loss in its centennial year, by which time it was on the verge of sliding out of the international steel industry’s top-ten rankings. The chief culprits in this tumble were familiar, ranging from imports to high operating costs—most notably U.S. Steel’s massive pension obligations. During this same time span, the USWA reported that 50,000 steelworkers lost their jobs, and the federal government was forced to pick up the pensions of more than 230,000 steel industry retirees and dependents from companies that collapsed (Arndt 2003). In March 2002 the administration of President George W. Bush, which usually displayed a strong free-market orientation, imposed new tariffs on imported steel to protect the ailing industry. The Bush administration kept the tariffs in place until December 2003, when the threat of a trade war with Europe and Japan forced their suspension. When the tariffs were lifted, steel prices soared. In January 2002, for example, steel scrap prices were about $60 per ton; by February 2004 they had skyrocketed to more than $300 per ton. Reasons cited for these price hikes included business costs passed along by coke miners subject to new environmental restrictions, the higher cost of raw materials, and a weakening dollar. But the primary cause of the price jump, experts agree, was fast-growing China’s ravenous appetite for steel, which made the material harder to obtain in other parts of the world. The soaring price of steel in 2003 and 2004 has been greeted with mixed feelings by the industry. On the one hand, it has enabled some steel producers to stabilize their financial picture and make needed investments in new technology, which have in turn boosted the stock prices of leading firms. But some analysts worry that the high price of steel could prompt increasing numbers of end users to cast about for material alternatives and reduce their long-term steel dependency. As of 2003, the leading companies in the U.S. steel industry were Nucor Corporation, the nation’s premier minimill operator; the relatively new International Steel Group (ISG), headed by Wilbur Ross Jr., which features many of the assets of the old LTV and Bethlehem Steel companies; and U.S. Steel, which has also launched aggressive

Iron and Steel in the Modern Era

•

291

“expansion-by-acquisition” plans in recent years. Indeed, these three companies have acquired the assets of an assortment of their bankrupt peers—in the process consolidating a historically fragmented industry. The three companies accounted for nearly half of all U.S. steel production in 2003, and even higher percentages of sheet steel and other flat-rolled metal. All three companies are also aggressively pursuing expansion into Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia (Arndt 2003).

Sources Arndt, Michael. 2003. “Up from the Scrap Heap: Consolidation Has Given U.S. Steelmakers the Heft to Compete Globally.” Business Week, July 21. Bensman, David, and Roberta Lynch. 1987. Rusted Dreams: Hard Times in a Steel Community. New York: McGraw-Hill. Blough, Roger. 1958. “World Steel Market Is Tougher.” Iron Age 182 (December 25). Brody, David. 1965. Labor in Crisis: The Steel Strike in 1919. Philadelphia: Lippincott. Cutcliffe, Stephen H. 1994. “Elbert H. Gary.” In Iron and Steel in the Twentieth Century, edited by Bruce Seely. New York: Facts on File. Eggert, Gerald G. 1981. Steelmasters and Labor Reform, 1886–1923. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Hall, Christopher G. L. 1997. Steel Phoenix: The Fall and Rise of the U.S. Steel Industry. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Hoerr, John P. 1988. And the Wolf Finally Came: The Decline of the American Steel Industry. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Hogan, William T. 1971. Economic History of the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States. 5 vols. Lexington, MA: Heath. Reutter, Mark. 1988. Sparrows Point: Making Steel—the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might. New York: Summit. Scheuerman, William. 1986. The Steel Crisis: The Economics and Politics of a Declining Industry. New York: Praeger. Seely, Bruce E., ed. 1994. Iron and Steel in the Twentieth Century. New York: Facts on File. Strohmeyer, John. Crisis in Bethlehem: Big Steel’s Struggle to Survive. Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler, 1986. Tiffany, Paul A. 1988. The Decline of American Steel: How Management, Labor, and Government Went Wrong. New York: Oxford University Press. Warren, Kenneth. 2001. Big Steel: The First Century of the United States Steel Corporation, 1901–2001. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Wypijewski, JoAnn. 2002. “Whose Steel? Dead Ends, New Beginnings—the Industry’s 25-Year Crisis: How Can It Be Saved?” Nation, July 15.

Index

Abbott, Horace, 54 Abel, I. W., 284 Accidents, 110–112, 141–142, 149, 237 immigrants and, 203–204, 214 Accokeek Furnace, 49 Accounting, 82–83 Acid mine drainage (AMD), 162–163, 176 Adirondack Iron and Steel Company, 74 African American workers, 115, 145–146, 153, 214–215 as strikebreakers, 130, 140 Agriculture and meatpacking, ix Air pollution, 163, 167, 170–171 Alabama, 71 Albert, Prince, 37 Alcohol use, 113–115, 214 Alger, Horatio, 243, 251 Allegheny Bessemer Steel Company, 86, 87 Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers, 19, 20, 86, 101, 131–133, 201–203, 219–221 1919 strikes and, 139–140 U.S. Steel and, 137–139 Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, 131–133 American Bridge Company, 22, 90

American chestnut, 165, 169 American colonies, iron making in, 2–4, 164 American Federation of Labor (AFL), 139, 221 American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), 92, 95, 273 American Iron Works, 88 American Revolution, 6–7, 47, 49, 51, 52 American Rolling Mill Company, 93 American Steel and Wire Company, 90, 271 Anarchists, 20 Ancient world, 28–30 Anderson, Joseph Reid, 60–62 Anna Nutt and Company, 51 Anshutz, Thomas Pollack, 262–265 Anthracite coal, 8, 34–35, 53, 59, 164, 172–173 Antitrust suits, 92–93, 95 Appalachian Plateau, 173 Apprentices, 2 Aristotle, 28 Armco, 93 Armed guards, 143–144 Arms market, 94 Art, visual iron and steel industry in, 257–266 of John Ferguson Weir, 260–262

293

294

•

Index

Art, visual (cont.) of Thomas Pollack Anshutz, 262–265 Art and literature, 241–242 iron and steel industry in, 242–244 iron and steel workers in fiction, 248–252 portrayal of relationship between labor and capital, 255–257 portrayals of middle and company owners in, 252–255 of Rebecca Harding Davis, 244–248 utopian novels, 257 Arthur, Chester A., 190 Artillery shell, 37 Assembly line, 32 Associated Brotherhood of Iron and Steel Heaters, Rollers, and Roughers of the United States, 131, 219 Atlantic Monthly, 244–245 Automobile industry, viii–ix, 42, 229–230 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), 17, 54, 63, 175 Baltimore Company, 2 Bar iron, 34 Barett, John E., 254–255, 256 Barges, 33 Barr, Jim, 116–117 Basic oxygen furnace (BOF), 280–281 Bay State Iron Company, 80 Beadle, Erasmus F., 242 Beadle and Adams, 242, 250–251 Beadle’s Weekly, 250 Beatley, Janice, 170 Beehive ovens, 167, 177–178 Bell, Thomas, 215 Bellamy, Edward, 257 Belmont Nail Works, 70 Benner, Philip, 52–53 Berkley, John, 45

Bertram, James, 233 Bessemer, Henry, 11–12, 37–39, 75–76, 196, 213 Bessemer converter, 27, 37–39, 68–69, 70, 72, 196 Bessemer Steel Association, 11–12, 77 Bessemer steel-making process, 11–13, 17, 19, 23, 67, 78, 132, 196, 213 Kelly and, 11–12, 75–77 Bethlehem Iron Company, 65, 66–67, 108 Bethlehem Steel Corporation, 24, 41, 67, 93–95, 204, 218, 273–274 employee-representation plans, 153–154 Birmingham, Alabama, 71 Birmingham Coal and Iron Company, 71 Bishop, W. H., 249–250 Bituminous coal, 8, 27, 30, 34, 59, 173 Black Diamond Steel Works, 75 Blacklists, 144 Blast furnaces, 32, 33, 59, 172, 212–213 Blister steel, 46, 73, 74 Blough, Roger, 278, 282, 283 Blueberry patches, 169–170 Boarding houses, 118–119 Bog iron (limonite), 159–160 Boonton Iron Works, 50 Border Patrol, 188 Boring machine, 33 Borntraeger, William, 82 Brady’s Bend Iron Works, 63–64 Brandywine Iron Works, 52 Brass and bronze production, 32 Bridge construction, 33, 58, 84, 88 Brody, David, 100–101, 106, 109, 123, 129 Bronze Age, 28 Brooklyn Bridge, 84 Buckhout, W. A., 178

Index Bush, George W., 290 Byington, Margaret, 101–102, 115–116, 117–118, 120 By-product coke oven, 179 Cabot, Charles M., 151 Cage construction, 223 Cambria Iron Works, 64–65, 65, 69, 76, 77–78, 84 Cambria Steel, 93, 94 Campbell, James, 93, 94–95 Canales, 174 Canemaugh Steel Company, 93 Canton Iron Works, 54 Carnegie, Andrew, xii, 1, 16–18, 46, 78, 80–82, 129 art collecting, 257–258 competitors, 87–89, 90 controversy over, 23–24 Homestead lockout and, 136–137 investment in management technology, 82–84 pension programs and, 148 philanthropy, 137, 231, 253–254, 257 on pollution, 178 protégés, 84–87 public opinion against, 136–137 unions and, 129, 131, 132–133 Carnegie, Tom, 84 Carnegie Brothers Company, Limited, 84, 86 Carnegie Corporation, 234 Carnegie Land Company, 123 Carnegie Relief Fund, 112 Carnegie Steel Company, xi–xii, 1, 17–18, 46, 90 ethnic classification of employees, 201 immigrants in, 199 labor relations, 132–134 spy network, 143 unions and, 220 Cast-crucible steel, 73–75

•

295

Cast-iron items, 32, 223 Castle Garden, 186–187 Catasauqua Manufacturing Company, 60 Centennial Exposition, 1876, 258, 261 Central Pacific Railroad, 189 Chandler, Alfred D., Jr., 195–196 Chapin Mine, 160 Chaplin, Charlie, 216–217 Charcoal, 5, 6, 8, 27, 53, 212 environmental impact, 163–172 Charcoal iron, 164–165 Charcoal pits, 166 Charcoal production, 3, 166–168 Charles I, 31 Cheaper by the Dozen (Gilbreth), 218 Chicago, 69 Chicago Federation of Labor, 139 Chicago Lake Shore and Eastern Railroad Company, 90 Chicago Tribune, 237 China, 29 Chinese Exclusion Law, 189–191 Chinese immigrants, 184–185, 188–191 Chisholm, Henry, 68–69 Chisholm, William, 68 Chouteau, Pierre, Jr., 72 Chrysler Building, 224, 226 Cincinnati Steel Works, 73 Civil War, 10–11, 54, 61–62, 194 Clairton Steel, 92 Clark, William, 132 Clarke, Thomas, 264 Cleveland, 67–68 Cleveland, Grover, 245 Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company, 166 Cleveland Iron Company, 67–68 Cleveland Iron Mining Company, 67–68 Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, 68–69, 77

296

•

Index

Coal anthracite, 8, 34–35, 53, 59, 164, 172–173 bituminous, 8, 27, 30, 34, 59, 173 Coal waste, 176 Coalings, 170 Cohen-Salal, Annie, 258 Coke, 5, 27, 31, 59, 164 environmental impact, 177–179 Coke-fired furnaces, 63–64, 179 Coking pit, 177 Colliers, 165, 170 Colorado Coal and Iron Company, 72 Colorado Fuel and Company, 72 Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation, 72, 93, 94, 152 Commission of Inquiry (Interchurch World Movement), 126 Committee for Industrial Organizations, 274 Communications, ix Company towns, 4, 121–126, 212–213 Complete Biography of General George A. Custer, A (Whittaker), 250 Condition of Labor in the American Iron and Steel Industry, The, 112 Confederate army, 62 Continental army, 51, 52 Cooke, Morris, 222 Cooper, Edward, 54 Cooper, Hewitt, and Company, 79 Cooper, Peter, 54–57 Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, 57 Copper industry, 74–75 Coppice system, 168 Cornwall Furnace, 51 Corporate age, 10–11 Corporations, xi–xii, 46 Cort, Henry, 34 Council of Industrial Organizations, 221

Craft unions, 19 Crane, George, 35 Cranege brothers, 34 Crawford, Margaret, 126 Crawshay, Richard, 34 Crucible melting, 73–75, 216, 217 Crucible Steel Company of America, 75 Culm, 176 Cumberland Nail and Iron Works, 57–58 Cyclops Iron Company, 82 Danforth, A. H., 72 Darby, Abraham, 32–33 Darby, Abraham, II, 33 Davis, Charles Bellmont, 245 Davis, Rebecca Harding, 244–248 Davis, Richard Harding, 245 Deane, Francis B., 60 Death benefits, 119, 149 Deland, Margaret, 249, 256–257 Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, 72 Dewey, Eliphalet C., 70 Dewey, O. C., 70 Dickens, Charles, 176 Dickson, William Brown, 235–238 Dillingham, William P., 201 Dime novels, 242–243 Dixon, Joseph, 74 Dudley, Dud, 30–32 Durfee, William Franklin, 76 Durfee, Zoheth, 76 Dynamite, 68 Eakins, Thomas, 262–263 Eaton, Cyrus, 95 Economic depression, 1840s, 65–66 See also Financial panics; Great Depression Eddyville Iron Works, 39 Edmonds, Richard H., 194 Eight-hour day, 126, 151–152 Eisenhower, Dwight, 277

Index Ellis Island Immigration Station, 186, 187 Empire State Building, 224, 225, 226 Employee representation, 152–155 Employee-representation plans (ERP), 152–153 Engineering class, 77–79 Environmental impact, 219, 288 air pollution, 177–178 canals, 174 charcoal use, 163–172 coke, 177–179 dams, 171–172 hydrology, 162, 174 mineral fuels and, 172–177 quarries, shafts, and open pits, 157–163 railroads, 174–175 toxic/noxious contaminants, 161–163 on vegetation, 176, 178 water pollution, 162, 174, 179 Environmental Protection Agency, 288 Erie Railroad, 63 Ethnic groups, 145, 192–194, 200–201 European Coal and Steel Community, 278 Evelyn, John, 164 Everybody’s magazine, 237 Experimental Negotiating Agreement (ENA), 284 Farmer, Joseph, 49 Farm to Factory movement, 194 Federal Slitting Mill, 52 Federal Steel Company, 1, 18, 46, 90–91, 271 Ferric hydroxide, 159, 162 Financial panics 1857, 76, 130 1873, 62, 64, 84, 88, 130

•

297

1907, 94, 110 See also Great Depression Fisheries, 174 Fitch, John A., 98, 100, 109, 113–114, 116–117, 122, 123, 141, 151, 197–198 Fitzpatrick, John, 139 Flatiron Building, 226 Ford, Henry, 230 Foreign steel, 277–278, 286 Forest fires, 170, 175–176 Forests, 163–172 Forging the Shaft: A Welding Heat (Weir), 261 Foster, William Zebulon, 139 Fraternal orders/lodges, 119 French Creek Works, 51 Frick, Henry Clay, 17, 85–87, 91, 134, 202–203, 259 assassination attempt on, 20, 136, 220 Frick Coke, 85–86 Fritz, George, 77, 84 Fritz, John, 65, 66–67 Furnaces, 34–35 anthracite, 59–60 basic oxygen (BOF), 280–281 blast furnace, 32, 33, 59, 172, 212–213 coke-fired, 63–64, 179 open-hearth, 23, 27, 42, 67, 75, 79–80, 88 puddling, 34, 58, 79 reverberatory, 33 Siemens-Martin, 19, 27, 40–42, 67, 75, 79 See also Bessemer converter Gangue, 161 Garrard, John H., 73 Garrard, William, 73 Gary, Elbert Henry, 90, 92–93, 138, 143, 147, 238, 271–273 twelve-hour day and, 151, 152

298

•

Index

Gary, Indiana, 15, 92, 125–126, 140, 273 ethnic clustering, 200–201 Gary dinners, 272–273 Gary Land Company, 125–126 Gates, John Warne “Bet-a-Million,” 90, 93 German immigrants, 200 German steel industry, 42 Gifford, John, 169–170 Gilbreth, Frank B., 218 Gilchrist, Perry, 41 Gilchrist-Thomas technology, 41–42 Gilded Age, 241, 266 See also Art, visual; Art and literature Glass, Alexander, 70 “Gospel of Wealth” (Carnegie), 253–254 Gould, George J., 72 Government, 19–20, 142–143 Grace, Eugene, 94, 95 Grady, Henry W., 194 Great Britain, 27, 47 crucible steel, 73–74 Iron Act of 1750, 4–5, 6, 45 iron making, 5–6, 16, 30–35, 173 Great Depression, 94, 154, 225, 273–274 Great Lakes ports, 67 Great White Fleet, 228 Greeks, 28 Greenwood No. 1 blast furnace, 171 Gregory, Thomas, 33 Grenville, Richard, 164 Grey, Henry, 94 Grey Mill, 94 Griswold and Winslow, 76, 77 Gross Clinic, The (Anshutz), 263 Grubb, Peter, 51 Gun Foundry, The (Weir), 261 Hamilton, Alexander, 185, 194 Hard, William, 141–142, 237

Hard-Coal Navy, 176 Harding, Rebecca. See Davis, Rebecca Harding Harding, Warren G., 126, 152 Harper’s Weekly, 259, 264 Harriot, Thomas, 164 Harrison, James, 72 Harrison, Joseph, Jr., 260 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 244, 245 Hazard, Erskine, 59 Health issues, 112, 120–121, 142, 171 Hearne, Frank, 70 Hematite, 29, 31 Henry, William, 62 Hewitt, Abram Stevens, 19, 42, 54–57, 79–80, 196 Hill, James J., 15 History of the American People (Wilson), 187 Hittites, 28 Holley, Alexander, 76–79, 83, 84 Home Insurance Company Building, 84, 223 Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town (Byington), 101–102, 115–116, 117–118, 120 Homestead lockout, 18, 20, 86–87, 101, 132–137, 142, 201–203, 220 Homestead Steel Works, 132, 133 Hope Furnace, 49–50 Hot-blast iron furnace, 173 “House of Rimmon, The” (Deland), 249, 256–257 Housing, 116–117, 172 company-assisted, 123 company towns, 121–126 as method of control, 144–145 tenements, 117–119, 192–193 Howells, William Dean, 241, 243–244 How the Other Half Lives (Riis), 192–193 Hull-Rust mine, 161 Human efficiency studies, 107–108

Index Human Side of Large Outputs, The: Steel and Steelworkers in Six American States (Fitch), 198 Hungarians, 203 Hunt, Alfred, 66 Hunt, Robert, 65, 77 Huntsman, Benjamin, 36–37 Hussey, Curtis Grubb, 74–75 Hussey, Wells, and Company, 74–75 Hydrology, 162, 174 I-beams, 56, 58 Illinois Steel Company, 90 Immigrant aid societies, 192 Immigrants, 13, 17, 61, 142, 153, 213–214 accidents and, 203–204, 214 birds of passage, 191 chain migration, 191–192 changes in iron and steel industries and, 196–198 Chinese, 184–185, 188–191 Eastern European, 104–105, 114–118, 120, 185, 187–188, 199–200 ethnic clustering, 192–194 European changes and, 183–184 experience in the United States, 191–194 German, 200 growth of steel industry and, 198–203 housing, 192–193 Industrial Revolution and, 194–196 Irish, 200 new immigration, 184–185 northern and western Europe, 184–185, 198 Polish, 201 regulation of, 186–189 Slovak, 201 unionism and, 203–207 Immigration Act of 1882, 186

•

299

Immigration Restriction League (IRL), 188 Industrial Revolution, immigrants and, 194–196 Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), 139 Influence of Sea Power upon History, The (Mahan), 227–228 Ingots, 228 Inland Steel, 93, 94 Innu people, 29 Interchurch World Movement (IWM), 126, 143, 151 International Steel Group (ISG), 290 Irish immigrants, 200 Iron Act of 1750, 4–5, 6, 45 Iron Age, 28 Iron Age, 134 Iron and Steel Roll Hands’ Union, 131, 219 Ironclads, 227 Iron Cliffs Company, 68 Iron industry, 1 1830s, 8–9 1860 output, 11 charcoal iron, 164–165 early innovations, 30–35 major companies pre–Civil War, 53–65 in postrevolutionary America, 5–8 rise of coal and, 172–177 Iron making in colonial America, 2–4, 164 eighteenth-century enterprises, 48–50 seventeenth-century enterprises, 47–48 Iron Mountain region (Missouri), 72 Iron oxides, 157–158 Iron plantations, 46, 212 Ironmasters, 47–48 Ironworkers, companies founded by, 70

300

•

Index

Ironworkers’ Noontime, The (Anshutz), 262–265 J. Edgar Thomson Bessemer Steel Works, 17, 78, 83 James, Henry, 253 Jamestown, 6 Japan, 277, 278 Jenney, William Le Baron, 223 “John Armstrong, Mechanic” (Whittaker), 251, 256 Johnson, Andrew, 62, 189 Joliet Iron and Coal Company, 69 Joliet Steel Company, 89–90 Jones, Benjamin Franklin, 88 Jones, William R. “Bill,” 84–85, 93 Jones and Laughlin, 88, 93, 94 Jones and Lauth Company, 88 Juengling, Frederich, 264 Jungle, The (Sinclair), 215, 257 Juniata iron, 53 Juniata Iron Works, 64 Kalm, Peter, 159 Kelly, William, 11–12, 39, 72, 75–77, 196, 213 Kelly Pneumatic Process Company, 76, 77 Kennedy, John F., 282–283 Kennedy, Robert, 283 Kilns, 167 King, George S., 64 Kloman, Andrew, 82, 84 Knights of Labor (KOL), 256 Koehler, Robert, 265–266 Koehler, S. R., 264 Kramer, Hilton, 263–264 La Belle Iron Works, 93.70 Labor Day Parade, 138 Labor relations, 19–20 in art and literature, 255–257 at Carnegie Steel, 132–134 See also Union

Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company, 63 Lackawanna Steel, 93, 94 Lackawanna Valley, 62 Lake Superior region, 13, 67 Lamb, Thomas, 49 Larry Locke, the Man of Iron (Whittaker), 251, 256 Laughlin, James, 88 Laughlin, James, Jr., 88 Laughlin and Company, 88 Leader, Richard, 2 Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, 35, 59 Lehigh Crane Iron Company, 59–60 Lehigh Valley Railroad, 60 Leonard, Henry, 48 Lewis, John L., 221–222, 274 Libraries, 231–234 Life in the Iron Mills (Harding), 244–247 Lime Rock forge, 49 Limonite (bog iron), 159–160 Lincoln, Abraham, 61 Literacy test, 188 Little Steel, 93–95 Lockouts, 134 See also Homestead lockout Lodge, Henry Cabot, 188 Long turn (twenty-four hour shift), 21, 103–106, 141 Looking Backward (Bellamy), 257 Lord, N. W., 168 Lowell, Massachusetts, 124 Ludlow Massacre of 1914, 152 Lukens, Charles, 52 Lukens, Rebecca, 51–52 Lukens Iron Works, 52 Lynn Iron Works, 47 Magazine illustrations, 259 Magnetic poles, 29 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 227–229

Index “Making Steel and Killing Men” (Hard), 237 Management, 20, 78–79 changes in work and, 106–108 technology, 82–84 Manifest Destiny doctrine, vii, xi Manufacturing Investment Company, 108 Margaret Howth (Davis), 245 Marquette Iron Company, 67–68 Marquette Range, 13, 68, 160 Martin, Pierre-Émile, 40, 79 Maryland Steel, 93, 94 Mass production, 34 Massachusetts Bay Colony, 6, 47–48 Materials, substitute, 281–285 Mather, Samuel L., 67–68, 90 McCullough Iron Company, 49 McDonald, David, 282 McIntyre, Archibald, 74 McMahon, John R., 252 Mechanization, 106 Menominee Range, 160 Mergers, 22, 23–24 Mesabi Range, 13, 160, 161 iron mines, 88–89 Meteorites, 29 Michigan, 13, 68 Midvale Steel Company, 94, 107, 153, 238 Miller, Thomas, 81 Minimills, 285–286, 289 Mining and petroleum, viii Minnesota, 13 Model T, 230 Modern era, 269 1960s, 279–281 1980s, 286–288 1990s, 288–289 foreign steel, 277–278, 286 Gary and, 271–273 minimills, 285–286, 289 postwar, 276–277 substitute materials, 281–285

•

301

twenty-first century, 289–291 United States Steel Corporation, 270–273 See also Great Depression Modern Times (film), 216–217 Monongahela River, 15–16 Monongahela Valley, 13 Moore and Hooven Company, 65 Moore Group, 22 Morgan, J. P., 1, 22, 24, 46, 70, 90–91, 137, 270, 271–272 Mormons, 14 Morrell, Daniel J., 64–65, 76, 78 Morris Canal, 50 Morse, Jay C., 90 Murray, Philip, 221–222 Museums, 259 Mushet, Robert, 76 Mutual-aid societies, 204 Nails, 212 Napoléon, 37 Nashua (New Hampshire) Iron Company, 79 National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers, 139–140, 145–146, 206 National Labor Relations Act, 206–207, 274 National Labor Relations Board, 207 National Steel Company, 22, 93 National Tube Company, 22, 90 National War Labor Board (NWLB), 153, 154 Nativist sentiment, 183, 187, 214 Natural History (Pliny the Elder), 28–29 Naturalism, 243, 244 Neilson, James Beaumont, 35, 59 New Deal, 206 New England, seventeenth-century enterprises, 47–48 New Jersey Iron Company, 50

302

•

Index

New Jersey Pine Barrens, 159, 170, 172, 176 New York City, Lower East Side, 192–193 “Night of Labor; or, The Master Workman’s Vow” (Barett), 254–255, 256 Nonunion era, 133–134, 221 conditions of employment in, 140–143 methods of control, 143–146 North Chicago Rolling Mill Company, 69, 89 Northampton Iron Company, 67 Nucor Corporation, 290 Nutt, Anna, 51 O’Connor, Thomas, 71 Office of Superintendent of Immigration, 187 Ogden, Samuel, 50 Ohio, 68 Ohio Works (Carnegie Steel Co.), 11 Onions, Peter, 34 Open-hearth furnaces, 23, 27, 42, 67, 75, 79–80, 88 Open-pit mining, 160–161, 163 Organized Labor and Production (Murray and Cooke), 222 Otis Iron and Steel Company, 80 Out of This Furnace (Bell), 215 Output 1700s, 45–46 1830s–1870s, 11, 46 1870s and 1880s, 78 nineteenth century, 17–19 Overton, Gwendolen, 252 Park, Brother, and Company, 74, 75 Park, James, Jr., 75, 76 Parrot, Richard, 171 Patents, 34, 37, 76–77 Paternalism, 123–124, 204–205, 212–213

welfare capitalism and, 147–148, 150 Paul, Christopher, 281 Pearl Harbor, 229 Peary, Robert, 29 Penn, William, 50 Pennock, Isaac, 51–52 Pennsylvania, 3, 5, 8, 50–53 Pennsylvania (Main Line) Canal, 174 Pennsylvania Railroad, 11, 17, 81, 83 Pennsylvania Steel Company, 77, 93, 94, 123 Pension programs, 148–149, 290 Perkins, Jacob, 51 Phenol pollution, 179 Philadelphia and Reading Railroads, 93 Philanthropy, 230–234, 253–254, 257 Phillips Sheet and Tin Plate Company, 93 Phoenix Bridge Company, 58, 88 Phoenix column, 58 Phoenix Iron Company, 58, 88 Phoenix Iron Works, 51, 57–58 Phosphoric iron ores, 38, 40–42 Pierpont, Francis, 62 Pig iron, 4, 6–7, 8, 164 Pinchot, Gifford, 170 Pinkerton Guards, 20, 86–87, 134–136, 203, 220 Pit cole, 31 Pittsburgh, 13–16, 18, 197 ethnic clustering, 193–194, 200 Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Company, 86, 87 Pittsburgh Survey, The, 197–198, 199 Pliny the Elder, 28–29 Pneumatic Steel Association, 77 Polish immigrants, 201 Postwar iron boom, 65–66 Potter, Orrin W., 89 Price hikes, 276, 282–283, 290 Principio Iron Works, 2, 3, 48–49 Progressive Era, 24 Prohibition, 114

Index Puddlers, 130 Puddling furnaces, 34, 58, 79 Pullman, George, 124, 125 Pullman, Illinois, 124, 125 Pullman Palace Car Company, 125

•

303

Rolling mills, 58, 65 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 274 Roosevelt, Theodore, 92, 228 Ross, Wilbur, Jr., 290 Rosseau, Percival Leonard, 259 Russell Sage Foundation, 197

Quarry mining, 157–159 Race, control of workforce and, 145–146 Railroad ties, 175 Railroads, viii, 9, 11–12, 53, 174–175 accidents, 110–111 Civil War and, 10–11 Tom Thumb steam-engine locomotive, 54 Rails, 42, 63, 64, 70 Raynham Forge, 159–160 Reagan administration, 286–287 Realism, 243–244 Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act of 1934, 274 Reconstruction era, 62 Red River Iron Works, 172 Red scare hysteria, 206 Reeves, Benjamin, 57–58 Reeves, Buck, and Company, 58 Reeves, David, 57–58 Reeves, Samuel, 58 Reeves family, 57–58, 88 Reformers, 120–121, 197, 245 Republic Iron and Steel Company, 22, 94 Republican Party, 144 Retirement age, 148–149 Retort plants, 164, 168, 171 Reutter, Mark, 111–112, 124 Reverberatory furnace, 33 Riis, Jacob, 192–193 Riverside Iron Works, 70 Roane Iron Company, 70 Robber barons, 185 Rockefeller, John D., 46, 72, 88–89 Rockefeller, John D., Jr., 152 Roebuck, Dr., 34

Safety First movement, 149 Safety issues, 149–150 immigrants and, 203–204 Taylorism and, 217–218 St. Louis, 72 St. Louis Ore and Steel Company, 72 Sargent, John Singer, 258 Sault Sainte Marie Canals, 67 Schoepf, Johann, 158–159, 168 Schulze, John Andrew, 174 Schussele, Christian, 260 Schwab, Charles, 91, 92, 93–95 Scientific management, 108, 216–218 Scott, Thomas, 81 Scott Act, 190, 191 Scranton, George Whitfield, 62–63 Scranton, Joseph H., 63 Scranton, Selden T., 62 Scranton, William Walker, 63 Scrantons, Grant and Company, 63 Sears Tower, 225 Second blast process, 32 Second Industrial Revolution, 196 Secret societies, 130 Seely, Bruce, 22–23 Self-made man stories, 251–252 Severn River bridge, 33 Sewanee Mining Company, 71 Shaft mines, 160, 176–177 Shaft mining, 160 Shipping industry, viii, 14–15, 76, 226–229 Ships Arizona, 228 Codorus, 52 HMS Dreadnought, 228–229 Merrimack, 62, 227 Monitor, 54, 227

304

•

Index

Shirlaw, Walter, 259 Shoenberger, Peter, 64, 69–70 Siderites, 29 Siemens, Charles William, 39–40, 79 Siemens Company, 79 Siemens-Martin furnace, 19, 27, 40–42, 67, 75, 79 Sinclair, Upton, 215 Singer, William, 87–88 Skeleton structure, 223, 226 Skyscrapers, 42, 84, 223–226 Slave labor, 2, 61, 115, 183, 194, 214 Sliding scale, 133 Slovak immigrants, 201 Smith, Horace Strong, 90 Social Darwinism, 244 Societal impact, 211–212, 216–218 automobile industry, 229–230 new workplace and, 212–215 philanthropy, 230–234 shipbuilding, 226–229 unions and, 218–222 urban development, 222–226 welfare capitalism, 234–238 Society for Italian Immigrants, 192 Sons of Vulcan, 130–131, 219 South, 69–71, 194–195 South Chicago Works, 195 Southern Pacific Railroad, 189 Southwestern Iron Company of Chatanooga, 70–71 Sparrows Point, Maryland, 94, 106, 110–112, 123–125 Sparrows Point (Reutter), 111–112, 123–125 Spy networks, 143 Stanford, Leland H., 189 Steam engine, 33 Steel blister steel, 46, 73, 74 cast-crucible, 73–75 tool-steel production, 216 Steel, William A., 69 Steel beams, 223 Steel industry, 1, 5, 73

1860 output, 11 innovations leading to modern production, 35–37 as nonunion industry, 140–143 operations, 13 in twentieth century, 21–23 Steel Workers, The (Fitch), 98, 100, 109, 113–114, 116–117, 197–198 Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), 207, 221–222 Steelton, Pennsylvania, 106 Stirling, Lord (William Alexander), 50 Stirling Iron Works, 50 Stock market crash of 1929, 94, 273 Stock purchase plans, 147–148, 150 Stone, Amasa, 68, 69 Stone, Andros B., 68, 69 Stone Age, 28 Story papers, 242 Strike, The (Koehler), 265–266 Strikes 1849, 130 1882, 235–236 1894, Pullman, 125 1909, 144 1918, 154 1919, 126, 139–140, 143, 144–145, 152, 273 1959, 279 1990, 139–140 Homestead lockout, 18, 20, 86–87, 101, 132–137, 142, 201–203, 220 in literature, 255–257 during World War I, 153–154 Strip-mining, 160 Structural steel, 133 Subsidence, 163 Supreme Court, 92, 186 Susquehanna River, 176 Tariff measures, 274, 290 Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 107–108, 216–218

Index Taylorism, 108 Technological advances, 27 Temin, Peter, 13 Temperance movement, 114 Tenements, 117–119, 192–193 Tennessee, 70–71 Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company (TC&I), 71, 92, 93 Tennessee Coal and Railroad Company, 71 Textiles, viii Thomas, David, 35, 59–60 Thomas, Sidney, 41 Thomas Iron Company, 35, 60 Thompson, James R., 74 Thomson Steel Works. See J. Edgar Thomson Bessemer Steel Works Three-high rolling mill, 65 Tiffany, Paul, 278 Tighe, Michael, 140 Tin plate making, 137 Tom Thumb steam-engine locomotive, 54 Tool-steel production, 216 Tower, Walter S., 275 Towns. See Company towns Townsend, Edward Y., 78 Townsend, Peter, 50 Townsend, Peter, Jr., 50 Toxic/noxious contaminants, 161–162 Tredegar Iron Works, 60–62, 214, 227 Trenton Iron Company, 56–57 Trois River Iron Works, 159 Truman, Harry, 278 Twelve-hour day, 100–103, 126, 141, 142 end of, 150–152 Twenty-four hour shift, 21, 103–106, 141 Union Iron and Steel Company, 90 Union Iron Mills, 81–82 Union Railway, 86

•

305

Union Rolling Mill Company of Chicago, 69 Union Steel, 92 Unions, 129 1900s, 126 early, 130–132 immigrants and, 203–207 in literature, 255–257 societal impact of, 218–222 technological changes and, 137 United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), 221 United Nailers, 219 United Sons of Vulcan, 131 United States Public Health Service, 179 United States Steel Corporation, xii, 1, 23–24, 46, 270–273 antiunion policies, 204–205 business model, 91–93 congressional investigation, 151, 272 control of workforce, 143–144 formation of, 89–91 Great Depression and, 273–274 mergers, 71, 88, 89, 92, 270 in twenty-first century, 290–291 unions and, 137–139, 220–221 welfare capitalism and, 146–150 United Steel Workers (USW), 276–277, 279, 282–283 United Steel Workers of America (USWA), 207, 221, 289 Urban development, 192, 214, 222–226 U.S. Immigration Commission, 199 U.S. Navy, 226–229 U. S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation, 94 Vertical integration, 17, 46, 63–64, 88 Virginia Company, 2, 45 Voting, 122 Vulcan Steel Company, 72

306

•

Index

Wages, 109–110, 130, 133 Wagner, Robert, 206–207 Waldo, Samuel, 49–50 Walker, Charles Rumford, 97–99, 104–106, 113, 114 Walking delegate, 255 Ward, Eber Brock (E. B.), 69, 76, 89 Warwick Furnace, 51 Washington, Augustine, 49 Washington, George, 49, 51 Washington, Lawrence, 49 Waterpower, 171–172 Watt, James, 33 Weir, Ernest T., 93 Weir, John Ferguson, 260–262 Weir, Robert, 260–261 Welfare capitalism, 133, 146–150, 204–205 societal impact, 234–238 Welfare work programs, 126 Welland Canal, 174 Wellman, Samuel, 79–80 Wernwag, Lewis, 51 West, iron and steel production in, 14–15 Wharton, Edith, 253 Wheeling, West Virginia, 69–70 Wheeling Steel, 70, 94 Whigs, 52 White, J. Maunsel, 107 White, John H., Jr., 175–176 White, Josiah, 59 Whittaker, Frederick, 243, 250–251, 256 Wilkinson, John, 33–34 Wilson, Woodrow, 187 Wilson administration, 153, 154 Winthrop, John, Jr., 2, 47–48 Wire industry, 90

Wisdom of Fools, The (Deland), 249 Wood, Frederick, 123, 125 Wood, Rufus, 123, 125 Woodcutters, 165 Woodward, Alan H., 71 Woodward, Joseph H., 71 Woodward, Stimson, 70, 71 Workers’ compensation laws, 150 Workforce alcohol use, 113–115, 214 changes in types of work, 106–108 home life and housing, 115–116 on the job, 97–100 methods of control, 143–146 in nonunion industry, 140–143 off the job, 112–113 wages, 109–110, 130, 133 See also Housing; Immigrants Working conditions, 17, 21, 85, 97–100, 197–198, 237–238 eight-hour day, 126, 151–152 health issues, 120–121 length of work day, 133 and literature, 249 long turn (twenty-four hour shift), 21, 103–106, 141 twelve-hour day, 100–103, 126, 141, 142, 150–152 World Trade Center, 225 World War I, 153, 187, 206, 229 World War II, 269, 274–275 Ynyscedwyn Furnace, 59 Young Geniuses, 236–237 Youngstown, Ohio, 15, 68 Youngstown Sheet and Tube (YST), 93, 94–95

Industrial Revolution in America

Industrial Revolution in America RAILROADS Edited by Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom

Santa Barbara, California • Denver, Colorado • Oxford, England

Copyright © 2005 by Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The industrial revolution in America : iron and steel, railroads, steam shipping / edited by Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-85109-620-5 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-85109-625-6 (e-book) 1. Industrial revolution—United States. 2. Industries—United States—History. 3.Industrialization—United States—History. I. Hillstrom, Kevin, 1963– II. Hillstrom, Laurie Collier, 1965– HC103.I675 2005. 330.973'05—dc22 2005004599 08 07 06 05 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook Visit abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, Inc. 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Series Introduction Introductory Note Notes on Contributors

Origins and Development

vii xi xiii

1

Innovations and Inventions

39

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

57

Lives of the Workforce

87

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

111

Environmental Impact

139

Immigration’s Impact

161

Societal Impact

185

Gilded Age Art and Literature

209

Railroads in the Modern Era

247

Index

277 v

Series Introduction

T

he Industrial Revolution was a transformational era in U.S. history, ushering in a host of major technological and socioeconomic changes that continue to define the nation’s political, social, and environmental landscape today. Indeed, the rise of the industrial age changed all facets of American life—often in decisive and far-reaching ways. Prior to the advent of railroads, industrial factories, telegraph systems, mechanized agriculture, and the automobile, the United States was a nation with an overwhelmingly rural character and a subsistence-oriented economy. The changing of the seasons governed all aspects of daily life in the preindustrial era, and towns, cities, and states that lay a mere hundred miles distant seemed nearly as foreign and exotic as those of Europe or the Far East. The Industrial Revolution changed all that. As railroad networks, steam shipping routes, textile factories, telegraph and telephone lines, steel foundries, and mechanized harvesting machines blossomed across the land, they transfigured American life. Major metropolitan centers sprang up across the land, even in areas of the interior that had been wholly unsettled a mere quarter century before. Subsistence economies gave way to vibrant commercial economies based on national and international trade, and the land’s natural bounty was exploited with near-religious zeal. American culture and self-identity underwent similarly profound changes, nurtured by the seeming fulfillment of the Manifest Destiny doctrine, spiraling tensions between workers and employers, and dawning awareness of the nation’s ever-growing influence and stature on the global stage. vii

viii

•

Series Introduction

In recognition of the profound impact that the Industrial Revolution had on the United States and the wider world, ABCCLIO has created The Industrial Revolution in America. This ninevolume series covers all aspects of the American Industrial Revolution, from the introduction of steam-powered engines to the emergence of the automobile. In the process, the series provides a wealth of fascinating, detailed information on the historical impact of various industries on the nation’s workers, families, and communities. It also casts a discerning eye on the various ways in which these industries shaped U.S. politics, corporate practices, philosophies of natural-resource use and stewardship, and cultural development. Coverage in The Industrial Revolution in America is broken down into the following subject-specific volumes: Iron and Steel. These are the most formidable of all the manufacturing industries that transformed American life in the second half of the nineteenth century. Steel production provided the United States with the infrastructure necessary to transform itself into an industrial superpower. Railroads. The rise of the so-called Iron Horse drove the nation’s breathtaking economic and geographic expansion, providing Americans with the means to harvest and market the continent’s remarkable bounty of natural resources. In the process, it became an iconic image of the American conquest of the frontier. Steam Shipping. A uniquely American contribution to modern technology, steam shipping was the first major transportation innovation that facilitated economic expansion across the United States in the nineteenth century. Textiles. When textile production began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the northeastern United States— boosted in large measure by abundant cotton crops from the Deep South—it marked the nation’s first successful parlay of technological innovation into mass production. Mining and Petroleum. U.S. extraction of coal, iron ore, gold, silver, oil, copper, and other minerals became increasingly sophisticated and profitable during the late nineteenth century, providing industries with the raw materials they needed to dramatically expand production. Automobiles. The last of the great technological innovations of the American Industrial Revolution, the advent of the automobile

Series Introduction

•

ix

wrought enormous changes in U.S. commerce—and even greater changes in the country’s social fabric. Agriculture and Meatpacking. As America’s transportation infrastructure expanded and improved, it created an environment in which farmers could deliver goods to lucrative marketplaces that were beyond reach only a generation earlier. The existence of this network, coupled with the rapidly expanding U.S. population, turned farmers, ranchers, and meatpackers and other commodity packagers into cornerstones of the emerging U.S. empire. Communications. The introduction of the telegraph and the telephone revolutionized the dissemination of information across the United States. This technology, which provided for the virtually instantaneous transfer of information from one end of the United States to the other, radically altered many aspects of American culture and business enterprise. Industrial Revolution Overview. This volume provides readers with an introduction to the Industrial Revolution in general and assesses the impact of various industries on each other and on the nation as a whole. Each of these volumes is divided into the following topical chapters: • • • • • • • • • •

Origins and Development Innovations and Inventions Major Entrepreneurs and Companies Lives of the Workforce Labor Organizations and Reform Movements Environmental Impact Immigration’s Impact Societal Impact Gilded Age Art and Literature The Modern Era

Other valuable features included in each volume of the Industrial Revolution in America series include: • Attribution and referencing of primary sources and other quoted material to help guide users to other valuable historical research resources.

x •

Series Introduction

• Photographs of the leading figures and major events discussed in the text. • Extensive bibliography of works consulted. • A subject index.

Introductory Note

T

he railroad locomotive stands as one of the archetypal icons of the American Industrial Revolution, and for good reason. Born in the metropolises of the eastern seaboard in the 1830s, the railroads rode a flurry of technological advances to a commanding position in the nation’s economic and social landscape by the 1860s. The U.S. railroad industry arose at a time when companies and their masters were largely unfettered by regulatory restrictions—and given wide latitude in their behavior because they were so widely recognized as the chief instrument by which Americans could settle and develop the landscapes of the Great Lakes region, the Great Plains, and the West. The leading figures in the industry took full advantage of these circumstances, adopting cutthroat business practices that even today elicit reactions of dismay from scholars. But whatever their excesses, the power brokers of the U.S. railroad industry of the nineteenth century also laid down a transportation grid of incredible scope and vitality. Indeed, their towering ambition manifested itself in the creation of a rail network that vaulted the United States to a preeminent place in the world of nations. By the 1860s and 1870s, when the first transcontinental railroads were snaking their way across the North American continent, the “Iron Horse” had become a powerful symbol in American culture. It was widely regarded as the embodiment of Manifest Destiny, the belief that territorial expansion of the United States was both inevitable and divinely ordained. But the railroads were seen not only as a vehicle of expansionism but also as a unifying force in the far-flung American experiment—especially after the completion of xi

xii

•

Introductory Note

the first transcontinental railroad at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869. As historian T. H. Watkins noted, “Once the rails were joined at Promontory, I think you can say that we began for the first time, truly, to think of ourselves as a continental nation.”

Notes on Contributors

Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom have authored and edited award-winning reference works on a wide range of subjects, including American history, international environmental issues, and business and industry. Works produced by the Hillstroms include the six-volume The World’s Environments series (2003), Encyclopedia of Small Business, 2d ed. (2001), the four-volume American Civil War Reference Library (2000), the four-volume Vietnam War Reference Library (2000), and The Vietnam Experience: A Concise Encyclopedia of American Literature, Films, and Songs. Mr. Hillstrom also edited the first edition of Encyclopedia of American Industries. John Barnhill is an independent scholar in Yukon, Oklahoma. He received his Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University in American history and has published reviews and journal and encyclopedia articles on U.S. immigration history and other subjects. Douglas M. Edwards received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. He is currently working as a historian for Pacific Legacy, Inc., a cultural-resources consulting firm based in Cameron Park, California. In addition to numerous compliance-related reports, he has authored pieces appearing in Agricultural History, Montana: The Magazine of the American West, and Moving Stories: Migration and the American West. A. M. Mannion is an honorary fellow (formerly senior lecturer) in the Department of Geography at the University of Reading, United Kingdom, where she lectured on biogeography and biodiversity, agriculture, environmental history, and environmental change from 1977 to 2001. She earned her Ph.D. in geography (environmental xiii

xiv

•

Notes on Contributors

history) at the University of Bristol in 1975. Her publications include seven books, more than thirty refereed articles in academic journals, and more than thirty contributions to encyclopedias and other reference works. Mitchell Newton-Matza earned his Ph.D. from the Catholic University of America, where he concentrated on the history of law and labor. His dissertation, “Intelligent and Honest Radicals: The Chicago Federation of Labor and the Illinois Legal System, 1919–1932,” is currently undergoing revisions for book publication. He has been previously published in the Journal of Juvenile Law, Proceedings of the Association for Living Historical Farms and Agricultural Museums, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, and Illinois History Teacher. He has also written essays for the Encyclopedia of American Labor; Work in America: An Encyclopedia of History, Policy, and Society; Encyclopedia of Social Movements; and Encyclopedia of Labor History Worldwide. Mr. Newton-Matza is active in various historical societies, especially the Illinois State Historical Society, and has worked for the National Archives in Washington, D.C. He is a visiting assistant professor of history at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, Illinois, and has served as an adjunct instructor for Roosevelt University, Moraine Valley Community College, and Harrington College of Design. He currently resides in Oak Park, Illinois. Leonard A. Steverson is an assistant professor of sociology at South George College in Douglas, Georgia. He holds a master’s degree in sociology from Valdosta State University and a Ph.D. in human services from Capella University. He teaches introductory sociology and criminal justice courses at South Georgia College. He presently has an ancillary sociology text under publication review and has contributed a number of essays to various social science–oriented encyclopedias and reference works. Diane Telgen is a freelance writer based in Michigan with more than fifteen years of experience in reference publishing. She graduated with highest distinction from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor with concentrations in English and Spanish. Projects she has edited include Notable Hispanic American Women, Something about the Author, Children’s Literature Review, Novels for Students, and Jr. DISCovering Authors CD-ROM.

Origins and Development Kevin Hillstrom

T

he railroad locomotive stands as one of the archetypal icons of the American Industrial Revolution, and for good reason. Born in the metropolises of the eastern seaboard in the 1830s, the railroads rode a flurry of swift technological advances to a commanding position in the nation’s economic and social landscape by the 1860s. From that point forward, the railroads became even more powerful, driving the country’s dizzying economic and geographic expansion and contributing significantly to its increasingly confident self-image. Meanwhile, the leading figures of the industry—so-called railroad barons armed with a ruthless genius for making money—became famous from coast to coast. Their reign lasted well into the twentieth century, to the great frustration of American farmers, reform-minded lawmakers, and business interests dependent on the “Iron Horse” for their livelihoods.

The Early American Railroads In the early nineteenth century, England became the first nation to develop railroads as a means of transportation. These early railways, built on the principle of the English “tramroad” (wheeled transport cars pulled along rails, usually by horses or mules), were using locomotives by the late 1820s. But it was not long before the United States—blessed with an army of American engineers, some of whom 1

2

•

Railroads

had traveled to Europe to examine the new technology—took the concept and put its own indelible imprint on it. The first railroad charter in the United States was granted to inventor John Stevens by the New Jersey legislature in 1815, but Stevens was unable to attract investors. The idea of an American rail system languished until 1828, when a group of Baltimore-area businessmen agreed to pool their resources to build a railroad—the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad—that would connect the Chesapeake Bay area with the riches of the U.S. interior. This gambit was born out of the fierce competition for commerce that existed between eastern cities at the time. Cognizant that their city faced a considerable competitive disadvantage compared with other cities that could use major river ways for trade—such as New York (Hudson River), Washington (Potomac), and Philadelphia (Susquehanna)—the Baltimore alliance determined that a railroad would leave them better positioned than a canal system to compete for trade and investment. “Building the railroad became Baltimore’s greatest civic project. It was considered a national endeavor at the time, and its history is to a large extent the history of all early railroads” (Dilts 1993). But the decision to move forward with construction of the Baltimore and Ohio line also reflected confidence in the economic promise of the emerging rail technology. Indeed, when the Baltimore and Ohio broke ground on July 4, 1828, one of the investors, Charles Carroll, declared the event “among the most important acts of my life, second only to my signing of the Declaration of Independence, if second even to that” (Ogburn 1977). By 1830, the first thirteen-mile section of the B&O had been completed and opened for traffic. Five years later, the rail line had been extended all the way to Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The first leg of America’s national rail system was not only thriving but also emerging as what American Railroad Journal called “the Railroad University of the United States.” Indeed, the early engineers of the B&O formed the core of the railroad engineering profession in the United States; their theories of survey and location laid the groundwork for future textbooks. Building the B&O Railroad through 200 miles of mountain wilderness between Cumberland and Wheeling was a major feat of civil engineering. The B&O imported and improved British rail technology and exported the technology (to Russia), one of the first American railroads to do so. (Dilts 1993)

Origins and Development

•

3

“The Atlantic,” B&O Railroad, 1832. Engine and two open-air passenger cars of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. (Library of Congress)

The Baltimore and Ohio continued to grow into the 1850s, eventually reaching thirteen states and eight major cities and carving out a position as one of eastern America’s four major trunk lines. But it had an even greater symbolic value, for its early success proved to American businessmen, investors, and travelers alike that railroads had a future in the country. Inspired by the B&O, investors lined up to fund other rail lines. Construction of the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, parent of the New York Central line, began in 1830. That same year, Charleston, South Carolina, used the B&O blueprint to launch its own rail system. Eager to claim a greater share of the region’s lucrative cotton trade, the city’s leadership envisioned a future of endless railcars rolling to the harbor front from inland plantations, their sides bursting at the seams with cotton. Significantly, the owners of the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company were the first to commit to steam power, bankrolling the purchase of the Best Friend of Charleston, the first locomotive built for sale in the United States. On Christmas Day 1830, this locomotive carried more than 140 pas-

4

•

Railroads

sengers on the first scheduled steam-railroad run in U.S. history. Its success helped usher in the era of the steam locomotive and permanently relegated horses and other inefficient means of motive power to the sideline. Three years later, the entire Charleston-to-Hamburg, South Carolina, route was completed, making the rail line the longest contiguous railroad on the planet at that point in time (Stover 1997). By the mid-1830s, more than 200 rail lines had been chartered, most of them east of the Mississippi River, even though countless investors had never even seen a rail line or a steam locomotive. The construction momentum was greatly aided by legislators and other officials at the state and local levels who were quick to sense both the railroads’ economic promise and the genuine excitement that the new transportation option was eliciting among ordinary citizens. By 1840, only four of the nation’s twenty-six states (Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Vermont) had not yet completed their first mile of track. Not surprisingly, the bulk of the construction was taking place in New England and the mid-Atlantic states, home of the young nation’s biggest cities. These two regions accounted for more than 60 percent of the total rail mileage in the country, with Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts claiming the top three individual spots in mileage. The rail projects in a few states—most notably Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio—suffered as a result of the financial panic of 1837 and its accompanying depression. But even this development proved no more than a momentary obstacle in the railroad-building frenzy (Stover 1997). By the early 1840s, the railroad industry was extending iron tendrils into seemingly every corner of the country east of the Appalachians—and increasingly breaking through that natural mountainous barrier to cities and towns farther west as well. And with the establishment of each new line, travelers and shippers alike were delighted to find that this new mode of transport was dramatically faster, more reliable, and less expensive than the horse-drawn wagons, canal barges, and steamers on which they had previously relied. “Lumber, coal, glass, iron, construction, and lubrication businesses located anywhere near the new lines prospered in their wake,” confirmed one historian. “Bankers, brokers, printers, newspaper editors, whalers, even sandwich-makers, cashed in on the new riches. Railways equally benefited shippers, importers and exporters, manufacturers, miners, farmers, and almost every other occupational group imaginable” (Ward 1986).

Origins and Development

•

5

Instrument of Unity or Ruin? The unprecedented popularity of the early railroads, despite passenger accommodations that were anything but luxurious and the inevitable mechanical breakdowns, stemmed in large part from America’s growing concern about its ability to pursue the nation’s “Manifest Destiny”—expansion of its territory to the Pacific shore—without losing its sense of national unity, which was already eroding as a result of the growing political and socioeconomic schism between North and South. Indeed, early promoters of the railroad industry consciously appealed to Americans’ deepest fears about the character of their national experiment, hammering again and again at their theme that the Iron Horse would unite the nation for eternity. This message resonated deeply with many Americans. In 1838, for example, a reverend presiding over the opening of the Eastern Railroad in Massachusetts characterized railroads as “the strong clamps which are destined to bind together with ribs of steel the whole of this great country; may they be multiplied and extended till they shall have cemented the Union beyond the possibility of severance” (Ward 1986). One of the nation’s territorial governors, meanwhile, described railroads as “not a mere convenience to local populations, but a vast machinery for the building up of empires. They are the true alchemy of the age, which transmutes the otherwise worthless resources of a country into gold” (Meinig 1993). Congressman Charles W. Cathcart waxed in a similar vein in 1846, when Americans set their sights on possession of California, the Oregon Territory, and vast swaths of the Southwest. Touting the twin forces of the railroad and the telegraph, Cathcart argued that the creation of a mighty and forever-united empire was nearly at hand: The Iron Horse with the wings of the wind, his nostrils distended with flame, salamander-like vomiting fire and smoke, trembling with power, but submissive to the steel curb imposed upon him by the hand of man, flies from one end of the continent to the other in less time than our ancestry required to visit a neighboring city; while by the magnetic telegraph the lightning of heaven is made subservient to the will of man in annihilating space. In storm and darkness, in the heat of a torrid sun or the chilling blasts of a Siberian winter, this mystical symbol of man’s intelligence speeds its onward way. Truly it may be

6

•

Railroads

said, that with the social influence of these two great inventions, all the people of this continent may be moulded to one mind. (Brown 1977)

This use of grandiloquent oratory, heavily laced with mythological language, was hardly uncommon. A contributor writing in an 1853 issue of Putnam’s Monthly Magazine, for example, was moved to describe the nation’s growing fleet of locomotives as the Iron Horse, the earthshaker, the fire-breather, which tramples down the hills, which outruns the laggard winds, which leaps over the rivers, which grinds the rocks to powder and breaks down the gates of the mountains. . . . Shall not cities be formed from his vaporous breath, and men spring up from the cinders of his furnace? Imagine, then, the vulcan-wrought engine rushing from sea to sea, dispensing lightning from its sides and thunder from its wheels—the one-eyed smiths from the doors of their workshops in the mountain, watching the progress of the prodigy with grim delight! (Ward 1986)

Buoyed by this strong popular support and the continually escalating profits of existing lines, rail construction surged throughout the 1840s. From 1840 to 1850, the amount of working rail line in the United States tripled from 3,000 miles to 9,000 miles. More than 5,000 miles of these tracks resided in New England and the mid-Atlantic states, but the decade also saw southern states embrace the Iron Horse with belated vigor. Every southern state added to its rail networks during the decade, with Georgia staking a position of regional railroad leadership that it would not relinquish for more than a century. But although overall enthusiasm for the growing rail networks was high, they were not universally embraced. Many business interests—including steamboat owners, canal operators, turnpike and bridge companies, and tavern keepers—recognized that the lines posed an imminent threat to their long-term survival, and they tried to thwart the rails through legal actions and other maneuvers. Indeed, entire river towns tucked along the shores of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and their major tributaries watched helplessly as the Iron Horse siphoned off passenger and freight traffic that had long been the lifeblood of these communities. Various citizens, unnerved by the rapid social and economic changes that rail lines had visited on neighboring communities, also raised objections. One Ohio school board decried rail lines as a “de-

Origins and Development

•

7

Laying track for America’s “iron horses” required exhausting physical labor. (Library of Congress)

vice of Satan to lead immortal souls to hell,” while the editor of a Boston newspaper disparaged a proposed regional rail route as being as “useless as a railroad to the moon” (Stover 1997). Another critic flatly predicted that this revolutionary mode of transport would “leave the land despoiled, ruined, a desert where only sable buzzards shall wing their loathsome way to feed upon the carrion accomplished by the iron monster of the locomotive engine” (Brown 1977). But in the end, most Americans sided with the editors of the American Railroad Journal. In a November 8, 1850, editorial titled “Are We Building Too Many Railroads?” the editors were sanguine about the future of both the industry and the nation: The construction of railroads is probably the most engrossing subject now occupying the attention of our people. Every portion of our country is aroused to their importance. In the West, the feeling in their

8

•

Railroads

Thoreau Comments on the Iron Horse The American writer, philosopher, and naturalist Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) penned his most enduring works at a time when U.S. railroads were in their ascendancy, transforming the nation’s economic, social, and natural landscape. Thoreau’s writings indicated profound unhappiness with the new technology. In Walden, he seemed to acknowledge that the trains had a salutary effect on national unity. “They go and come with such regularity and precision, and their whistle can be heard so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them, and thus one well-conducted institution regulates a whole country,” he commented. He also admitted, “When I hear the Iron Horse make the hills echo with his snort like thunder, shaking the earth with his feet, and breathing fire and smoke from his nostrils . . . it seems as if the earth had sent a race now worthy to inhabit it.”

favor amounts almost to a mania, and every farmer there is contriving how he shall secure one within convenient distance. Their influence, as instruments of wealth, are now thoroughly appreciated, and the social advantages which they confer, are scarcely less valued. . . . People will have railroads. . . . This is a settled fact, and their construction will go on till every section of the country is penetrated with them. (Stover 1978)

Indeed, both friend and foe of the railroad acknowledged that the Iron Horse’s rapid metamorphosis of American life seemed irreversible. As William Makepeace Thackeray observed, “we who have lived before the railways were made belong to another world” (Faith 1990).

Growth Continues Despite Inefficiencies By the early 1850s, several railroads had established lines that allowed them to transport freight back and forth between the Great Lakes region and the East Coast, and new railroad construction projects were proliferating across the eastern United States. This ever-

Origins and Development

•

9

But Thoreau went on to decry the pollution emitting from the locomotive’s stacks, and he despaired about the impact of the railroad on the natural world that he had come to love so deeply: “If the cloud that hangs over the engine were the perspiration of heroic deeds, or as beneficent as that which floats over the farmer’s fields, then the elements and Nature herself would cheerfully accompany men on their errands and be their escort.” But instead, “that Devilish Iron Horse, whose ear-rending neigh is heard throughout the town, has muddied the Boiling Spring with his feet, and he it is that has browsed off all the woods on Walden shore. . . . Where is the country’s champion . . . to meet him at the Deep Cut and thrust an avenging lance between the ribs of the bloated pest?” Source Thoreau, Henry David.1854. Walden; or, Life in the Woods. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

growing network of rail lines, many of which spanned relatively short distances, was widely recognized as a more reliable and inexpensive way to travel and transport goods than the options that had been previously available. In fact, freight rates on railroads dropped throughout this era, seemingly with each new yard of rail that was laid. But the greatest benefit of railroads, to the minds of passenger and shipper alike, was speed. In 1852, for example, rail shipments from Cincinnati to New York City took from six to eight days— about a third of the time required for service via the canals, Lake Erie, and the Hudson River (Stover 1997). Operators of traditional freight transportation businesses on the nation’s roads and waterways grudgingly gave way to this new force, and only on the Great Lakes did water transportation outfits maintain control. Even there, however, railroad companies purchased operators to complement their rail holdings. To many observers, turning the Iron Horse loose on the American wilderness had ushered in an era of unparalleled prosperity and unity, just as the champions of rail had predicted. On November 29, 1852, when a U.S. railroad train crossed the Allegheny Mountains for

10

•

Railroads

the first time (on a Philadelphia-to-Pittsburgh route), the passengers saw it as yet another indication that the train was carrying the United States to a bright future. “All those interested, even the tired and hungry passengers who rode in boxlike cars without dining and other accommodations, recognized that a new epoch in inland transportation was at hand. Already they were talking about the probable exit of the steamboat, and fears of national disintegration were vanishing, the West having at last been bound to the East by a tie that was thought to be permanent and effective” (Ambler 1932). The explosive growth of the railroads was even more remarkable when one considers the haphazard, inefficient fashion in which the rail network was being put together. Prior to 1851, when Charles Minot, superintendent of the New York and Erie Railroad, decided to adapt the telegraph for train operation and scheduling, the telegraph remained an untapped resource for the dispatching and controlling of train movements. In addition, the transition from iron to steel rails and from wood to coal as fuel lay more than a decade away, in the post–Civil War era. Moreover, virtually none of America’s rivers were spanned by railway bridges at midcentury. On the lower and middle reaches of the Ohio, Hudson, and Potomac Rivers, for example, bridges were wholly absent, making transshipment of freight and passengers a necessity. Even the Mississippi did not see its first bridge until 1856. The need to stop and transfer freight and travelers via other modes of transport was a boon to hotel owners, ferryboat operators, omnibus drivers, and various local merchants, but it dramatically slowed shipping time An even bigger problem was the wide variance in rail gauge—the distance between the rails, measured from inside to inside—in different regions. Different systems were built with different gauges, which enormously complicated efforts to integrate rail lines across regional boundaries. In fact, eleven different gauges were used across the northern tier of states at one time. By 1860, the standard gauge—four feet, eight and a half inches—was slowly emerging as the norm in the region, but most southern railroads still operated on a five-foot gauge. To observant Americans, the differing gauges between North and South were disquieting, for it reflected a conscious decision by southern states to avoid connecting their rail systems with those of the North. This decision was based on the strong states’ rights philosophy of the region (railroad corporations in the South were legally

Origins and Development

•

11

restricted from controlling track in more than one state because of concerns that it would diminish the power of the state) rather than any visceral distaste for linking up with their northern neighbors, but the practical effect was that the regions’ rail systems developed in isolation from one another. Even as late as 1861, when railroad lines connected the Atlantic Coast with the Mississippi River, no tracks connected railroads north and south of Washington, D.C., or the Ohio River. Finally, the regulatory environment in which the railroads developed was a crazy quilt of local and state laws that made railroad operations an often maddening exercise. Numerous towns had sought to regulate the operation of railroads within their jurisdictions, but the shape and character of these laws varied enormously, creating “a patchwork of regulation without uniformity or consistency,” as one historian aptly put it. “Every political boundary that the railroads crossed raised legal questions, and every corporation that sought to connect its lines with another railroad was also, to some extent, in competition with the other line. The unification of the rail system resulted in thousands of legal cases between railroads, between railroads and steamboat lines, and between railroads and the towns or states they served” (Gordon 1996).

Land Grants for the Railroads Despite all these problems, however, the industry continued to register explosive growth, nurtured by economic expansion in the interior, the discovery of gold in California, the potential riches of the transpacific trade, and a fundamental and wide-reaching change in the federal government’s approach to building the nation’s infrastructure. Prior to 1850, the federal government was reluctant to provide funding for internal transportation improvements such as canals, rail lines, and roads. At midcentury, though, the rail industry’s proven capacity to boost trade and generate economic activity convinced policy makers to change their views. They came to see the presence of railroad lines as the honey that would attract and create hives of new settlers to the resource-rich frontier. In 1850, Congress authorized a federal grant of 3.7 million acres of public land to help promote and finance rail building in the states of

12

•

Railroads

Alabama, Illinois, and Mississippi. This grant provided railroad companies with a 200-foot right-of-way corridor and alternating parcels of land on either side of the corridor, which they were free to develop or sell off to settlers as they saw fit. In this way, the grants provided a vital source of capital for regional railroads, as it gave railroad officials the capacity to transform potential value into real dollars to pay rail construction costs. Land grants became the single biggest factor driving the Illinois Central Railroad’s growth into the nation’s largest rail system by the close of the 1850s. The success of the 1850 initiative prompted the issuance of four additional land grants totaling approximately 18 million acres over the next seven years to various states of the Mississippi River valley as well as the states of Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Yet these land grants were modest in size compared to the ones that were doled out in the western territories in the post–Civil War era. All told, Congress and various state governments granted railroads about 175 million acres. Western railroads alone received 116 million acres in land grants during this time. It follows, then, that four railroads that conducted the bulk of their business in the West—the Northern Pacific; the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe; the Union Pacific; and the Southern Pacific—received more than 70 percent of the total land awarded. The decision to award land grants to the states reflected a realization that “land was a central element in any definition of the American character,” wrote one historian. Land was the most valuable asset in the United States, and railway publicists promised their roads would increase the total value of the country’s real estate and thereby its national wealth. Their more direct appeal, however, was the promise of higher estate values for any landowner. Thus, the argument for land development intertwined personal and national prosperity; pursuit of private interests in the guise of railways would redound to the common welfare. (Ward 1986)

Some of the early rail lines were publicly owned, but this approach to rail system construction and operation gradually faded away. The bulk of the nation’s rail system was built by privately owned lines that secured their charters from state legislatures and relied on the state-issued land grants and private investors to pay for their capital investments. Railroads also became increasingly dependent on bond

Origins and Development

•

13

issues for capital. The total value of these bonds, marketed primarily to investors in Europe and the big cities of the eastern United States, reached more than $1.1 billion by the close of the 1850s. During this period, the fever to erect railway systems was so great that state legislatures often cobbled together enormously beneficial charters for the railroad companies—charters that included monopoly provisions, partial or temporary exemption from state taxation, and sweeping privileges of eminent domain, which gave the rail lines enormous freedom to carve out routes of their own choosing. By 1860, more than 30,000 miles of track had been laid down through U.S. forests, valleys, and prairies—21,000 more miles than had existed only one decade earlier. The United States, with only 5 percent of the world’s population, thus boasted roughly the same amount of railroad mileage as all nations in the rest of the world combined. Of this 30,000-mile total, roughly 10,000 miles could be found in New England and the middle-Atlantic states—the region in which the railroad had first burst on the scene in a meaningful way. About 200 lines operated in this heavily populated region, averaging about 50 miles apiece in length. An additional 9,000 miles of track had been laid down in the South, which was making up for lost time with zeal. These southern lines, operating in a region with much lower population densities than their neighbors to the north, averaged 90 miles in length. But the region that contained the most rail mileage was the Midwest, with about 11,000 miles of track. By 1860, Ohio and Illinois ranked first and second in the nation in rail mileage. The Midwest’s rapid rise was attributable in part to the long distances between destinations in this still lightly populated region, but even more so to its geographic location. Situated squarely between the riches of the interior and the lucrative eastern markets, the upper Midwest in particular was ideally positioned to become a rail transport hub. As railroads sprouted throughout the Great Lakes region, western commercial interests that had previously relied on the steamboats of the Mississippi River system switched their allegiance to rail lines that could take goods directly from the agricultural heartland to the metropolises of the East. Much of this bounty was filtered through Chicago. Indeed, by 1860 Chicago was being served by eleven different railroads, including the mighty Illinois Central, and it had become the undisputed railroad center of the nation.

14

•

Railroads

The Romance of the Steam Locomotive Many engineers and other railroad workers shared the American public’s emotional connection to the steam locomotive, a machine that became symbolic of the nation’s self-conscious quest to become a vast and shining empire. Charles Ogburn, author of Railroads: The Great American Adventure, spoke with one engineer who wistfully recounted his affection for the steam locomotives that once served as America’s economic heartbeat. “The steam locomotive was the most human machine ever invented,” declared the engineer. “She had a soul, and there was a bond between her and the engineer. In the cab on a moonless night, seeing the light flashing on the rods, the flames dancing in the firebox, looking back at the smoke trailing over the train, the steam gauge steady at 200 pounds, and hearing that old girl talking in the language only she and you understood—there was nothing like it in the world.” Source Ogburn, Charles. 1977. Railroads: The Great American Adventure. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society.

Railroads in the Civil War When long-simmering grievances between the North and the South finally erupted into civil war in 1861, the railroads proved a pivotal factor in the ultimate outcome of the conflict. Both sides recognized the strategic importance of the railroads as supply lines and transporters of troops, but one side was much better equipped to take advantage of the rails. The North was armed with a much more advanced railway system, and it routinely used the rails to transport troops and deliver supplies across great distances at speeds that were untenable a mere two decades earlier. Its rail resources also enabled the Union to continue to sell large quantities of grain and other goods to Europe throughout the conflict, which helped ensure European neutrality during the war. The South, though, had relatively few miles of track and far fewer locomotives on hand. In fact, the North’s Pennsylvania and Erie rail-

Origins and Development

•

15

roads possessed nearly as many locomotives as all eleven Confederate states, and these two railroads, combined with the New York Central and the Baltimore and Ohio, had roughly the same amount of motive power and rolling stock as the entire Confederacy. Moreover, the administration of Abraham Lincoln took steps to ensure that the all-important rails would be at the Union’s disposal throughout the war. In 1862, the federal government passed legislation that gave it the authority to seize and operate northern railroads if necessary and also to control the operation of captured Confederate lines. This gave northern railroad companies powerful incentive to cooperate with the administration and Union military leaders. Significantly, the manufacturing capacity of locomotives, rails, and railcars in the North was also far superior to that of the South. As a result, Union forces were able to replace lost locomotives and repair damaged tracks much more quickly than their counterparts in the South. This advantage became even more decisive in the latter years of the war, when much of the action took place in Confederate territory. By the time the war drew to a close in 1865 with the treaty at Appomattox, the South’s already modest railway system was in tatters. “The conflict . . . completely destroyed or crippled well over half the Confederate railways. Twisted rails, burned ties, destroyed bridges, gutted depots and shops, and lost or dilapidated rolling stock were the normal heritage of war for most southern lines” (Stover 1997). Northern railroads, by contrast, actually prospered during the war, in many cases adding to their rail mileage. During Reconstruction, northern railroad interests descended on the South with a vengeance, expanding deep into the heart of Dixie. The railroads they built helped resuscitate the economy of the South and ultimately set in motion the integration of regional networks into a truly national rail system. But southerners chafed under the arrangement, which saw much of the profits from the new railways spirited back to the coffers of the northern rail outfits. Indeed, the northern carpetbaggers and their resident collaborators emphasized restoration of old lines rather than development of new systems, “for they were more interested in raiding a state treasury or milking a railroad exchequer than they were in the hard work of actually building a railroad. Many southern states paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars for railroads that were never completed or even honestly started” (ibid.).

16

•

Railroads

The Transcontinental Railroad With the end of the Civil War, a grand and ambitious experiment in railroad engineering returned to the front pages of America’s newspapers. This endeavor—the creation of a transcontinental railroad that would link the cities of the East with the wild Pacific shore— came to symbolize American convictions about its “Manifest Destiny” like no other event before it. The first proponents of the idea of building a transcontinental railroad were often dismissed or derided as purveyors of fantasy. During the 1840s and 1850s, however, the concept was increasingly seen as a visionary one. The explosive growth of the railroad industry in the eastern and central states, coupled with the potential wealth contained in the country’s western territories and the country’s attendant desire to expand in that direction, convinced growing numbers of people that a transcontinental railroad stretching from coast to coast should be built. New York merchant Asa Whitney was among the first to call publicly for the construction of such a railroad, and by the late 1850s his sentiments were being echoed by a chorus of voices in the halls of Congress and the nation’s newspapers. The eruption of the Civil War gave further impetus to the idea, as proponents contended that the construction of a transcontinental railway would help forestall future secessionist movements. During the 1850s, several surveying teams were sent to explore the rugged mountains and vast plains of the West in search of the best route. Construction schemes proliferated, but southern and borderstate options were eliminated by the onset of the war in 1861. Ultimately, supporters settled on a route that would connect Sacramento to Omaha via an iron road that would traverse the Great Plains, the forbidding Sierra Nevada range, and the water-parched Nevada desert. On July 1, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the “Act to Aid in the Construction of a Railroad and Telegraph Line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean,” signaling the beginning of a feverish race to lay down a steel spine of rails across the wilderness of the West. The U.S. government tapped the Central Pacific Railroad (CP) of California to tackle the construction of the western portion of the railroad. Central Pacific was owned by four Sacramento businessmen—Charles Crocker, Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford, and Mark Hopkins—who had been swayed by the surveying results of

Origins and Development

•

17

Ted Judah, an engineer and longtime proponent of the transcontinental railway concept. Judah, a tireless seeker of funds for his railroad ideas, died of yellow fever in Panama in 1863, long before his dream became a reality. The eastern section of the railway, meanwhile, was to be built by the Union Pacific Railroad Company (UP), an entity created by the congressional act signed by Lincoln. The document named 158 prominent men who would serve as commissioners of the company, working with five government commissioners who would represent federal interests. The commissioners’ work ended once the company was legally incorporated in 1862. Railroad magnate Thomas Durant eventually emerged as the primary power behind the company after a period of financial scheming and deal making. Both companies were required to lay a single-track railroad and accompanying telegraph line. They were given a right-of-way that extended 400 feet, as well as alternate sections of land on each side of every mile of track laid. The government bestowed loans on the companies as well. The size of the loans was predicated on the miles of track laid and the type of land through which construction would proceed. More mountainous areas entitled the companies to greater funding, so some dubious classification of terrain was perhaps inevitable. The Union Pacific received $27 million in government funding under this arrangement, whereas the Central Pacific pulled in $24 million. The companies were also permitted to sell stock, with certain stipulations. An amendment to the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 significantly hampered the rail-building effort and illustrated the high monetary stakes of the entire venture. Iron manufacturer Thaddeus Stevens, a Pennsylvania senator, introduced the amendment, which stipulated that only iron produced in the United States could be used in the construction of the railway. The heightened demand for iron during the Civil War thus forced the companies to compete against their own government for the substance, which became two or three times more expensive than iron from other countries.

The Race Begins On January 8, 1863, the Central Pacific broke ground in Sacramento and began its slow trek eastward. Using increasing numbers of Chi-

18

•

Railroads

nese laborers (after exhausting the Chinese population in California by the mid-1860s, the company imported thousands more from the Chinese mainland), the Central Pacific made good progress, although the Sierra Nevada proved daunting. The Union Pacific, on the other hand, had a difficult time rousing itself into action. Backroom political maneuvering and the monetary and labor drain of the Civil War combined to frustrate the young company. Concerned that the Union Pacific might be left out in the cold by changing political winds, Durant associate George Francis Train persuaded the company at least to hold a groundbreaking ceremony in Omaha. During the ceremony, held on December 2, 1863, Train pronounced that “the Pacific railroad is the nation and the nation is the Pacific railway. This is the grandest enterprise under God!” Yet it was not until 1865, after the end of the Civil War freed up labor and other resources, that the enterprise was begun in earnest. The Pacific Railroad Act of 1864 proved a major boon to the cashstrapped Union Pacific. Under this legislation, land grants to the two railroads were doubled from the original ten square miles to twenty, in alternate sections, for each mile of track they laid (the two railroads ultimately received nearly 21 million acres of public land by the time the transcontinental rail line was completed). Significantly, the 1864 legislation made it possible for the lines to secure federal loans for construction between the Rockies and the western base of the Sierra Nevada before track laying actually began. Instead, twothirds of the funds were released as soon as each twenty miles of roadbed had been prepared. “Here at last was an opportunity to take the ready cash and start building in earnest. Since no meeting point was established for the CP and UP track, the railroad builders got set for a hell-for-leather race to fling the most mileage across the continent” (Wheeler 1973). The Central Pacific continued to lay down tracks year-round out West, pressing on at high altitudes through bone-chilling cold and deadly blizzards during the winters. Timber, iron, explosives, and other supplies were hauled up into the Sierra Nevada in tremendous quantities as the workers tunneled and carved their way through the mountains. In 1865 the Union Pacific lurched westward, invigorated by the arrival of labor in the form of former soldiers and a deal with the government, arranged by Durant, that considerably sweetened the

Origins and Development

•

19

potential financial rewards of the railroad. Durant created a holding company, Crédit Mobilier, which paid huge dividends on fraudulent transactions with Union Pacific; Durant rewarded cooperative senators with stock in the holding company. This arrangement later erupted into a scandal of national proportions when it was revealed in 1873. Under the direction of Grenville Dodge and brothers John and Daniel Casement, the Union Pacific effort finally gained some momentum. By 1867, the gap between the two tracks was lessening, although more than a thousand miles of land remained unspoken for. The leaders of both companies were determined to secure as much of the land for themselves as possible, aware that each mile represented future wealth in the form of mile subsidies and land grants. As the already frantic pace increased, the quality of the lines suffered accordingly.

“Hellbent for Nowhere” Both forces established Ogden, Utah, as their target destination. They pressed on, a welter of portable saloons trailing behind them. When the winter of 1868 arrived, the Central Pacific railhead had reached Carlin, Nevada, nearly 450 miles from its starting point in Sacramento. The Union Pacific, meanwhile, had laid down tracks as far as the Wyoming-Utah border, nearly 1,000 miles from its beginnings in Omaha. With Ogden looming so close, both outfits doubled their employees’ pay and fought through the cold and snow. The Union Pacific reached Ogden on March 8, 1869, and continued on. By this time, less than 50 miles separated the two trailheads, but neither side seemed interested in establishing a meeting place. “Like two weary but evenly matched armies at the end of a long war, each railway company continued to maneuver for advantages over the other, running their parallel grades for miles past each other, the C.P. stubbornly heading for Ogden, and the U.P. hellbent for nowhere” (Brown 1977). President Ulysses S. Grant finally interceded, and the two railroads agreed to meet at Promontory Point, Utah, about 50 miles west of Ogden. Ceremonial arrangements were hurriedly devised to celebrate the occasion, and various business leaders and dignitaries from both coasts rode the new railway to the designated junction point. On

20

•

Railroads

Railroad workers gather in Promontory, Utah, to celebrate the completion of the first transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. (Bettmann/Corbis)

May 6, however, Durant’s private railcar was commandeered en route to Promontory Point by an armed force of railroad workers of significant size. They diverted the railcar to a sidetrack, chained the car’s wheels to the rails, and demanded payment for overdue wages. The Union Pacific company, financially weakened by Durant’s maneuvers with Crédit Mobilier, was nonetheless able to scrape together enough funds to make payment via telegraph. On May 10, 1869, the rail lines of the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific were finally joined with the driving of a golden spike and the placing of a silver-wreathed laurel. The completion of the transcontinental railroad did not go unnoticed. Celebrations of the epic achievement erupted across the nation as Americans hailed this giant step forward in the country’s westward expansion. In the wake of the completion of the first transcontinental railroad, construction began on four other transcontinental rail links.

Origins and Development

•

21

As with the transcontinental railroad, construction of these iron roads was anything but easy. “Blizzards in the Sierra, Wasatch, and Rocky mountains confronted crews with 40-foot drifts,” noted one historian. “Avalanches buried men alive. Homemade nitroglycerin blew them to smithereens. Sioux and Cheyennes scalped them. Temporary tracks laid over frozen rivers vanished in spring thaws. Floods washed out roadbeds by the mile. Brickbat and dynamite wars raged between the work gangs of rival roads. Still they drove on. Five men to the 500-pound rail, 28 or 30 spikes to the rail, three blows to the spike, two pairs of rails to the minute, 400 rails to the mile—and half a continent to go” (Wheeler 1973). But ultimately, all four rail lines were completed—the Southern Pacific (in 1883), the Northern Pacific (1883), the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe (1885), and the Great Northern (1893). Of these, Jim Hill’s Great Northern Railway was undoubtedly the most successful, but all of them played a role in accelerating the United States’ economic expansion.

Railroads Transform the West During the 1870s, the railroad industry assumed an even more central role in U.S. economic growth and western settlement. By 1873, the national rail network had doubled in size (to 70,000 miles) from the end of the Civil War, with much of the growth taking place in the West. One key factor in the westward migration of railroads was the dispersal of ever more generous land grants from the federal government. Most of the Pacific rail lines, for example, received twenty sections of land per mile of track, and the Northern Pacific transcontinental line received forty sections for each mile it built. By March 1871, when the last major federal land grant was bestowed on the Texas and Pacific line, dozens of railroads had received grants of western land totaling more than 170 million acres (approximately 35 million acres were later forfeited back to the federal government when rail lines failed to build roads in time to qualify for the grants). Without these land grants, the territories and states of the Great Plains and mountain West would never have been able to increase their railroad networks from 960 miles of line at the close of the Civil War to more than 90,000 miles a half century later.

22

•

Railroads

A Railroad Man’s Proclamation of Racial Superiority In 1866, Union Pacific official Silas Seymour took part in an expedition designed to celebrate the progress the rail company had made in constructing the nation’s first transcontinental railroad. By this time, violent encounters had become common between whites—including railroad workers——and increasingly desperate Native American tribes who believed that their traditional way of life was endangered by the rail-fueled westward migration of white settlers. As the following excerpt from Seymour’s journal makes clear, the fears of the Indian tribes were well founded. Even in an era when racial invective toward Native Americans was commonplace, and the quest for land to expand the American empire seemed all-consuming, Seymour’s ruthless rhetoric and naked ambition are remarkable: Perhaps no better illustration could have been given of the extremes of civilized and savage life, standing face to face with each other, than the one now before us. On the one side was the track of the Union Pacific Railroad, upon which stood that great civilizer, the locomotive and train, looking westward over the Loup-Fork bridge, fifteen hundred feet in length; and in the foreground stood the group of excursionists, composed of beauty, intelligence, and refinement; while, on the other hand, were grouped these uncouth savages, many of them almost in their normal state, except for the profuse display of feathers and trinkets which bedecked their persons; low and brutal in their

As the trains rolled inexorably westward, they carried with them hundreds of thousands of pioneers determined to carve out new lives for themselves on the frontier. Immigrants and disenchanted easterners poured into prairie states like Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri, their imaginations alight with the promises of prosperity fed to them by the railroad land agents who prowled the streets of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Many of these settlers were thwarted in their efforts to build prosperous lives for themselves and their families, their dreams undone by severe weather events, Indian resistance to the white incursions, financial calamity, and other factors. But many others succeeded, thanks in no small measure to the Iron Horse, the technology that gave them the means of transporting the

Origins and Development

•

23

habits, and mentally elevated but slightly, if at all, above the level of the beasts that inhabit this vast and beautiful country with them. But the laws of civilization are such that it must press forward; and it is in vain that these poor ignorant creatures attempt to stay its progress by resisting inch by inch, and foot by foot, its onward march over these lovely plains, where but a few years since, they were “monarchs of all they surveyed.” The locomotive must go onward until it reaches the Rocky Mountains, the Laramie Plains, the Great Salt Lake, the Sierra Nevada, and the Pacific Ocean. Lateral roads must also be built, extending in all directions from the main line, as veins from an artery, and penetrating the hunting-grounds of these worse than useless Indian tribes, until they are either driven from the face of the earth; or forced to look for safety in the adoption of that very civilization and humanity, which they now so savagely ignore and despise.

Source Seymour, Silas. 1867. Incidents of a Trip through the Great Platte Valley, to the Rocky Mountains and Laramie Plains in the Fall of 1866, with a Synoptical Statement of the Various Pacific Railroads, and an Account of the Great Union Pacific Railroad Excursion to the One Hundredth Meridian of Longitude. New York: Van Nostrand.

fruits of their labor to the lucrative eastern markets. In this same way, the railroads also enabled the western mining and ranching industries to achieve new levels of success. Inevitably, rail lines became the single greatest factor in the survival of America’s pioneer settlements. “Because the towns depended on trains for their prosperity, obtaining rail service and a railroad station in town became matters of consuming political importance,” noted one account. “Every town that depended on railroads went through a similar process of reorienting town institutions to the railroad station and its services, so that crowds gathering in the station would make full use of local institutions and bring maximum revenues to the town’s businesses” (Gordon 1996). Indeed, the railroad

24

•

Railroads

Map showing the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway and principal connections, 1874. (Library of Congress)

depot became the center of the universe in virtually every rural town fortunate enough to secure a rail line for itself. Each train that steamed into and out of the station pumped valuable dollars into the pockets of farmers, ranchers, loggers, miners, and other residents. In addition, the depot typically was home to the town telegraph machine, a valuable information pipeline to the rest of the continent. The railroad boom, meanwhile, slowly eviscerated another industry that had been a major engine of economic growth in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s. The steamboat industry had enjoyed a brief stint of primacy among America’s transportation options during that time, but by the 1870s this halcyon era seemed like a distant memory to the rapidly diminishing number of riverboat and coastal steamer outfits. In retrospect, this turn of events was inevitable, given the huge ad-

Origins and Development

•

25

vantages that railroads enjoyed over their water-locked transportation cousins. As one historian of America’s steamboat era noted: Where river courses were winding and roundabout, the railroad offered routes that by comparison were straightaways; the trunk and branch plan of the river was markedly inferior to the network pattern formed by the rail lines for directness of communication between the different parts of the territory served. The agencies of river transport operated within the fixed and rigid framework provided by nature and were unable to extend materially the territorial range of their service beyond limits early reached. The railroad network, on the other hand, continued to expand and exfoliate at an accelerated pace in the postwar years, adding, it is safe to estimate, far more mileage each decade within the Mississippi Valley than the navigable rivers could offer at any time in the steamboat era. Beginning usually as lines tributary to or joining waterways, the railroads rapidly came to form a great interconnected system by which it was possible to reach almost every town of any size or importance. . . . One by one the lesser river towns obtained connections with the railroad network and the economic world it served. One by one the tributaries, as well as the main stream of the river system, were paralleled by railroads extending along or near their banks. The first whistle of the locomotive heard in a river valley, editors were wont to remark, sounded the death knell of the steamboat. (Hunter 1949)

The Railroad Barons America’s tremendous industrial and financial growth in the last decades of the nineteenth century was due in large part to the entrepreneurial boldness and business instincts of a number of tycoons who built much of their fortunes on the broad back of the railroad. These men—J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, James J. Hill, Jay Gould, and others—guided their diverse business interests to unprecedented levels of profitability. The monopolies of these men, collectively known by the sobriquets “railroad barons” or “robber barons,” enabled them to eliminate less powerful competitors, manipulate prices to punish business enemies and reward allies, and extract huge profits from merchants and ship-

26

•

Railroads

pers who often felt reduced to supplicants under the sway of capricious dictators. “The corruption and chicanery found in much of the railroad management [in the postwar era] were almost beyond comparison,” declared one historical study. “Vanderbilt, [Daniel] Drew, Gould, and others were making millions and tens of millions in manipulating rail systems extending for thousands of miles” (Stover 1997). Over time, the railroads’ proclivity for doling out free passes to county assessors, auditors, legislators, and other public officials—basically a shamelessly transparent form of bribery—became the focus of particular public outrage. Resentment of this system escalated with each passing year, especially in regions where the rail companies were prone to jack up prices for “ordinary” passengers and merchants. But the railroads blithely ignored the uproar, reasoning that the savings (in tax breaks, favorable legislations, and more) made all the grousing irrelevant. Despite the pass system and the many other shady business practices in which the railroad barons engaged, however, modern-day historians grudgingly acknowledge that for all their fast dealing, they were the men who built the railroads that tied a vast nation together. . . . These early empire builders were, indeed, everything their enemies called them: ruthless, rapacious, treacherous, greedy, and grasping. But they were men of their time, America’s Gilded Age, when business ethics, and morality itself, had reached a state of giddy upheaval. . . . It was all part of a game, played for enormous stakes, that hinged on the Horatio Alger virtues of working and winning. And in their own eyes, the railroad barons were no more wicked than destiny directed them to be. (Wheeler 1973)

Grangers Lead Rebellion against the Railroads Prior to the 1870s, regulation of the U.S. railroad industry was practically nonexistent. Indeed, British diplomat James Bryce expressed amazement at the power that U.S. railroads had over local governments and state legislatures and the myriad ruthless ways in which the rail companies wielded that power. “War is the natural state of an American railway towards all other authorities and its own fellows,”

Origins and Development

•

27

Bryce declared in wonderment, “just as war was the natural state of cities toward one another in the ancient world” (Brown 1977). But public anger about capricious changes in rail rates, discriminatory policies in shipping, the reviled pass system, and other industry practices gradually coalesced into organized protests that became so loud that legislators ignored them at their peril. The first meaningful attempts to regulate the operation of railroads occurred in the 1870s in midwestern farming states. It was in these states that an organization of farmers known as “Grangers” developed into a potent political force. The Grangers evolved out of an environment of simmering anger and frustration that became typical of many western farming and ranching communities of the era. These farmers had become deeply resentful of their dependence on the railroads, which at times seemed intent on bleeding every last dime from the frontier communities. “The ultimate anger of the western farmer with the railroads was the more bitter because his need for them was so great and his original expectations had been so high. In the fifties and sixties, when he had few railroads, the farmer was so hopeful of achieving cheap transportation that he was not only willing to permit his town and county governments to help finance them, but he also frequently mortgaged his farm to buy railroad stock” (Stover 1997). By the 1870s, though, shippers and passengers alike were fed up with the lack of regard with which many railroads treated them. The National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, originally founded by Minnesota farmer Oliver Kelley, had by the mid-1870s emerged as a formidable political entity. Armed with 800,000 members organized into more than 20,000 local Granges, the Grangers successfully lobbied state lawmakers to pass a number of industry reforms. The first state to slap meaningful regulations on the railroad industry was Illinois. Urged on by local Granges, Illinois legislators passed laws in the early 1870s to establish a board of railroad and warehouse commissioners, set maximum passenger fares, and ensure more equitable and predictable freight rates. In 1874, Granger-led railroad legislation was passed in both Iowa and Wisconsin, and over the next several years this determined band of western farmers and their allies registered legislative victories over the industry in prairie states like Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. “The railroads were a mighty Gulliver, but now thousands of Lilliputians threatened to hold this writhing behemoth in fetters. What had twenty years before

28

•

Railroads

been a partnership in progress between business and government had now become a war for survival” (Goddard 1994). The owners of the western railroads were initially taken aback by the strength of the opposition, but they quickly adjusted to the new business environment, and in typically arrogant fashion they moved to dismantle or undercut enforcement of the Granger laws. Much of this battle was fought in the courts, but in other instances the railroads simply interpreted the new laws in ways that made travel more expensive or unpleasant for all shippers and travelers. As the industry hoped, negative public reaction to these developments led some state legislatures to repeal some regulations. In 1876, however, the Grangers and their allies seized back the momentum when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a series of decisions that confirmed the legitimacy of public regulation of the railroads. From that point forward, regulation of the railroads and many other industries increased, albeit in fits and starts over a span of decades.

Industry Innovations of the 1880s In the 1880s, the railroad industry experienced its greatest decade of growth yet. More than 70,000 miles of new track came on line during the decade, the bulk of it in the western and southern reaches of the country. Simultaneous with this growth came a wave of innovation and operational integration. One of the most significance of these innovations was the emergence of “fast-freight” lines. These lines, championed by railroad enterprises that owned their own rolling stock—and could thus utilize the track systems of multiple railroads—enabled shippers to move their goods to major markets faster than ever before, eliminating the previous time-intensive practice of transferring freight at various points along the route. New air-brake and automatic-coupler systems, the former invented by George Westinghouse and the latter invented by Eli H. Janney, also came into common use. These innovations improved the efficiency of rail operations and produced dramatic improvements in industry safety, especially after 1893, when the federal government mandated the use of the devices by all rail outfits. The quality of the rails themselves improved dramatically as well, as companies embraced progressively longer and stronger steel

Origins and Development

•

29

tracks. Indeed, steel rails created via the newly minted Bessemer steelmaking process were far superior to the iron rails upon which railroads had previously depended. Whereas iron rails were so prone to fracturing (sometimes twisting into deadly “snakes” that could eviscerate passing rolling stock) that they required replacement every six months or so on many main-line tracks, steel rails were capable of lasting a decade or more—despite carrying far heavier loads. The benefits of this transition were so swift and obvious that historians have claimed that “probably no other technological development has done so much to increase the capacity of the railroads and reduce their operating costs as this substitution of steel for iron rails” (Burgess and Kennedy 1949). During this same time, engineers unveiled new designs that improved the performance of locomotive engines, driving wheels, and other parts of the locomotive, as well as bigger and better railcars. As a result of these improvements, average train loads grew from 100 tons in 1870 to 500 tons or more by 1915. Passenger accommodations also improved dramatically with the introduction of dining cars (1868), steam heat (1881), solid vestibule trains (1887), and electric lights (1887). This increased level of comfort was symbolized most meaningfully with the introduction of the elegant Pullman sleeper, parlor, and dining cars during this era. Indeed, the late 1880s and 1890s became a golden era of railroad travel as passenger-carrying “Limiteds,” each seemingly more swift and luxurious than the last, delivered well-heeled passengers across the continent to America’s major cities. The nation’s fitful movement toward gauge uniformity also culminated during this period. On the eve of the Civil War, nearly half of the tracks laid across the United States were of a gauge other than the four-foot, eight-and-one-half-inch “standard.” By 1880, the percentage of tracks of “nonstandard” gauge had dropped to about 20 percent—a vast improvement but still a problematic proportion of rail mileage in many regions, especially the South and the mountain West. In fact, the total amount of nonstandard gauge in the South had risen to nearly 12,000 miles by 1880. But industry leaders in these regions grudgingly agreed to switch their operations to the four-foot, eight-and-one-half-inch standard, and by the end of 1886 virtually all of the nation’s trains were running on standard-gauge tracks. This change integrated southern railroads into the national network once and for all, and it enabled railroads

30

•

Railroads

around the country to transport freight and passengers anywhere without interruption. Finally, the railroads adopted a single standard time zone for the entire nation in November 1883. This was a long-overdue step, for the railroads and their clientele had long been bedeviled by uncertainties over arrival and departure times. Prior to the adoption of standard time, the railroads “ran their trains with a crazy-quilt pattern of dozens of times based upon several mean local sun times,” explained one historian. “When it was noon in Chicago, it was 11:27 am in Omaha, 11:50 in St. Louis, 12:09 pm in Louisville, 12:17 in Toledo, and 12:31 in Pittsburgh. In fact, in Pittsburgh there were six different times for the departure and arrival of trains. . . . The Union Pacific operated trains on its extensive system with at least six different local sun times” (Stover 1997). The adoption of standard time eliminated many vexing scheduling problems in one stroke. The American public informally adopted the railroad industry’s approach almost immediately, and in 1918 the U.S. Congress formally approved the switch to standard time.

Growing Federal Regulation The continued expansion of railroads strengthened the case for industry regulation in the view of many Americans, especially when a wave of consolidation swept across the industry in the mid-1880s. By the end of the decade, nearly a quarter of all U.S. railroads had been acquired by competitors. This increasing concentration of control of the nation’s most important transportation sector in the hands of the railroad barons intensified demands that the federal government step in. A special U.S. Senate investigation of railroad practices in 1885 added further fuel to the fire. The Cullom Committee report, named after committee chairman Shelby M. Cullom, detailed a litany of problems with the railroad industry as currently constituted. These ranged from exorbitantly high local rates to the still-common pass system, fraudulent bookkeeping, and special secret rebates. The committee report concluded that the federal government needed to create an independent commission that would regulate the nation’s railroads and purge the industry of its most outrageous practices. One year later, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a historic case (Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway v. Illinois) that states did not

Origins and Development

•

31

have the authority to regulate rates on shipments that passed beyond their own borders. The justices ruled that the power to regulate interstate commerce was the federal government’s alone. This ruling made federal intervention inevitable. On February 4, 1887, President Grover Cleveland signed the Interstate Commerce Act. The commission created by this law was toothless in many respects, and its efforts to straighten out the industry quickly bogged down in a morass of legal maneuvers initiated by the railroads. “Despite . . . extensive efforts to nudge the railroads toward an appreciation of their role as public servants, the roads never embraced this philosophy if they could avoid it. It cost money to obey the law” (Gordon 1996).

Labor Strife in the Rail Yards Even as the railroad industry continued its rapid expansion in the 1870s and 1880s—a trend that necessitated the maintenance of an ever larger workforce—relations between labor and management were often troubled. This was a period of significant labor organizing, with various classes of railroad workers forming unions. The first to do so were the locomotive engineers in 1863, followed by conductors (1868), firemen (1873), and trainmen (1883). By the turn of the century, twenty different railroad labor organizations were in existence (Stover 1997). The formation of formal labor organizations helped workers realize steady wage increases during the 1870s and 1880s, a period when the cost of supporting a family remained stable. In fact, industry workers earned pay well above the earnings of the average American. Unionization was also a factor in the industry’s improved safety record during this time, as the unions’ leadership successfully campaigned for federal mandates to make certain safety equipment (most notably the automatic coupler) obligatory in railroad operations. Nonetheless, several violent labor disputes flared to life during this period. The unions usually lost these confrontations, in large part because the railroad companies were able to use political connections to bring in federal troops against the strikers. The most famous of these battles was the Pullman strike of 1894, which pitted George Pullman and the Pullman Palace Car Company against workers angered by layoffs, wage cuts, and Pullman’s refusal to lower rents in his com-

32

•

Railroads

pany town. The strike was marked by repeated episodes of bloodshed and vandalism before federal troops were finally called in to break the strike. Despite such setbacks, however, the railroad brotherhoods enjoyed steady growth in size, and by the close of the century they were recognized as formidable bargaining agents for their memberships. Overall employment in the industry, meanwhile, rose until nearly 1 American worker in 25 was employed in some aspect of railroad work in the early twentieth century. Rail employment hit its all-time high in 1920, when the industry boasted more than 2 million workers.

A Period of Industry Retrenchment During the 1890s, the zeal to build new railroads into seemingly every remote corner of the nation finally began to subside. Management increasingly came to realize that the national rail network had become riddled with redundant and unprofitable pockets of trackage, and the railroad companies adjusted their business strategies accordingly. Rather than emphasizing new routes, they sought to squeeze greater profits and competitive advantages out of existing lines. “Speed became the watchword in both the production and delivery of services, and railroads sought to move as many people and as much freight as quickly as possible. Speeding trains vied to reduce travel time between the country’s major economic centers, delivering passengers, goods, stock quotations, and business mail” (Gordon 1996). One of the most competitive markets in this new high-speed era of competition was in the New York–Chicago route. The primary combatants in this face-off were the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads. The Central kicked off the competition in 1902 with the inauguration of the luxurious 20th Century Limited on a fast 20-hour schedule between the two cities, advertising the new train as ‘the fastest long distance train in the world.’ Three years later the Pennsylvania responded with the inauguration of the New Pennsylvania Special—later the Broadway Limited—on an even faster 18-hour schedule. . . . Thus was born a competitive rivalry based upon speed, comfort and luxury that was to last for well over half a century. (Middleton 1999)

Origins and Development

•

33

The arrival of the Broadway Limited (shown here ca. 1938) and other highspeed trains heralded a new age in American travel. (Library of Congress)

This evolving business philosophy led many railroads to dramatically curtail service to small rural stations that provided modest financial rewards. [The] new emphasis on speed was the death knell for local stops on a through route, and the train called the ‘local’ earned a reputation as the slowest and therefore the least desirable from a business point of view. ... Rural train service, lacking any specific need to race the clock, continued at the pottering pace it had known for decades. With fewer passengers and fewer profits, rural lines were the first to be discontinued when railroads began facing competition from automobiles. The economies of small towns and rural railroads depended on each other; they collapsed together as the wealth and the means of attaining wealth became ever more centralized. (Gordon 1996)

34

•

Railroads

A lone exception to this rule was the “milk train,” which delivered fresh milk from rural depots to thirsty patrons in the nation’s larger cities. Still, railroad construction remained robust in some areas. New tracks were still being laid down in the country’s western and southern reaches, and new logging railroads sprouted across the upper Midwest, specifically in the forest-rich states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. In the late 1880s, for example, eighty-nine logging railroads were operating in the forests of Michigan, hauling out commercially valuable lumber twelve months a year (M. Williams 1989). The railroads proved a brutally effective means by which loggers could scour previously virgin old-growth forests of trees and send them on their way to market. By the turn of the century, much of the forested wilderness that had once blanketed the Great Lakes region had been thoroughly logged over, which constituted a heavy blow to regional species and ecosystems. The railroad became an instrument of environmental destruction in other parts of the country as well. When the forests of the upper Midwest were exhausted, the timber industries set about laying down tracks in the Deep South and then the Pacific Northwest, where the same cycle of unsustainable logging ensued. In addition, market hunters made extensive use of trains on the Great Plains and in southern states to annihilate commercially valuable species such as the passenger pigeon and the buffalo. In the meantime, sparks from locomotive smokestacks triggered prairie fires that sometimes engulfed thousands of acres at a time. In the meantime, electric streetcars became a major passenger transportation option in many urban areas. “Trolleys, considered quaint artifacts today, pervaded all facets of American life at the turn of the century,” noted one historian. “There were trolleycars for commuting, trolleycars to carry the mail, and trolleycars to hire for parties.” The trolley system’s share of city traffic steadily expanded to the point that it began casting its gaze beyond their city limits. “Interurbans”—bigger, faster versions of the open-sided trolley cars—were introduced, and they became immensely popular. “In the cities, interurbans ran down the center of the street, while outside the city limits, they typically hugged the curb, operating quietly on their own right of way, without the soot, smoke, or noise of the steam railroads. To the consumer, the idea itself was electric: while interurbans traveled at two-thirds the speed of the hated railroads, they ran four

Origins and Development

•

35

to six times more frequently at half to two-thirds the fare” (Goddard 1994). The arrival of this new threat galvanized the operators of steam-powered railroad outfits into action, and they jealously guarded their transcity business from that point forward. But the momentum of the interurbans was formidable. Ohio alone chartered 144 electric railway companies from 1898 to 1901, and this frenzy of electric rail building was repeated in numerous other states as well. Steam railroads abruptly shifted strategy, buying up electric interurban lines to develop hybrid passenger services, and private investors threw money at dozens of new electric enterprises. Ultimately, however, overbuilding, periods of economic stagnation, and the rise of the automobile caused this industry niche to undergo painful retrenchment.

Rail-Power Consolidation Escalates During the 1890s, the rail industry consolidated into a fistful of major players. This consolidation was accelerated by an 1893 financial panic that pushed numerous small railroads into bankruptcy. By mid-1894, fully 25 percent of the nation’s railroads had been pushed into default. American business tycoons such as banker J. Pierpont Morgan and railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman seized on this development to acquire numerous rail lines. They also colluded on secret operating agreements designed to ensure that all participants made a healthy profit on their operations. These secret agreements were but one of a multitude of unscrupulous schemes and financial manipulations that the rail barons undertook to further boost their incredible personal fortunes and their fearsome political power. By 1906, nearly two-thirds of America’s 225,000 total rail miles was concentrated in the hands of seven entities. In terms of sheer mileage, the largest of these was the string of rail lines owned by Edward Harriman. He controlled more than 25,000 miles of trackage, most of it contained in the Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, and Illinois Central. The Vanderbilt cartel was close behind with more than 22,500 miles of trackage, including the New York Central system and the Chicago and North Western line. The Pennsylvania group, meanwhile, boasted 20,000 miles of trackage, including the parent line, the venerable Baltimore and Ohio, and the Chesapeake and Ohio. The Morgan railroads controlled a total of 18,000 miles, most of them in

36

•

Railroads

As president, Theodore Roosevelt imposed a range of new regulations on the powerful railroad industry. (Corbis)

the southern tier of states. The Gould lines, meanwhile, tallied more than 17,000 miles, with the Missouri Pacific serving as its flagship. The Rock Island system claimed approximately 15,000 miles of track, most of it concentrated in the Mississippi River valley. Out West, the leading railroads—including the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, and the Burlington—operated under the banner of James Hill, who held 21,000 miles (Stover 1997). Finally, however, the railroad tycoons overplayed their hand. Their continuing and blatant abuses of power came under a previously unmatched level of scrutiny because they occurred at a time when the American political system was being transformed by the emergence of the Progressive movement. This movement, which came to be personified by President Theodore H. “Teddy” Roosevelt, emphasized social justice and the federal government’s legitimate role in curbing corporate power. During his presidency, Roosevelt strengthened the moribund Interstate Commerce Commission, reasoning that such a step was necessary to ensure reasonable railroad rates for passenger travel and

Origins and Development

•

37

shipping and to put a stop to the pass system and discriminatory rate practices, most notably rebates to favored shippers, once and for all. The Hepburn Act, which he signed in 1906, met both criteria. It limited the issuance of passes to railroad employees, specified charitable organizations, and members of the clergy, and it explicitly outlawed rebates and other duplicitous pricing practices. Moreover, the Hepburn Act required railroad companies to divest themselves of business interests in many other industries, such as steam shipping and mining. A cascade of regulatory actions aimed at the railroad industry followed in the wake of the Hepburn Act, most of them explicitly designed to close off an avenue of business practice deemed abusive or unfair to the general public. By the mid-1910s, the railroads—and a growing number of economists and other observers—expressed concern that the industry was being overregulated. But sympathy for the railroads was in short supply. “The railroads themselves had called down this enmity upon them,” explained one historian. “In an age when they were practically free of competition from other modes of transportation, they had abused their position of monopoly to such an extent that it was to be long before the general public and the politicians forgot the long years of ill will and abuse” (Veenendaal 2003).

Sources Ambler, Charles. 1932. A History of Transportation in the Ohio Valley. Glendale, CA: A. H. Clark. Ambrose, Stephen E. 2000. Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863–1869. New York: Simon and Schuster. Avery, Derek, ed. 1989. The Complete History of North American Railways. London: Brian Trodd. Bailyn, Bernard. 1986. Voyagers to the West. New York: Knopf. Bailyn, Bernard, et al. 1977. The Great Republic: A History of the American People. Boston: Little, Brown. Bain, David H. 1999. Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Viking. Brown, Dee. 1977. Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Burgess, George H., and Miles C. Kennedy. 1949. Centennial History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Casey, Robert J., and W. A. S. Douglas. 1948. Pioneer Railroad: The Story of the Chicago and North Western System. New York: McGraw-Hill.

38

•

Railroads

Clark, John E., Jr. 2001. Railroads in the Civil War: The Impact of Management on Victory and Defeat. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Dilts, James D. 1993. The Great Road: The Building of the Baltimore and Ohio, the Nation’s First Railroad, 1828–1853. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Faith, Nicholas. 1990. The World the Railways Made. New York: Carroll and Graf. Goddard, Stephen B. 1994. Getting There: The Epic Struggle between Road and Rail in the American Century. New York: Basic Books. Gordon, Sarah H. 1996. Passage to Union: How the Railroads Transformed American Life, 1829–1929. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. Hunter, Louis C. 1949. Steamboats on the Western Rivers: An Economic and Technological History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Jensen, Oliver. 1981. The American Heritage History of Railroads in America. New York: Bonanza Books. Marshall, James. 1945. Santa Fe, the Railroad That Built an Empire. New York: Random House. Meinig, D. W. 1993. Continental America, 1800–1867. Vol. 2 of The Shaping of America. 4 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press. Mickelson, Sig. 1993. The Northern Pacific Railroad and the Selling of the West. Sioux Falls, SD: Center for Western Studies. Middleton, William D. 1999. “Change, Innovation Meet New Needs.” Railway Age 200, no. 12 (December). National Geographic Society. 1988. Historical Atlas of the United States. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society. Ogburn, Charlton. 1977. Railroads: The Great American Adventure. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society. Stover, John F. 1970. The Life and Decline of the American Railroad. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 1978. Iron Road to the West: American Railroads in the 1850s. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 1997. American Railroads, 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1999. The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads. New York and London: Routledge. Veenendaal, Augustus J. 2003. American Railroads in the Nineteenth Century. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Ward, James A. 1986. Railroads and the Character of America, 1820–1887. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Webb, William. 1986. The Southern Railway System: An Illustrated History. Erin, Ontario: Boston Mills Press. Wheeler, Keith. 1973. The Railroaders. New York: Time-Life Books. Williams, John Hoyt. 1988. A Great and Shining Road: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Times Books. Williams, Michael. 1989. Americans and Their Forests: A Historical Geography. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Innovations and Inventions Douglas M. Edwards

O

n July 4, 1828, Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, took part in the ceremonial laying of the cornerstone of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Forty-one years later, on May 10, 1869, the driving of a golden spike celebrated the meeting of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads at Promontory Point, Utah. It had taken only four decades for the first coast-to-coast railroad to be stretched across the continent and for the Iron Horse to eclipse in importance all other forms of transportation. Total railroad mileage in the United States, which consisted of a mere 23 miles in 1830, stood at more than 50,000 miles by 1870. Railroads had become the “prevailing and predominating element of the American infrastructure” (Douglas 1996). Although conveniently illustrated through geographical dispersion and mileage counts, the history of the emergence and development of the railroad industry involved more than merely the extension of tracks. It was a story of technological and cultural adoption, adaptation, and invention in which the seemingly simple process of rolling cargo down twin ribbons of steel was made much more dependable, efficient, and safe, as well as a story of how the advent of a new technology can have profound societal impacts.

Inventing the Iron Horse The United States imported the idea of propelling a vehicle along tracks with the power of steam. A British blacksmith, Thomas New39

40

•

Railroads

comen, had designed a crude steam-engine prototype at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It would be another sixty-five years, however, before the British engineer James Watt improved upon Newcomen’s designs to produce a dependable steam engine. By the first decade of the nineteenth century, such American entrepreneurs as James Rumsey, John Fitch, and Robert Fulton had proved the viability of steam-powered navigation. Steamboats soon appeared on waterways throughout the continental nation. Though first realized in Europe, the use of steam engines to power overland vehicles would become far more widespread in the United States. In 1840, the combined mileage of all European railroad tracks stood at 1,818, whereas the United States boasted some 3,000, an impressive statistic considering that a mere fifteen years had passed since the railroad first appeared in the country (Taylor 1964). It was not until 1825 that John Stevens of Hoboken, New Jersey, debuted the first U.S.-built steam-locomotive prototype, “a cabless, uprightboilered four-wheeler” that chugged slowly around a circular track. A group of merchants from Baltimore chartered the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827, and construction on the nation’s first commercial railroad began the following year. Two years later, the Delaware and Hudson Canal and Railroad Company imported the Stourbridge Lion, a British-built locomotive that proved too heavy for successful operation on the hastily built tracks and trestles then present in the United States (Hubbard 1981). The following decade would be an eventful one in the establishment of the railroad industry in the United States. In 1830, Peter Cooper, a New York entrepreneur and businessman who had become rich in the glue industry, unveiled Tom Thumb. The one and a half–horsepower engine became the first U.S.-built locomotive to accomplish a task. By the end of the year, another native-built engine, Best Friend of Charleston, began passenger service on a six-mile stretch of track in Charleston, South Carolina. Built in a New York foundry, the four-wheeler was equipped with two inclined cylinders and a vertical boiler. Eventually pulling four or five cars loaded with forty or more passengers, the engine reached speeds up to thirty-five miles per hour. In 1833, the first railroad tunnel in the United States was punched through a hill east of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The first sleeping car began service on the Cumberland Valley Railroad in 1837. Finally, in 1839, Joseph Harrison patented the equalizing beam, a device that

Innovations and Inventions

•

41

equalized pressure on drive wheels, and Henry R. Campbell introduced an eight-wheel engine design with a swivel truck in the front that facilitated negotiation of tight curves. These inventions were instrumental in preventing increasingly powerful and fast locomotives from jumping off their tracks. By the end of the decade, railroads had generally won acceptance as a viable form of commercial transportation. Many firsts still lay ahead. The telegraph was first used for railroad communications in 1851 on the Erie Railway, and it soon became a welcome means for coordinating movement of increasing traffic over an ever more complex network of rails. The first railroad west of the Mississippi River appeared in 1856, running from Sacramento to Folsom, California. A railroad bridge was stretched across the Mississippi River at Davenport, Iowa, in 1859. George Pullman launched the first of his luxury sleeping cars in the same year. Cambia Iron Works in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, produced the first domestic rails in 1867. And finally, the transcontinental railroad was completed on May 10, 1869. These were but some of the myriad technological innovations and inventions that contributed to the development and growth of the railroad industry in the United States, an industry that was continually refined to provide more reliable and safer service.

Building a Better Railroad Undertaken without the benefit of a master plan and a tendency toward “technology of haste,” the initial system of rails laid across the United States was anything but a safe and highly efficient mode of transportation. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, competition and technological innovations combined to produce a more integrated and considerably safer means of transporting goods and people across the continent (Boorstin 1965). Passenger comfort and safety had not been a major concern during the first years of railroad construction. Because locomotives moved at relatively slow speeds, operators rationalized the use of shoddy tracks and equipment as a way to reduce costs and expedite construction. Despite the short shrift given to safety considerations, traveling by rail was initially probably no more precarious than catching a stagecoach or hopping on a steamboat. As speeds increased, however, so too did fatalities from railroad accidents, calling

42

•

Railroads

attention to the need for more durable track construction and improved technologies for controlling trains. Robert Livingston Stevens (1787–1856) made one of the more important early contributions to railroad safety. Son of steamboat entrepreneur and locomotive prototype designer John Stevens, the younger Stevens had worked closely with his father to prove the viability of steam navigation. They launched several technologically successful steamboats. Little Juliana demonstrated the functionality of their specially designed boiler in 1803. Five years later, the Stevenses debuted the 100-foot passenger vessel Phoenix, which would become the first steam-powered boat to venture out to sea. Their Juliana went to work in 1811 as the world’s first steam ferry (Turner and Goulden 1981). Unfortunately, the father and son team could not invent a means for loosening the grip of the Livingston-Fulton monopoly on steam navigation in New York state. An attempt to secure exclusive rights to steamboat fabrication in the state was unsuccessful. Their appeal to the United States Congress for enactment of patent protection, however, resulted in the creation of the federal patent office. This was a major victory for the Stevenses and other American inventors, whose ideas until then were entirely unprotected. In 1825, the Stevenses refocused their technological interests, and railroads rather than steamboats came to occupy their minds. That year saw them demonstrate the first prototype steam locomotive in the United States. Within ten years, the family had opened the Camden and Amboy Railroad through New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and Robert assumed the presidency, as well as the office of chief engineer, of the Camden and Amboy Railroad and Transportation Company (ibid.). In 1830, Robert Stevens made an important contribution to the development of railroads. The first locomotives ran on tracks that were nothing more than wooden beams. U.S. railroads favored a slightly more advanced system of wooden rails topped with an iron strap. Much too weak to endure the stress caused by passing locomotives, the straps often worked loose and curled into “snake heads” that could puncture the bottom of passenger cars. Even when the straps held, rails were easily jumped by wheels, especially if a foreign object worked its way onto the path. Stevens provided a remedy in his 1830 design of rolled-steel, high T-rails, which were installed as standard equipment on the family’s New Jersey railroad the following year

Innovations and Inventions

•

43

(Hubbard 1981). The T-shaped rails featured a lip that prevented railcar wheels from slipping off the track. Constructed of rolled steel, they were also much more durable than the wooden rails. Due to higher costs, wooden and strap-iron rails continued to be used in the United States as late as the 1860s. However, “as traffic increased and locomotives and cars grew steadily heavier, the T rail became standard equipment of the better American roads” (Taylor and Neu 1956). In addition to modified rails, Stevens offered an improved means of anchoring rails to the roadbed. Some early railroads rested rails on large granite blocks. Others experimented with the use of piles. Neither of these methods proved sufficiently durable. Stevens introduced the use of wooden cross ties nestled in a bed of gravel. Rails were attached to the cross ties with Stevens’s patented hook-headed spike. All three of these designs served to make journeying by train a less risky experience and quickly became standard features of railroad design. Another pioneer in the technological evolution of the U.S. railroad system was George Westinghouse (1846–1914). Born in Central Bridge, New York, Westinghouse gained practical experience as an apprentice in his father’s machine shop. He would use these skills during service as an engineering officer in the Union navy during the American Civil War. Once the Union prevailed, Westinghouse applied himself to invention. After patenting the “frog,” a mechanism for rerailing cars that had jumped the track, Westinghouse turned his attention to bringing trains to a stop. His interest apparently derived from a head-on collision that occurred near his home. According to reports, the conductors saw each other at a distance but could not stop their engines in time due to the inadequacies of existing braking systems. At the time, each car had to be braked individually and manually (Hubbard 1981). Westinghouse’s early experiments with steam- and electric-power brake systems proved ineffective. His breakthrough came after he learned about the use of compressed air to power rock drills in France. Westinghouse patented his compressed-air brake system, which allowed simultaneous braking of all cars, and established the Westinghouse Air Brake Company in 1869. He then set out to market his invention. Initially, most railroad lines showed little interest in the new and expensive technology. After being turned down by several lines, Westinghouse finally convinced the Panhandle Railroad to

44

•

Railroads

allow him to demonstrate the functionality of the braking system on one of its runs. The test train, consisting of an engine and four cars and moving at thirty miles an hour, had a fortuitous encounter with a wagon stuck on the rails ahead. With earlier brake systems, this would have been a most disastrous situation. In this case, however, the panicked engineer jerked the brake valve and brought the locomotive to a halt well short of the stranded wagon. Soon thereafter, George Westinghouse introduced a Westinghouse’s plant in revolutionary braking system to the railroad industry. (Library of Congress) Wilmerding, Pennsylvania, was flooded with orders of railroad braking systems, which the inventor improved in 1873 to have the capacity to self-apply in the event of an accident (ibid.). Westinghouse would go on to be a pioneer in the electrification of the United States. Most notably, he trumpeted the advantages of alternating current (AC) over the direct current favored by Thomas Edison. In the face of intense attacks from Edison and his supporters, who argued that AC current posed a serious danger to people, Westinghouse maintained its safety and advantages. His case was made brightly, when in 1893 the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago was illuminated with more than 100,000 lights powered by AC current (Carlson 2001). Whereas Stevens and Westinghouse are remembered for helping to make railroad travel dependable and safe, George Mortimer Pullman (1831–1897) secured himself a place in U.S. history by making the a trip via locomotive a pleasure. Born in upstate New York, Pull-

Innovations and Inventions

•

45

man gained invaluable experience working in his brother’s cabinetmaking shop. He launched a successful career as a construction contractor that gave him capital to begin experimenting with railroad equipment. During an uncomfortable ride aboard a railroad sleeper car, Pullman determined that there was plenty of room for improvement. He drafted designs and in 1858 engaged the services of Leonard G. Seibert to remodel two cars acquired George Pullman and his Pullman car from the Chicago and Almade rail travel a much more luxurious ton Railroad. Each fourexperience. (Library of Congress) teen-foot-long car was equipped with ten sleeping sections, a closet, and two washrooms for a cost of $1,000. In September of the following year, the cars were put into service between Bloomington and Chicago. Pullman also outfitted a third car that, along with its predecessors, was soon seized by the federal government to support the war effort (Hubbard 1981). But Pullman’s vision was not derailed. In 1864, he oversaw the construction of a larger and more luxurious car named Pioneer. Built for $20,000, it was wider and longer than any previously built sleeper car. Its mammoth size posed several unanticipated problems. Most railroad station platforms could not accommodate the Pioneer’s width, for example, while its height exceeded that of most bridges. Pullman’s recommendation that these features rather than his grandiose sleeping car be redesigned was naturally dismissed. The idea of altering bridges and stations for the benefit of one car was simply absurd—that is, unless the sleeper carried an especially important cargo (ibid.).

46

•

Railroads

Opera singer Adelina Patti and members of her entourage pose with Pullman car personnel at back of train, 1904. (Library of Congress)

Following President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, his corpse was transported to Springfield, Illinois. Spying an opportunity for exposure, Pullman offered the Pioneer for the comfort of the widowed Mary Todd Lincoln during the last leg of the trip. The offer was accepted, and the Chicago and Alton Railroad hustled to alter bridges and platforms along the route. The promotional coup had its desired impact. A few months later, General Ulysses Grant returned home to Galena, Illinois, aboard the Pioneer, a trip that also prompted modifications. Pullman now had a least two lines that could accommodate his bulky cars. In due time, a general increase in the size of U.S. railroad equipment rendered the matter of the Pioneer’s dimensions irrelevant (ibid.). Pullman could then concentrate on enhancing the luxury of his sleepers. In 1867, he joined forces with Ben Field to establish the Pullman Palace Car Company. In order to improve the comfort of

Innovations and Inventions

•

47

riding the rails, the company added more wheels and springs to provide a smoother ride. They also raised the roofs and ornately decorated the interiors. Sleeping berths and dining facilities were combined on a single “hotel” car, the President, in 1867. The following year, the Delmonico became the first car dedicated to catering to the culinary desires of passengers. As tracks spread out across the continent, the market for Pullman’s cars increased exponentially. On the long journey from coast to coast, in particular, a Pullman Palace Car became the only way to ride.

Reinventing Business When Cornelius Vanderbilt passed away in 1877, the man who had earned a fortune in the steamboat industry that enabled him to later become a towering figure in the railroad industry bequeathed to his son an inheritance of nearly $100 million. An extraordinary sum at the time, Vanderbilt’s personal fortune attests to the wealth-producing capacity of America’s first “big business.” Unprecedented in capitalization and operational scope, the U.S. railroad industry’s growth was dependent not only on technological innovation and invention but also on the design and implementation of innovative new managerial strategies and accounting practices. Without modified methods of coordinating workers, organizing capital, and monitoring finances, technological progress would have been severely retarded. Whereas a single individual or partnership was capable of managing all aspects of the first lines, the burden of oversight grew exponentially as track mileage increased and multiple lines were consolidated within a single company. Operation of a railroad necessitated accounting for tremendous amounts of revenue; building and maintaining equipment, tracks, and properties dispersed over great distances; and hiring and supervising hundreds if not thousands of workers. Traditional top-down approaches to management simply were not suitable for businesses on the scale of expanding railroads. As lines increased in size, railroad executives had to develop and implement a more complex and decentralized system. Departing from tradition, decision making was spread throughout the enterprise, introducing “an increasingly hierarchical power structure which gradually proliferated through the entire economy” and became one of the hallmarks of modern business (Cronon 1991). Vast railroad cor-

48

•

Railroads

porations differentiated between the responsibilities of the executives at the top and the new corps of middle managers who handled the day-to-day business of operating a railroad. At the same time that it demonstrated the efficiency of a new personnel structure, the railroad industry encouraged a revolution in corporate accounting. Business accounts had long been maintained with a casualness and imprecision that would be unimaginable today. The exact costs of day-to-day business were generally unknown, and the profitability of an enterprise remained a matter of conjecture until the books were balanced at the end of the year. Embracing the precise cost-accounting system developed by Albert Fink for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, railroad corporations began to compile detailed information about the cost of every aspect of the business. This facilitated the identification and elimination of costly processes and, perhaps more important, enabled railroads to know exactly how much they could reduce rates and still make a profit. Cost accounting would prove an essential tool in industries where cutthroat competition produced razor-thin profit margins. Capitalists such as Andrew Carnegie, who had cut his teeth in the railroad business before going on to make a fortune producing steel, would apply this method to the other turn-of-the-century industries. The railroad industry also needed to devise new means for capitalizing the costly construction and maintenance of equipment, lines, and associated facilities. Sometimes morally reprehensible, the tactics it unveiled serve as a reminder that innovation should not automatically be associated with positive developments. With the exception of a few canal projects, no previous business endeavors had required such profound fiscal underwriting. Yet as one historian described the situation, railroad financing was “as rickety and jerry-built as the lines themselves” (J. H. White 1991). Corporations generally raised the substantial funds needed to establish or expand their operations through the sale of stocks and bonds backed by the corporation’s equipment, facilities, and property. In light of the high risk, companies were often forced to offer stocks and bonds at significantly reduced prices and sometimes continued to sell them even when it was apparent that profits seemed unlikely. To make matters worse, many ventures resorted to paying down debt with the issuance of additional stocks and bonds, thereby further watering down the actual value of the corporation’s securities. The most notorious example of corruption perpetrated by railroad magnates, and

Innovations and Inventions

•

49

“one of the most ingenious scandals in American history,” was the case of Crédit Mobilier of America, a false-front corporation that purportedly provided construction for the Union Pacific Railroad (Hine and Faragher 2000). It came to light in 1872 that the corporation had been set up by stockholders of the Union Pacific as a means of diverting corporate funds into their private accounts. Such tales of fiscal duplicity taint what was also a story of entrepreneurial innovation and business brilliance. By pioneering not only new technologies but also new strategies for organizing personnel and accounting for cost, railroad tycoons streamlined internal operations and ensured that the nation’s first “big business” was an exceptionally successful and profitable endeavor. Unfortunately, railroad executives and Wall Street financiers were not content with earning legitimate fortunes, and they often purposefully reduced external transparency in order to bilk stockholders and investors. They are, therefore, perhaps quite legitimately best remembered by posterity as “robber barons.” In contrast to the rail networks that appeared in Europe at the same time, U.S. railroad lines were built and operated as private enterprises. Ascribing to a political ideology of Republicanism that placed a premium on a relatively weak national government, federal lawmakers believed that internal improvements, even if they would ultimately benefit populations of many if not all states, should not be excessively funded by the federal government. This did not mean that the government would play no part in such undertakings. On the contrary, because the country had limited private wealth and railroads were often laid out across unsettled areas, the federal government would have to play an important role in extending the rail network across the continent. In fact, the extension of railroads caused the relationship between government and business to undergo a profound change. The rise of the capital-intensive railroad industry both depended on and precipitated the growth of a more powerful and active federal government. To begin with, the federal government embraced the concept of incorporation—a form of business organization that allowed groups of individuals (stockholders) to pool their resources under the protective umbrella of a corporation. A corporation, which in the eyes of the law was treated as though it were a single person, opened the way for the acquisition of the enormous amounts of capital needed to undertake the construction of railroads. Incorporation offered the

50

•

Railroads

added advantage of limiting individual liability to the amount invested and allowing for the raising of additional funds through the sale of bonds. Of course, Washington lawmakers neither invented the corporation nor introduced it to the United States. State governments, which had been granting charters of various types since the late eighteenth century, logically extended the practice to the turnpike and canal companies that appeared at the beginning of the nineteenth century. By the 1830s, however, incorporation evolved from a privilege conferred by state legislatures to a broadly held right recognized by the United States Supreme Court. In addition to providing legal sanction and protection, the federal government provided direct pecuniary support for the construction of railroads beginning in 1850, when Congress authorized the donation of land to subsidize the construction of the Illinois Central. Such federal subsidization was critical in light of the fact that U.S. railroads often connected “nowhere-in-particular to nowhere-at-all” and were constructed in anticipation that the line would foster demographic growth that would eventually generate profits (Boorstin 1965). As such, investment in railroads was inherently risky. A significant impediment to large-scale federal support of railroad construction was the rather meager holdings of the young nation’s national treasury. Even if Washington legislators wholeheartedly desired to underwrite the development of the railroad industry, they simply did not have the cash resources. They would have to find another way to lend support. The answer was the federal government’s vast landholdings. Between 1850 and 1871, the federal government passed a litany of land-grant acts that transferred some 181 million acres of public land to the private ownership of railroads to help offset the cost of constructing and operating lines. It also provided more than $64 million in loans and tax incentives. To induce the construction of the first transcontinental railroad— a monumental and phenomenally expensive undertaking—the Republican-dominated Congress of 1862 took advantage of the absence of dissenting opinions to pass the Pacific Railroad Bill, which authorized the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific to begin the construction of a transcontinental line along the forty-second parallel. The first laid tracks westward from Omaha, while the second laid tracks eastward from Sacramento. In addition to a 400-foot right-ofway, each company would be given alternate sections (a section equals one square mile) of public land within ten miles on each side

Innovations and Inventions

•

51

of the line. In sum, the lines would receive ten square miles of land for each linear mile of track. Understanding that future land values did little to provide the capital needed to initiate construction, legislators also agreed to provide long-term low-interest loans of $16,000 for each mile of track built on level ground and $48,000 for construction over more rugged terrain. Even this, as it turned out, was not a sweet enough deal for the railroads. Both lines postponed commencing work until they received promises of twenty sections (twenty square miles) per mile of track. The magnitude of railroad subsidization helped to create economic Goliaths that the federal government would eventually be compelled to restrain. Just as it had followed the lead of states in encouraging railroad construction, by the end of the nineteenth century Congress mirrored the regulatory steps taken by midwestern states. In 1887, Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act, which established the first federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, and empowered it to set maximum rates for interstate rail traffic. Three years later, the Sherman Antitrust Act responded to the capacity of powerful railroads to monopolize service through a given region by outlawing the formation of any trust (monopoly) that impeded open competition. Although the regulatory powers were seldom exerted at first, these acts marked a new phase in the relationship between the federal government and the railroads, and they installed legal mechanisms that future reformers could utilize and expand upon.

Prometheus Unbound Early railroad operations were notoriously inefficient. Constructed by an array of private enterprises in a haphazard arrangement of segments, the fragmented network of variously gauged lines could hardly be described as a coherently organized and interconnected scheme. Competing lines were rarely connected. Even if they had been, locomotives and cars were often unable to switch from one line to another because track widths (gauges) had yet to be standardized in the United States. This meant that goods transported over long distances would invariably have to be loaded and unloaded several times before they arrived at their final destination. To make matters worse, scheduling a timely transfer of goods from one line to another

52

•

Railroads

was almost impossible, because the notion of time was relative until the end of the nineteenth century. Noon corresponded to the moment when the sun reached it zenith in any particular locale. Therefore, estimating the precise time of arrival or departure for a train at a distant location was little more than guesswork. British engineers had adopted a gauge (track width) of four feet, eight and a half inches, a measurement “long customary for English wagons, and consequently the earlier tram lines had been built of proper gauge to fit them.” On the other side of the Atlantic, however, Americans experimented with various track gauges. New England lines by and large utilized that “standard gauge,” whereas five feet was the preferred width on railroads in the South. “Elsewhere there was great diversity, with Pennsylvania and Ohio leading in the so-called ‘war of gauges,’ for each had railroads representing seven different track widths” (Taylor and Neu 1956). The military urgencies of the American Civil War prompted some standardization and integration of tracks laid in the northern states. It was only after the war had ended, however, that the jumble of railroads began to work together in an effort to alleviate the inefficiencies of fragmentation. The railroads also put an end to the practice of setting clocks locally, introducing standard time—divided into four time zones—in 1883 and thereby greatly reducing scheduling hassles. With the adoption of standard time, it became possible for a businessperson in New York to know precisely the moment when a train laden with goods was scheduled to depart from a station in San Francisco. Seven years later, a standard track gauge of four feet, eight and one-half inches became the national norm. Thus, by the end of the century, people could travel without interruption, and in relative safety, across vast distances, knowing precisely when they would depart and arrive, whereas goods could be shipped more efficiently and less expensively. The integration and refinement of U.S. railroads— which could now be said to constitute a streamlined, coherent system—triggered a conceptual revolution by introducing a more artificial world in which previously held ideas regarding geographical determinism, time, and space had to be reconsidered. To begin with, railroads “broke much more radically with geography” than earlier transportation systems. The continent’s natural topography had largely determined the routes of canals and turnpikes. Of course, the often extreme landscapes of North America did not

53

Adoption of standard time in 1883 eliminated scheduling guesswork in railroad travel and freight transport at New York’s Penn Station (shown here) and other rail hubs. (Bettmann/Corbis)

54

•

Railroads

allow for complete liberation; however, railroads were “the most artificial transportation yet constructed on land” (Cronon 1991). When drafting plans for a new line, engineers could select the route that promised to return the greatest profits, not the one preordained by nature. Just as railroads freed people from the dictates of geography, they also helped to neutralize the impact of seasonal climatic shifts. Winter snowstorms, spring rains, and summer droughts no longer disrupted the flow of commerce and people to the extent that they had before. Certainly, particularly severe weather could bring rail traffic to a temporary halt, but railroads made it possible to schedule trips and ship goods even during extended periods of inclement weather. Although the year effectively became longer, distances seemed to become shorter. Trips that had once taken weeks were reduced to days, and a previous journey that might have required several days could be completed in a few hours. Moreover, with the appearance of telegraph lines, which popped up along railroad rights-of-way, distance ceased to be a factor in transmitting information. A message could be zapped across the continent quicker than it could be hand delivered to the other side of town. In this new conceptual universe, railroad timetables took precedence over geography, distances, and seasons. Departure and arrival times, and the business hours of the local telegraph office, became the salient facts around which transportation and communication were ordered.

Sources Ambrose, Stephen. 2000. Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863–1869. New York: Simon and Schuster. Athearn, Robert G. 1971. Union Pacific Country. New York: Rand McNally. Bain, David H. 1999. Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Viking Press. Beebe, Lucius. 1941. Trains in Transition. New York: Bonanza Press. Black, Robert. 1952. The Railroads of the Confederacy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Boorstin, Daniel J. 1965. The Americans: The National Experience. New York: Random House. Bryant, Keith L. 1974. History of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway. New York: Macmilllan.

Innovations and Inventions

•

55

Campbell, Edward G. 1938. The Reorganization of the American Railroad System, 1893–1900. New York: AMS. Carlson, W. Bernard. 2001. “George Westinghouse.” In Oxford Companion to United States History, edited by Paul S. Boyer. New York: Oxford University Press. Chandler, Alfred D. 1977. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. ———. 1979. The Railroads: Pioneers in Modern Management. New York: Arno Press. ———, ed. 1965. The Railroads: The Nation’s First Big Business. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World. Cochran, Thomas C. 1953. Railroad Leaders, 1854–1890: The Business Mind in Action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Cronon, William. 1991. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W. W. Norton. Douglas, George H. 1996. All Aboard! The Railroad in American Life. New York: Smithmark. Evans, George H. 1948. Business Incorporation in the United States, 1800–1943. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research. Fishlow, Albert. 1965. American Railroads and the Transformation of the AnteBellum Economy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gordon, Sarah H. 1996. Passage to Union: How the Railroads Transformed American Life, 1829–1929. Chicago: Dee. Healy, Kent T. 1940. The Economics of Transportation in America: The Dynamic Forces in Development, Organization, Functioning, and Regulation. New York: Ronald. Hine, Robert V., and John Mack Faragher. 2000. The American West: A New Interpretive History. New Haven: Yale University Press. Hofsommer, Don L. 1986. The Southern Pacific, 1901–1985. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. Holbrook, Stewart. 1967. The Story of American Railroads. New York: American Legacy. Hubbard, Freeman H. 1981. Encyclopedia of American Railroading: 150 Years of Railroading in the United States and Canada. New York: McGraw-Hill. Klein, Maury. 1986. The Life and Legend of Jay Gould. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Licht, Walter. 1983. Working for the Railroad. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Malone, Michael P. 1986. James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Martin, Albro. 1976. James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 1992. Railroads Triumphant. New York: Oxford University Press. McCague, Walter. 1964. Moguls and Iron Men. New York: Harper and Row. Overton, Richard C. 1965. Burlington Route: A History of the Burlington Lines. New York: Knopf.

56

•

Railroads

Schweikart, Larry. 2000. The Entrepreneurial Adventure: A History of Business in the United States. Fort Worth: Harcourt College. Stover, John F. 1970. The Life and Decline of the American Railroad. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 1997. American Railroads. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Taylor, George Rogers. 1964. The Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860. Vol. 4 of The Economic History of the United States. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Taylor, George Rogers, and Irene D. Neu. 1956. The American Railroad Network, 1861–1890. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Turner, Roland, and Steven L. Goulden, eds. 1981. Great Engineers and Pioneers in Technology. Vol. 1, From Antiquity through the Industrial Revolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Ward, James A. 1986. Railroads and the Character of America, 1820–1887. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. White, John H., Jr. 1968. American Locomotives: An Engineering History, 1830–1880. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. White, Richard. 1991. “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A History of the American West. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies Kevin Hillstrom

T

he U.S. railroad industry arose at a time when companies and their masters were largely unfettered by regulatory restrictions and in an era when business ethics were widely considered secondary to the accumulation of personal wealth and power. Moreover, railroad operations were given wide latitude in their behavior because they were so widely recognized, by business interests, legislators, and the citizenry alike, as essential to the development of the American West and the resources contained therein, from the fertile farming land of the Great Plains to the forests and mineral riches of the Midwest and Far West. The leading figures in the industry took full advantage of these circumstances, adopting cutthroat business practices that even today elicit expressions of amazement and dismay from scholars. But whatever their excesses, the power brokers of the American railroad industry of the nineteenth century also laid down a transportation grid of incredible scope and vitality. Indeed, their towering ambition manifested itself in the creation of a rail network that vaulted the United States to a preeminent place in the world of nations.

An Ethos of Power and Conquest The railroad barons that ruled U.S. transportation in the nineteenth century were both supremely talented and fantastically narcissistic. 57

58

•

Railroads

They often operated without meaningful regard for the welfare of their workers, their customers, and the American public, instead placing the accumulation of money and influence above all other considerations. But although they showed little compunction about engaging in maneuvers that might prove injurious to various segments of American society, they did take pride in the transformative effect of their actions on the American landscape. They were the titans who engineered the conquest of a wilderness continent, and they took great and justifiable pride in that achievement. To a man, the railroad barons of the United States were unapologetic about the ethos of power and conquest they embraced. According to their reasoning, the nation’s bounty lay there for any enterprising American (African Americans and Native Americans notwithstanding) to snap up for himself. If other Americans lacked the initiative or capacity to seize those opportunities, the fault lay with them, not with themselves. Indeed, the railroad owners and financiers of the nineteenth century—men like Jay Gould, J. P. Morgan, Edward H. Harriman, James J. Hill, Collis P. Huntington, and Cornelius Vanderbilt—concurred wholeheartedly with the beliefs of English philosopher Herbert Spencer. “[Spencer] argued that the pursuit of wealth by a spirited few was the major process by which a civilization perfected itself. This view of life, which came to be called Social Darwinism, made avarice a virtue, or at worst a heroic excess; it dismissed traditional business ethics as a tame, inadequate approach to life’s great contest. Fierce, unrelenting competition, Spencer preached, was the only mechanism that fulfilled the harsh terms of natural selection” (Wheeler 1973). This creed—and the railroad barons’ seemingly slavish devotion to it—was rejected by many sectors of American society, and the exploitative, ruthless machinations of the railroad owners triggered a major backlash in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century, when the Progressive Era was ascendant. By the time these giants of the railroad age had all passed on, their remarkable accomplishments were obscured to some degree by their alleged predilection for treating millions of Americans as pawns in the grim contests they seemed to be perpetually waging for personal riches and industry hegemony. In the mid-twentieth century, however, perceptions of the railroad barons gradually changed. Their oft-vindictive temperaments and amoral business practices

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

59

continued to attract considerable study and commentary. But their importance as agents of socioeconomic change in the United States was less likely to receive short shrift. Today, it is generally recognized that the men who created the American railroad industry also ushered in a new age of prosperity in the United States and that this legacy deserves more than fleeting recognition.

Builders of the Transcontinental Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) was perhaps the most important of the early U.S. railroads. Founded in 1828 by a group of Baltimore-based investors, it was one of the first railroad entities to prove that the new technology was economically viable. It grew steadily throughout the first half of the century, and under the post–Civil War leadership of John W. Garrett, the B&O linked the states of Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois into a single marketplace. Of the early U.S. railroad companies, only the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad exerted comparable influence in the Northeast and Midwest. Still, the railroad industry reached a new level of power and influence with the building of the first transcontinental road. This railroad was a joint venture between two newly minted rail lines, the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) and the Central Pacific Railroad (CP), that went on to become legendary names in the annals of American railroading. Begun at the height of the Civil War, the construction of the nation’s first transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Point, Utah, in May 1869. In the years of intervening struggle, some of the most legendary figures in American railroading rose to prominence.

Collis Huntington and the Central Pacific The newly formed Central Pacific Railroad of California was helmed by four Sacramento businessmen: Charles Crocker, Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford, and Mark Hopkins. All four of these men played important roles in guiding the railroad to its denouement at Promontory Point with the Union Pacific line, but Huntington’s railroading legacy ultimately proved the most enduring.

60

•

Railroads

Collis Potter Huntington was born on October 22, 1821, in Harwinton, Connecticut. His parents were William Huntington and Elizabeth Vincent Huntington. The fifth of nine children, Huntington was raised in impoverished circumstances, and he received relatively little schooling before entering the workforce at a young age. In the mid-1830s, he relocated to New York City, where he opened a successful general store. In 1849, after the California gold strike, Huntington decided to go west and try his luck. A brief foray into Collis P. Huntington, executive with the mining proved unappealCentral Pacific Railroad. (Bettmann/ ing, so he opened a mining Corbis) supplies store in Sacramento with partner Mark Hopkins. The store proved a considerable financial success, enabling Huntington and Hopkins to acquire the savings necessary to act when approached by railroad engineer Theodore Judah with an intriguing proposal. A longtime champion of the concept of a transcontinental railroad, Judah convinced the business partners, as well as Sacramento businessmen Charles Croker and Leland Stanford (who would serve one term as governor of California, from 1861 to 1863), to fund the formation of the Central Pacific Railroad. Chartered by the U.S. government in 1862, the CP was charged with building the westernmost portion of a transcontinental line that would connect California with the Midwest. The stakes of this enterprise were huge for Huntington, who had invested his life savings in the scheme. Determined to reap the potential benefits, he soon emerged as the driving force behind the Central

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

61

Pacific line. Holding the reins of the Central Pacific’s construction arm, he relentlessly pushed the company’s workforce—including thousands of Chinese workers pulled from overseas—to lay down as much track as possible, cognizant that each mile represented future riches in the form of mile subsidies and generous land grants. This position also enabled him to pocket huge sums of money for himself and to bribe legislators in a position to help his cause. By 1868, when the entire project had become riddled with graft and fraud, Huntington was openly marveling at the avarice in Washington. “There are more hungry men in Congress this session than I have ever known before,” he declared (Bain 1999). When the transcontinental railroad was finally completed in 1869, Huntington was known throughout the industry and on Capital Hill. He made the most of his power and influence, spearheading new railroad initiatives to southern California and on to El Paso, Texas, and New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1884, the Central Pacific and the other railroad companies managed by Huntington were folded into a single entity, the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP). Various companies were merged into the Southern Pacific. In the meantime, Huntington’s public reputation suffered a major blow when a number of letters he had written over the years to a business acquaintance came to public light during a legal proceeding. The correspondence painted him as a greedy manipulator, and though the letters provided no direct evidence that he engaged in bribery of public officials, they made it clear that he saw bribery as an arrow in his quiver. Shrugging off the public uproar surrounding the letters, Huntington continued to man the helm at the Southern Pacific, serving as its chief financial agent and lobbyist. He was adept at both tasks, at one point successfully torpedoing a congressional effort to provide financial aid to the Texas and Pacific Railroad, an ailing competitor. During this time, he also maintained a leadership role in the SP’s Central Pacific company, and he controlled the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad throughout the 1870s and 1880s. In 1890, long-simmering tensions between Huntington and Stanford led to the latter’s ouster from the Southern Pacific. Huntington assumed a firm grip on the company’s reins for the rest of the decade. “The more power Huntington got, the more outspoken his views on the proper relationship between capital and labor became, and thus the more people hated him. He embodied the dark side of unbridled

62

•

Railroads

capitalism. He spent much time and money lobbying congressmen to vote the way the Central Pacific and then the Southern Pacific wanted—that is, against any government regulation. He ran the Central Pacific and then the Southern Pacific like a medieval king” (Ambrose 2000). As the 1890s progressed, he sold off all or part of his stake in his eastern and southern railroad properties, using some of the profits to invest in several steamship firms. During his final years, Huntington divided his time between mansions in San Francisco and New York. “Aging, like a barnacle-encrusted old tortoise, Huntington vowed he would see one hundred” (Bain 1999). He spent his riches freely in these last years, even doling out money to several African American schools in the South. But he fell far short of his stated goal of reaching 100 years of age. The railroad magnate died on August 13, 1900, near Raquette Lake, New York.

Thomas Durant and the Union Pacific If Huntington was the driving force behind the growth of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads, his counterpart in the Union Pacific leadership that built the eastern section of the first transcontinental railroad was Thomas Durant. Unlike Huntington, however, Durant’s fortunes plummeted dramatically almost as soon as the continent-straddling road was completed. Thomas Clark Durant was born in Lee, Massachusetts, on February 6, 1820. Raised in affluence, he graduated from Albany Medical College. Instead of pursuing a medical career, however, he joined his uncle’s exporting company. He then moved to New York City, where he became a major investor in railroad stocks. Durant’s most notable pre–Civil War activity was his partnership with financier Henry Farnam. Together, the two men helped establish the Michigan Southern; Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific; and Mississippi and Missouri Railroads. He subsequently positioned himself to take a leading role in the Union Pacific Railroad, created in 1862 by the same federal legislation that brought the Central Pacific into being. He also played a major role in persuading Congress to include a stipulation in the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 that both the CP and the UP would receive ten square miles of land for every mile of track it laid (two years later the leaders of the two railroads con-

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

63

vinced the federal government to double the size of these land grants). Durant moved quickly to consolidate his power in the newly formed railroad, using a variety of legal and illegal maneuvers to ensure his place. From the outset, however, the Union Pacific moved sluggishly in comparison to its western counterpart, and its financial vulnerability became obvious to all. Alarmed that the UP might crumble before it even got off the ground, Durant pressed Congress to double the land grant and also to allow the road Thomas C. Durant, builder of Union to issue bonds. He then Pacific Railroad. (Bettmann/Corbis) devised a duplicitous scheme whereby a group of UP executives formed a construction company called Crédit Mobilier of America. Under this arrangement, Durant and his allies contracted with Crédit Mobilier—which they owned—or close business associates to build the railroad, charging outrageously inflated prices for their services. Durant—commonly known by the sobriquet “Doc” by this time—and the others harvested huge sums of money from this arrangement, paying little heed to the quality of the tracks they laid down. In fact, once the transcontinental railroad was completed, Union Pacific construction crews were forced to go back and rebuild large sections of shoddily built road. In 1865, brothers Oliver and Oakes Ames—the latter a Massachusetts congressman—muscled their way into Crédit Mobilier of America, and Oakes Ames began dispensing pieces of Crédit Mobilier stock to his allies. Within a matter of weeks, they were locked

64

•

Railroads

with Durant in a no-holds-barred struggle for control of the railroad. In 1867, the Ames brothers succeeded in squeezing Durant out of the Crédit Mobilier cartel, but he staved off efforts to pry him out of the Union Pacific. He held on just long enough to see the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Point in 1869. Two weeks later, he lost his seat on the Union Pacific’s board of directors. In 1873, the full dimensions of the Crédit Mobilier scheme came to light, and a wide range of public figures were sucked into the scandal. In addition to Ames, political luminaries including Vice President Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House James C. Blaine, and future U.S. president James Garfield were all implicated in one way or another. Ultimately, however, none of the three was formally convicted of wrongdoing. That same year, a widespread financial panic hit Durant hard. Despite having lined his pockets with huge sums of money during his years with the Union Pacific, he lost nearly all of it. He cast about for another scheme by which he could recoup his losses, including ambitious proposals to develop various mineral and timber resources in the Adirondacks region, but these came to naught. He retired to upstate New York, where he died on October 5, 1885.

Grenville Dodge, Architect of the Transcontinental Railroad If Durant, Huntington, and their cohorts created the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads on paper, UP engineer Grenville Dodge was the man most responsible for making the transcontinental railroad a reality on the ground. Dodge was born in Danvers, Massachusetts on April 12, 1831, to Sylvanus and Julia (Phillips) Dodge. The family relocated often until 1844, when Sylvanus Dodge secured a job as postmaster of the south Danvers office. Ambitious even as a youth, Dodge became a railroad surveyor during his teen years under the guiding hand of Frederick W. Lander, a notable surveyor of the West. He then moved on to Norwich University to pursue an education in civil engineering. After graduating, Dodge joined the Illinois Central Railroad as a surveyor. He subsequently helped make the first railroad survey across Iowa for the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad. In 1853, Dodge’s work in this regard took him to Council Bluffs, Iowa, an area he later championed as an ideal eastern terminus for a transcontinental rail-

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

65

road. On May 28, 1854, Dodge married Council Bluffs local Ruth Ann Brown. He then whisked her off to the Nebraska Territory. Thwarted by Indian attacks in their efforts to homestead in the region, he took a job as a surveyor for the Chicago and Rock Island Railway, exploring the Platte River Valley on its behalf. Dodge and his wife then retreated to Council Bluffs, where he became a successful banker and real estate speculator. During this time, his zeal for the challenge and adventure of western railroad surveying went dormant for a time. In 1859, Dodge met Abraham Lincoln, an attorney for the Chicago and Rock Island line with obvious political ambitions. Lincoln was fascinated by the idea of a transcontinental railroad, and he grilled Dodge at length about possible routes and the best site for an eastern terminus. It was during this time that Dodge convinced Lincoln that the best route for a transcontinental rail line would be through the Platte River Valley. As one historian later noted, Dodge’s “faith in that latitude as the one destined for the Pacific railroad would thenceforth be as unshakable as his hope that being connected to it would be his path to wealth and power” (Bain 1999). Dodge’s dreams of participating in the realization of a transcontinental railroad were interrupted by the Civil War. He initially served as a captain of the Council Bluffs Guards, then was promoted to colonel of the Fourth Iowa Infantry. He subsequently served with distinction in the Missouri campaigns of 1861 and 1862. For his service in Missouri, during which time he was twice wounded, Dodge was promoted to brigadier general and put in command of the Central Division of the Army of the Tennessee. Dodge proved an invaluable asset to General Ulysses S. Grant in this capacity. He became renowned for his ability to rapidly repair railroads, bridges, and telegraph lines destroyed by Confederate forces, and he cobbled together an admirably effective espionage network, making extensive use of African Americans and women. In the spring of 1863, Dodge was abruptly called to Washington, D.C. He feared that he was going to be called on the carpet for his decision to arm some black guards. Instead, he found himself conversing with Lincoln, now president of the United States, who wanted reassurances that the Council Bluffs area was suitable as an eastern terminus for the transcontinental line, which had begun construction. Returning to the field, Dodge participated in Sherman’s march on Atlanta. In November 1864, he was given command of military

66

•

Railroads

forces in the Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Utah Territories. Charged with protecting overland routes to California and frontier settlements from Native American war parties, he took a hard line against the Indians. In fact, he was a brutal and pitiless foe, willing to pursue virtually any course of action to defeat the increasingly desperate tribes of the region. Even here, though, his thoughts wandered to the transcontinental railroad inching its way toward completion. At one point, he even floated the idea of using captured Indians to lay track for the Union Pacific. “Even as slavery in the southern states was on its deathbed in those early months of 1865, Dodge was suggesting to resuscitate it, in Nebraska, no less” (ibid.). In 1866, Dodge resigned from the U.S. Army and accepted a position as chief engineer of the Union Pacific, which was badly in need of someone who could provide focus and efficiency to its construction efforts. He was also elected to Congress that year as a representative of Iowa’s fifth congressional district, even though he spent virtually no time campaigning. After gaining his seat, Dodge basically treated the job as a nuisance that interfered with his real work of building a railroad, and in 1868 he declined renomination. Dodge proved a much needed antidote to the malaise that afflicted the Union Pacific road-building effort. “Dodge passed on to the Union Pacific’s workers things no one else supplied. Dynamic, forceful, efficient, and fearless, he gave strength and direction to those in the field” (Hirshson 1967). More important, he regularly found the best routes for the railroad to take. On May 10, 1869, he and Samuel Montague, the Central Pacific’s chief engineer, set the final spike of the transcontinental railroad at Promontory Point. It remained the crowning moment in Dodge’s career. “Dodge rightly gets most of the credit for building the Union Pacific,” asserted one historian. “It was a stupendous project and his great ambition” (Ambrose 2000). Soon after, Dodge resigned from the Union Pacific. But he remained a power in the industry. He effectively parlayed his surveyor knowledge and political connections to secure lucrative work with a wide range of railroads, including the Texas and Pacific Railway. He also partnered with railroad magnate Jay Gould to develop railroads in the American Southwest and even consulted on rail projects in Europe. Combining this period with his work on the Union Pacific, it has been estimated that Dodge personally oversaw the surveying of 60,000 miles of track in the United States and that he had a major hand in the building of nearly 10,000 miles of railroad. Dodge’s last

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

67

major project was the Cuba Railroad Company, in which he helped survey and build a line from Santa Clara to Santiago. During his later years, Dodge also penned a number of literary works, including a memoir and various essays. These works have been characterized as somewhat self-aggrandizing and reflective of a penchant for settling old scores with opponents. In 1915, he was diagnosed with cancer. He returned to Council Bluffs, where he had long kept a house overlooking the Missouri River. Dodge died on January 3, 1916.

Vanderbilt’s New York Empire It was in the post–Civil War era that the railroad barons really emerged. One of the first of these was Cornelius Vanderbilt. Born in 1794 on Staten Island in New York, Vanderbilt grew up on one of the island’s small farms. He learned to handle a boat at an early age in the tricky coastal waters, and by the time he was a teenager he had purchased a small sailboat (called Swiftsure) to ferry passengers and freight between Staten Island and Manhattan. He made a $1,000 profit in his first year of operation, and when the War of 1812 erupted, he secured a government contract to supply coastal military forts in the area. In 1813, Vanderbilt married Sophia Johnson. He subsequently expanded his little sailing fleet, but in 1818 he decided to accept employment with wealthy steamboat owner Thomas Gibbons, a Georgia attorney and plantation owner. Vanderbilt soon mastered the operation of the steamboat and extended its service to New York, disregarding the existing Livingston-Fulton monopoly in those waters. He evaded prosecution for several months until the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Gibbons v. Ogden ruling, which declared such monopolies unconstitutional. In the late 1830s, Vanderbilt launched his own steamer enterprise. Utilizing one of Gibbons’s older steamboats as his starting point, he carved out a dominating position in New York waterways by embracing a wide variety of ruthless and brutally effective business methods, most famously a series of rate cuts that devastated competitors. Vanderbilt then turned his attention to the Hudson River prize, where his rate-cutting tactics chased other operators out of business. Vanderbilt had perfected a shrewd, cutthroat strategy: “[C]ut rates,

68

•

Railroads

drive away the competition (or sell out), raise rates, cut service, cut expenses (he never insured his boats, and life preservers were never considered a necessary safety precaution), raise profits” (Vanderbilt 1989). In the late 1840s, Vanderbilt—who had acquired the nickname Commodore—continued to expand the scope of his shipping interests along the eastern seaboard. By the late 1840s, he owned a fleet of more than 100 vessels, many of them sigNineteenth-century financier and nificant moneymakers in industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt. their own right. In the late (Library of Congress) 1840s, Vanderbilt made a prescient business decision. Taking note of the growing westward migration of settlers and gold miners, he spearheaded the development of a water route across Nicaragua that would significantly shorten the Central American route to the West Coast. To this end, he organized the Accessory Transit Company in 1851 and purchased a charter from the Nicaraguan government. He quickly installed a service transporting passengers from the Caribbean side of the country to the Pacific side. The service proved immensely popular, as it enabled travelers to cut two days off their trip (which otherwise required them to take the Panama isthmus route). He later sold his steamer fleet at a hefty profit, increasing his personal fortune to an estimated $40 million. In the post–Civil War era, Vanderbilt turned his attention to railroads. A longtime investor in various New York state lines, he engineered the merger of the Hudson Railroad and the New York and Harlem Railroads in 1865. He then waged a ruthless campaign against the New York Central Railroad, eventually wresting it from

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

69

the grip of its previous owners. This gave Vanderbilt a virtual monopoly on rail traffic entering New York City from the West. The lone notable exception was the Erie Railroad, which eluded the Commodore’s grasp after an epic tussle with speculator Jay Gould and his allies Daniel Drew and Jim Fisk in the late 1860s. Vanderbilt also displayed little interest in investing in the transcontinental railroad schemes that were proliferating across the country at that time. “Building a railroad from nowhere to nowhere at public expense is not a legitimate enterprise,” he once declared, evidence that even the canniest of America’s nineteenth-century financiers was capable of a business miscalculation on occasion. In 1871, Vanderbilt built New York City’s Grand Central Station, still one of the nation’s architectural landmarks, and throughout the early 1870s he used his eastern railroad holdings to dramatically increase his personal fortune. When he died in New York City on January 4, 1877, he was considered the wealthiest man in the United States (he passed on nearly $100 million to his heirs).

The Legend of Gould Of all the so-called robber barons who made a good portion of their fortune via the railroads, perhaps no individual was excoriated to the degree of financier Jay Gould. He was widely despised by the American public, and one railway historian described him as “the ultimate perversion of the Alger legend. . . . None of his contemporaries quite approached his genius for trickery and thumblerigging, his boldness in corruption and subornation, his talent for strategic betrayal, his mastery over stock and bond rigging, his daring in looting a company and defrauding its stockholders” (Overton 1965). Some of this condemnation is undoubtedly deserved, but the mythology surrounding Gould is so pervasive that it can be difficult to sort out fact from fiction and to examine the man behind the caricature. Jay Gould (christened Jason) was born on May 27, 1836, in Roxbury, New York. He was the son of a poor farming couple, John Burr and Mary (Moore) Gould. He learned surveying at a young age, securing work as a mapper of various parts of New York state, Ohio, and Michigan. In the mid-1850s, he and a partner opened a leather tannery in northern Pennsylvania, but Gould soon moved to New York City, where he proved a prodigy as a Wall Street speculator. By

70

•

Railroads

the early 1870s, he reportedly already had a growing reputation as a sort of dark prince of stock manipulation and corporate shenanigans. Gould’s involvement in the railroad industry began in the mid-1860s, when he obtained a seat on the board of directors of the Erie Railroad, a financially vulnerable line. Here he first exhibited the sort of ruthless ambition for which he became famous throughout the industry. Moving shrewdly to block Cornelius Vanderbilt’s efforts to acquire the troubled line in 1868, Jay Gould was one of the most notorious he joined forces with and despised of the so-called robber Daniel Drew and James barons. (Library of Congress) Fisk to stave off the Commodore and set the Erie on a course of expansion to Chicago. They ultimately prevailed in both of these goals, though not before entering into some surreal and blatantly unethical maneuvering in their so-called Erie War with Vanderbilt. Indeed, the opposing forces in the Erie Railroad battle “met force with force, bribe with bribe, and duplicity with duplicity” (Josephson 1962). Most notably, Gould and his allies issued millions of dollars worth of fraudulent stock to subvert Vanderbilt’s bid for control. When Vanderbilt tried to have them arrested, Gould, Drew, and Fisk fled to Albany, New York, where they blatantly bribed legislators to give their legal blessing to the stock manipulation. When they obliged, Vanderbilt gave up the fight and walked away in return for a $1 million payment. With Vanderbilt no longer a threat, Gould launched the railroad on his promised campaign of expansion. This expansion left the Erie

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

71

so mired in debt that it went bankrupt in 1875, but Gould escaped with a fortune, thanks to his manipulations of the company stock. Around this same time, Gould took control of the Wabash Railroad, a line heavily dependent on wheat shipments for its livelihood. Determined to squeeze more profits out of the Wabash, Gould embarked on a complicated scheme to push up the price of gold, thus weakening the dollar, and thereby trigger increased exports of wheat to overseas buyers. Gould’s secret acquisition of gold backfired, however, when it triggered a financial panic that caused upheaval on Wall Street. Gould lost a considerable sum of money in the ensuing sell-off, but by all accounts the setback did not fluster him. Instead, he spent his days rebuilding his fortune and his nights at home, where he doted famously on his family and garden (he had six children with his wife, Helen Day Miller Gould). Gould rebuilt his wealth by using stock purchases to gradually secure control over the operations of a number of other railroads, including the Texas and Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroads. These maneuvers confirmed his publicly stated philosophy that “I don’t build railroads, I buy them,” and they gave him dominion over nearly half the track mileage southwest of St. Louis and Kansas City, with a major presence in lucrative rail hubs such as New York, Chicago, Boston, Kansas City, and Denver. Once he had these lines in his pocket, he used subterfuge to artificially boost the stock prices of the companies. A few years later he sold his stock, reaping millions in the process. It was these sorts of maneuvers that led a later biographer to flatly state that “in railroading Gould was a wrecker. . . . [T]he fact that he led an exemplary family life simply brought into sharper focus his utterly ruthless business dealings” (O’Connor 1973). By the mid-1880s, Gould’s rail divestitures left him with the Missouri Pacific Railroad, which he had controlled since 1879. Here he proved his capacity for railroad building, adding a variety of profitable feeder lines, punishing competitors, and eyeing various acquisitions that would strengthen his core holdings. By 1889, he had swooped down once again on both the Wabash and the Texas and Pacific roads, linking them with the existing Missouri Pacific system. Back in New York, meanwhile, Gould gained a monopoly of Manhattan’s rapid transit system with his Manhattan Elevated Railroad. He also built the Western Union Telegraph Company into an operation that dominated this important new mode of communica-

72

•

Railroads

tion. He even dabbled in publishing, buying New York City’s World newspaper. Gould’s enemies, of which there were many, complained bitterly about the monopolistic character of some of these enterprises, but to no avail. In fact, Gould’s unflappable, almost impassive, response to these attacks on his character seemed to arouse even greater vitriol. Gould died of tuberculosis in 1892 on his Lyndhurst estate. He was mourned by his family, but not by the American public. In fact, his passing elicited expressions of satisfaction from Wall Street to rail yards and kitchens across the country. “In his own time Jay Gould became known as the most hated man in America,” explained one biographer. “Two generations of operators, businessmen, bankers, lawyers, coupon clippers, stockholders, politicians, reformers, journalists, ministers, and other guardians of the public morals reviled him as the supreme villain of his age. Even those who admired Gould’s genius often did so with a mixture of awe and revulsion, as if fascinated by the movements of some exotic but deadly predator. It is difficult to exaggerate the depth of vituperation heaped on Gould by his contemporaries” (Klein 1986). Today, more than a century later, he remains one of the most controversial and notorious figures in American business history.

The Morganization of America’s Railroads J. P. Morgan was famously cantankerous, with a nearly pathological disdain for the journalistic profession. But he was also a brilliant financier who left an indelible and enduring imprint on the railroad industry—among other industries—over the course of his long and distinguished career. Morgan was born on April 17, 1837. His parents were Junius Spencer Morgan, a prominent international banker, and Juliet (Pierpont) Morgan. Raised in Hartford, Boston, and London, he studied for a time at the University of Göttingen, Germany, before graduating from Harvard University. Upon leaving Harvard, Morgan spent a short stint at his father’s banking house, the George Peabody Company in London, before joining the New York offices of Duncan, Sherman, and Company. In 1860, he rolled out his own company, J. Pierpont Morgan and Company, to serve as a special agent for the London firm. Even at this rel-

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

73

atively young age, Morgan displayed a talent for bringing together European investors and American entrepreneurs in need of capital. Still, “several years of further apprenticeship were to pass before he threw himself in earnest into those large railroad affairs which gave fitting scope for his ambitions and, in conflict with the strongest and most cunning adversaries, exposed his fierce will and high, truculent resolution” (Josephson 1962). In the late 1860s, Morgan’s role in refinancing the federal government’s John Pierpont Morgan revitalized Civil War debt further numerous moribund railroads in the 1890s. (Library of Congress) burnished his growing reputation in financial circles, and when financier Jay Cooke was wiped out by the panic of 1873, Morgan’s firm seized the opportunity, stepping in and quickly establishing itself as the country’s leading dealer in government bonds. In the late 1870s and early 1880s, meanwhile, Morgan emerged as a major player in the nation’s railroad industry, which was saturated with overextended and mismatched lines by this time. Over the next several years, Morgan rescued railroad after railroad, providing them with desperately needed infusions of capital from investors and—in some cases—breaking down their corporate structures and rebuilding them again. “The contradictions of the business period in which he lived, the quarrels of rival barons, their disasters, led him more and more to abandon the passive role of the intermediary, receiving and lending moneys, and to attempt more and more often direct intervention in national industrial affairs” (ibid.).

74

•

Railroads

This reorganization process, dubbed “Morganization,” “could be a painful experience. Railroads could not prosper if overburdened with debt, and so stockholders would be assessed to pay off bonds. Sometimes they were simply wiped out. Profitable lines would be repaired and worthless ones disposed of” (Jensen 1981). But gradually, Morgan’s emphasis on consolidation and his leadership in curbing self-destructive price wars and other flawed business strategies buoyed the entire industry. Specific lines that were on the receiving end of the financier’s stern Morganization measures included the Philadelphia and Reading (in 1886) and the Chesapeake and Ohio (in 1888), but it was following the financial panic of 1893 that he really embraced the job of being the industry’s financial disciplinarian. The 1893 panic wreaked widespread carnage in the industry, triggering the collapse of more than 150 railroads. But Morgan’s firm restored many of the biggest lines, including the Erie, the Lehigh Valley, and the Norfolk and Western Railroads. In the South, meanwhile, Morgan fixed his gaze on “a great grab bag of shaky iron pikes which had been impoverished in various ways, often by a systematic looting that began during Reconstruction. Perhaps as many as fifty different railroads in the area—merging, falling apart, reforming in new combinations—had reached a financial nadir when they came to Morgan in despair. . . . When he got through, Morgan had created the Southern Railway” (ibid.). By the turn of the century, Morgan exerted financial control over the largest railroad empire in the country. In the meantime, he threw his prodigious energy into a variety of other areas. In 1892, he managed the formation of General Electric. Nine years later, he engineered the creation of the U.S. Steel Corporation, the world’s first billion-dollar business entity. And in 1902, he helped usher the International Harvester Company into being. In 1907, meanwhile, his financial machinations were credited with helping to blunt a financial panic that threatened numerous U.S. financial institutions. By the time Morgan died on March 31, 1913, in Rome, Italy, it was universally understood, even among critics who took him to task for his sometimes callous and hardhanded business tactics, that “his bank had helped transform the United States from an economic neophyte into the strongest industrial power in the modern world” (Strouse 2000).

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

75

Harriman’s Empire The other great railroad tycoon of the last quarter of the nineteenth century was Edward H. Harriman. Born on February 20, 1848, in Hempstead, Long Island, he was the son of Orlando Harriman, an Episcopal minister, and Cornelia (Neilson) Harriman. He grew up in Jersey City, though he also attended the Trinity School in New York City. At age fourteen, Harriman left school and entered Wall Street as an office boy, where his financial acumen and hard work attracted the attention of management. By 1870, he had bought himself a seat on the New York Stock Exchange with funds borrowed from an uncle. He toiled in relative obscurity in that capacity until the late 1870s, when he purchased a small Hudson River boat. In 1879, he married Mary Williamson Averell, with whom he eventually had three daughters and three sons. Harriman’s father-in-law was William J. Averell, a banker based in Ogdensburg, New York, who also served as president of the Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroad Company. Harriman took full advantage of this relationship to immerse himself in the fundamentals of sound railroad management. In 1881, he took his first plunge into the industry, gathering the necessary capital to acquire the Lake Ontario Southern Railroad, a modest and underperforming regional line. He promptly changed the company name to the Sodus Bay and Southern, reorganized it from top to bottom, and sold it at a handsome profit to the Pennsylvania Railroad, the main trunk line in the area. In 1883, Harriman became a director of the Illinois Central Railroad. This was a pivotal opportunity for the young entrepreneur, and once again he made the most of it. Teaming with Illinois Central vice president Stuyvesant Fish, he expanded the line and introduced a variety of operational changes that dramatically improved the previously moribund line’s efficiency and profitability. In 1887, Fish became president of the line, and Harriman succeeded him as vice president. With each passing year, he assumed greater responsibility for the line, and by the mid-1890s he was the chief architect and manager of its operations. In 1897, Harriman was named a director of the troubled Union Pacific Railroad, to the surprise of many in the industry. Few people in the railroad business knew who he was, even in the Midwest. But

76

•

Railroads

he made an immediate splash, showing a detailed knowledge of railroading and uncommon business acumen. His performance confirmed the judgment of Kuhn, Loeb, and Company, who had taken the railroad under receivership in 1895 and extended the board invitation. By mid-1898, Harriman had risen to the chairmanship of the Union Pacific’s executive committee, and it was generally understood that his hand was firmly at the helm of the reorganized company. Certainly, he did not lack for confidence. Indeed, he poured much of his savings into Union Pacific common stock, certain that he would be able to guide the line to long-term prosperity. It was a daunting challenge, though. When Harriman traveled the line to survey its condition, he found the railroad to be in deplorable shape, with much of its line and rolling stock in dire need of repair or replacement. Moreover, the road’s revenue had been declining for years, a victim of increased competition and struggling business communities on its main trunk line and many of its ancillary lines. Unfazed, Harriman flatly informed the Union Pacific’s board of directors that he needed millions for new locomotives, rolling stock, and road repairs. The board signed off on the plan, and Harriman subsequently spent an estimated $25 million to upgrade the road’s infrastructure. In 1899, Harriman acquired several important lines in the Pacific Northwest, the most notable of which was the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company. This acquisition gave the Union Pacific desperately needed access to the Pacific shipping trade, as the line extended to the harbor city of Portland. This move dramatically increased annual traffic on the UP, and by 1901 the venerable railroad was in the black and poised on the cusp of an era of rigorous expansion. Two years later, Harriman formally assumed the mantle of company president. The year 1899 also saw Harriman organize and outfit an ambitious scientific expedition to Alaska. He chartered a fine steamer for the voyage and recruited twenty-five prominent scientists to accompany him. Also on board was the noted conservationist John Muir, with whom Harriman struck up an unlikely friendship. After the latter’s death, Muir wrote an entire book about Harriman, about whom he said: Of all the great builders—the famous doers of things in this busy world—none that I know of more ably and manfully did his ap-

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

77

pointed work than my friend Edward Henry Harriman. . . . Nothing he had was allowed to lie idle. A great maker and harvester of crops of wealth, and of course a great spender, he used his income as seed for other crops of world-wealth in succession, sowing broadcast for present and future good, pouring back his gains again and again into new commonwealth currents to create new benefits, or to increase the fruitfulness of old ones after he himself had passed away. Fortunes grew along his railroads like natural fruit. Almost everything he touched sprang up into new forms, changing the face of the whole country. (1912)

After returning from Alaska, Harriman was set to tackle his next challenge. Armed with a healthy and vigorous railroad, Harriman was for the first time equipped to conduct railroad business from a position of strength. He thus embarked on an ambitious and intense campaign of acquisition and consolidation, freely using the assets of the Union Pacific to gain control of other railroad outfits and otherwise advance his business interests. Harriman’s first target was an ambitious one, but he never showed any doubt that he could bring it to ground. The death of Collis P. Huntington in 1900 had freed a huge amount of Southern Pacific stock on the market. Eager to claim the Southern Pacific’s main subsidiary, the Central Pacific Railroad, Harriman sought and secured authorization from the UP board for the issuance of $100 million in convertible bonds, giving him the money he needed to pursue the Huntington stock. Eventually, Harriman and the Union Pacific accumulated 46 percent of the Southern Pacific’s stock, enough to gain practical control of the SP and all its subsidiaries, including the Central Pacific. Harriman dove into the innards of the Central Pacific with relish, discarding unneeded personnel and rolling stock with equal dispatch. As he reorganized the CP, he also gave the green light for construction of the famed Lucin cutoff across Utah’s Great Salt Lake. With the Central Pacific well on its way to regaining some of its former luster, Harriman turned his attention to the Midwest. By this time, Chicago was the unquestioned center of trade and commerce in the country’s broad midsection, and Harriman pursued his quest to establish a Chicago presence with the same sort of implacable, decisive approach that had served him so well on earlier occasions. Before long, he settled on the Chicago, Burlington, and

78

•

Railroads

Quincy Railroad as his target. In this instance, however, Harriman confronted a railroad tycoon armed with equal resolve and resources: James J. Hill, the “empire builder” who ruled the Great Northern and Northern Pacific lines. Hill was equally determined to secure the Burlington line, and he actually managed to obtain control of the Burlington rail line despite Harriman’s best efforts. Smarting at this rare defeat, Harriman responded by surreptitiously buying stock in Hill’s Northern Pacific, a part owner of the Burlington. The rejoined battle between the forces of Hill and Harriman became so fierce that it was cited as a factor in the famous financial panic of May 9, 1901. This scare seemed to bring both sides to their senses, and Harriman agreed to cease hostilities in return for a seat on the Northern Pacific’s board of directors. Putting the Burlington experience behind him, Harriman embarked on a series of railroad stock purchases across the country, from the Southwest to the Northeast. He funded these purchases with enormous profits harvested by his sale of rail stocks in the northwestern quadrant of the continent, implicitly ceding the region to his nemesis, James Hill. Harriman’s spending spree on other railroads aroused the suspicion of the reformist-minded administration of Theodore Roosevelt, however. Roosevelt publicly branded Harriman “an enemy of the public” for his financial machinations, and in 1906 the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) launched a formal investigation of the Harriman empire. The ICC reserved special attention for Harriman’s 1899 reorganization of the Chicago and Alton Railroad. In this case, the ICC uncovered ample evidence that Harriman and his allies had simply plundered the resources of the Chicago and Alton for personal gain, leaving workers, shippers, and investors to fend for themselves. These revelations made Harriman the latest in a growing line of railroad tycoons to suffer the condemnation of large sections of the American public, but he remained sanguine. In fact, Harriman defiantly defended his practices—and promised more of the same— in his testimony before the ICC. During his final years, Harriman also invested heavily in steamship lines, including a fleet of steamships that regularly traded in the Orient. He also dabbled in banking and insurance, but the railroads remained his greatest passion. In terms of philanthropy, he is best remembered as an organizer of some of the first boys’ clubs in the United States. Influenced perhaps by his friend Muir, he also

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

79

bought 20,000 acres of wild forest in upstate New York to save them from lumber interests. These woods, where he established his permanent residence, ultimately became the core of New York state’s 45,000-acre Harriman State Park. Harriman died on September 9, 1909. After his death, the Supreme Court dismantled his railroad empire, but his status as one of the nation’s leading businessmen remains intact.

Last of the Railroad Magnates Of all America’s notable railroad builders, James Hill left perhaps the proudest and most praiseworthy legacy. “The last of the great western empire builders, and the man to whom the phrase stuck, was James Jerome Hill. . . . He was hard; he was tough; he was sometimes mean and vindictive; but he was the most resourceful and successful. Alone in this yeasty company, Jim Hill laid down his transcontinental, the northernmost yet built, without a land grant, never went into receivership, and never lost control” (Jensen 1981). A Canadian by birth, James J. Hill was born on September 16, 1838, near Rockwood, Ontario. His parents were James and Anne (Dunbar) Hill, a farming couple who struggled throughout Jim’s childhood to keep him and his three siblings out of poverty. As a youngster, an accident with a bow and arrow cost him the use of one eye—and became the inspiration for a variety of nicknames he accrued over the years. When his father died in 1852, Hill went to work as a clerk at a local store. Hill left Rockwood at age eighteen, inspired to see the world by the literature he had read of exotic locales such as India and the Pacific Rim. He initially sought work in the Atlantic shipyards, but when he was rebuffed, he decided to join the legions of pioneers looking to build new lives in the West. He made his way to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he hoped to join one of the bands of trappers and traders who annually trekked into the wilderness from that launching point. He failed to reach the city in time to join one of these expeditions, however, so he settled in St. Paul, working as a clerk for a steamboat line. Hill’s blind eye kept him out of the Civil War, despite his efforts to enlist. After the war’s conclusion, he went into the railroad business. Initially, he worked as an agent for the St. Paul and Pacific

80

•

Railroads

Company. Observant and ambitious, he gradually came to gain a good understanding of virtually every aspect of railroad operations. He also displayed an instinct for anticipating trends in the industry. Certain that coal was on the cusp of becoming the fuel of choice for rail lines, he formed the Northwestern Fuel Company, which he directed until 1878. During his years in St. Paul he also started a family. He married Mary Theresa Mehegan in 1867, with whom he had ten children. In the early 1870s, Hill became a partner in the Red River Transportation Company, joining forces with Norman W. Kittson of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The company thrived on the strength of its steamboat fleet, but with each passing winter, when the rivers froze over and the steamers sat idle, Hill became more convinced that the lightly populated region would nonetheless support a railroad. The panic of 1873 gave Hill the opportunity he needed to test his hypothesis. At that time, the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, a small railroad that extended into Manitoba, Canada, went into receivership. Hill cast about for partners who could help him buy the modest little line, and he eventually convinced Kittson and two other Canadians to join him in the gamble. In 1878, Hill bought the St. Paul and Pacific, risking nearly everything he had. Well aware of the stakes, Hill tackled the task of resurrecting the road with gusto. Hill succeeded, in no small measure because of his capacity for marshaling every possible asset to his side. Specifically, he investigated and found that more than twenty years earlier, the State of Minnesota had granted the St. Paul and Pacific 65,000 acres along the Red River. Because the grant had never been exercised by the railroad, the U.S. Land Office had come to regard it as abandoned. As a consequence, the Land Office opened the land to homesteading and granted titles to farming families who settled there. “But now came Hill, in complete control of the Manitoba line. Appealing to the Supreme Court, he got the old grant reinstated and, with brusque dispatch, began evicting the settlers. In the ensuing uproar, an embarrassed Congress placated Hill by swapping him 65,000 acres of prime timberland in Montana, Idaho, and Washington—which was exactly what Hill had had his eye on all along” (Wheeler 1973). Armed with this asset, Hill found it much easier to secure financing to rehabilitate—and expand—the St. Paul and Pacific line. But the railroad would never have grown in the manner it did during the 1880s and 1890s were it not for what one historian termed the

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

81

wizardry of Jim Hill. He built for less, and he built his lines where he knew trade would appear. In Minnesota, Hill came into control of a heavy lumber business. In the Red River valley to the west he foresaw a new wheat field for the world, and an even greater one beyond in the Dakotas. While his main line crossed North Dakota he threw out spurs at short intervals to the north until the map of his lines in that state looked like a comb with its teeth turned northward. . . . He reached Great Falls, Montana, in 1887 and Seattle in 1893. The line was now called the Great Northern. (Jensen 1981)

Hill’s creation of a transcontinental line was all the more remarkable when one tabulates the various factors working against him. “When he built the Great Northern, Hill had to do without the luxuries his predecessors had enjoyed. No grant of land or government loan came his way. So he built without them and, paradoxically, he built better; the rigors of economy denied him the luxury of waste or extravagance. It was no accident that his policies, his personality and the story of his struggles won for him much of the public esteem and approbation his predecessors had squandered” (Wheeler 1973). An even more vexing obstacle to Hill was the Rocky Mountains. He knew that he had to find a route that would enable his trains to traverse the chain of mountains, but for months it appeared that he would be stymied. The Northern Pacific occupied the only known southern pass, and Canadian Pacific had claimed the only known northern break in the range. But Hill seized on old reports of a longlost pass in the Marias River drainage. He subsequently hired a hardy engineer named John F. Stevens to find the elusive pass. Triumphing over the worst winter storms that the northern Rockies could dish out, Stevens discovered the lost Marias Pass on December 11, 1889. His discovery paved the way for the completion of Hill’s Great Northern transcontinental line. In 1893, Hill secured joint running rights over the Union Pacific to Portland, Oregon, further enhancing the Great Northern’s competitive position. In the meantime, he reorganized the original St. Paul and Pacific road into the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway. He even served as a member of the original syndicate that guided the creation and early operation of the mighty Canadian Pacific Railway. Hill’s early involvement in the Canadian Pacific was due to the fact that the builders of the Canadian road needed to use his Great Northern route to transport materials to the wilds of Al-

82

•

Railroads

berta and British Columbia, where they were carving a route. But when the Canadian interests, led by William C. Van Horne, decided to tackle the section around the rugged north shore of Lake Superior, all bets were off. Recognizing that the Canadian Pacific would soon be a competitive threat to the Great Northern, Hill resigned, and he and Van Horne maneuvered against one another for the next several years for primacy in a vast region extending from the northern Great Lakes to the Washington–British Columbia coastline. In 1901, Hill acquired the Northern Pacific Railway, which had been reorganized by J. P. Morgan over the previous few years after an 1893 bankruptcy. He acquired the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy line about the same time, albeit after a titanic tussle with fellow railroad magnate Edward Harriman. When Harriman retaliated by trying to wrest control of the Northern Pacific from Hill, the latter formed the Northern Securities Company, which folded all of his railroads under a single holding company. The Supreme Court forced Hill to dissolve the entity in 1904, citing antitrust considerations, but the decision did not constitute any sort of crushing blow. Hill and his allies—including J. P. Morgan, with whom Hill joined forces on several occasions during their careers—simply operated the three railroads (the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, and the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy) as they had before, without the paperwork. As the first years of the twentieth century ticked away, Hill controlled one-third of all the railroad infrastructure in the American West. Moreover, his grip on these lines was unshakable because he had recognized early on that the foundation of a healthy railroad was a robust regional economy. “He had to fill the land with people and profitable employment as he went, for without these his railroad would go broke. . . . [Hill subsequently built] an artery of rails that would serve and be served by capillaries all along its length” (ibid.). Indeed, the Great Northern trunk line was heavily studded with feeder lines that extended to timber tracts, mining sites, and fruit orchards. In fact, Hill parlayed the 65,000 acres he had basically extorted from Congress to launch a lucrative timber partnership with lumber baron Frederick Weyerhaeuser in the forests of the Northwest. In addition, Hill imported specially bred cattle to distribute free of charge to homesteaders along his line, and he annually gave farmers three boxcar loads of high-quality seed grains; in return, they increased the wheat yields along the Great Northern route by onethird. Throughout these years of growth and prosperity, Hill never

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

83

faded into a shadowy backroom figure. Instead, he was actively involved in every facet of his empire’s operation, and woe to the employee who was derelict in some phase of his responsibilities. He also had a vindictive streak that occasionally flared in his dealings with the public. On one memorable occasion, residents of the resort community of Wayzata, Minnesota, complained that activities in his switching yard were interrupting their sleep. He retaliated by moving the station an inconvenient two miles out of town. In most respects, however, Hill was seen as a benevolent despot who understood the hard work of laboring for a railroad. One winter while traveling through North Dakota, for example, the Great Northern train on which Hill was traveling became snowbound. When it became clear that clearing the tracks was going to be a prodigious chore, he inserted himself into the rotation of shovelers and sent men on breaks back to his private car, where they could warm themselves in front of his stove with a cup of hot coffee. After retiring, Hill became a prescient proponent of conservation of America’s natural resources. He also wrote a memoir of sorts titled Highways of Progress (1910), and he toured the country extolling the virtues of railways, capitalism, and hard work. He died on May 29, 1916, leaving behind $53 million, an impressive collection of modern French paintings, and a reputation as a railroad man “without peer, the preeminent builder of the frontier economy of the Northwest. By controlling the transportation structure of the region, he exercised more sweeping economic power than did any other industrialist, even the lumbermen and mining barons” (Malone 1996).

The Railroad Empires at the Turn of the Century By 1906, nearly two-thirds of America’s 225,000 total rail miles was concentrated in the hands of seven entities. In terms of sheer mileage, the largest of these was the string of rail lines owned by Edward Harriman. He controlled more than 25,000 miles of track, most of it contained in the Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, and Illinois Central. The Vanderbilt cartel was close behind with more than 22,500 miles of track, including the New York Central system and the Chicago and North Western line. The Pennsylvania group, meanwhile, boasted 20,000 miles of track, including the parent line, the venerable Baltimore and Ohio, and the Chesapeake and Ohio. The Morgan

84

•

Railroads

railroads controlled a total of 18,000 miles, most of them in the southern tier of states. The Gould lines, meanwhile, tallied more than 17,000 miles, with the Missouri Pacific serving as its flagship. The Rock Island system claimed approximately 15,000 miles of track, most of it concentrated in the Mississippi River valley. Out West, the leading railroads—including the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, and Burlington—operated under the banner of James Hill, who held 21,000 miles (Stover 1997).

Sources Ambrose, Stephen E. 2000. Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863–1869. New York: Simon and Schuster. Avery, Derek, ed. 1989. The Complete History of North American Railways. London: Brian Trodd. Bailyn, Bernard. 1986. Voyagers to the West. New York: Knopf. Bain, David H. 1999. Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Viking. Brown, Dee. 1977. Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Burgess, George H., and Miles C. Kennedy. 1949. Centennial History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Casey, Robert J., and W. A. S. Douglas. 1948. Pioneer Railroad: The Story of the Chicago and North Western System. New York: McGraw-Hill. Cochran, Thomas C. 1965. Railroad Leaders, 1845–1890: The Business Mind in Action. New York: Russell and Russell. Dilts, James D. 1993. The Great Road: The Building of the Baltimore and Ohio, the Nation’s First Railroad, 1828–1853. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Dodge, Grenville M. 1997. How We Built the Union Pacific Railway. Reprint, Council Bluffs, IA: Monarch Printing. Faith, Nicholas. 1990. The World the Railways Made. New York: Carroll and Graf. Fisher, Leonard E. 1992. Tracks across America: The Story of the American Railroad, 1825–1900. New York: Holiday House. Folsom, Burton W. 1993. The Myth of the Robber Barons. Herndon, VA: Young America Foundation. Goddard, Stephen B. 1994. Getting There: The Epic Struggle between Road and Rail in the American Century. New York: Basic Books. Gordon, Sarah H. 1996. Passage to Union: How the Railroads Transformed American Life, 1829–1929. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. Grodinsky, Julius. 1957. Jay Gould: His Business Career. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hirshson, Stanley P. 1967. Grenville M. Dodge: Soldier, Politician, Railroad Pioneer. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Major Entrepreneurs and Companies

•

85

Jensen, Oliver. 1981. The American Heritage History of Railroads in America. New York: Bonanza Books. Josephson, Matthew. 1962. The Robber Barons. Boston: Harcourt. Kennan, George. 1981. E. H. Harriman: A Biography. 1922. Reprint, New York: Arno Press. Klein, Maury. 1986. The Life and Legend of Jay Gould. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ———. 1987. Union Pacific. Vol. 1, Birth of a Railroad, 1862–1893. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ———. 2000. The Life and Legend of E. H. Harriman. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Malone, Michael P. 1996. James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Marshall, James. 1945. Santa Fe, the Railroad That Built an Empire. New York: Random House. Martin, Albro. 1976. James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest. New York: Oxford University Press. Mickelson, Sig. 1993. The Northern Pacific Railroad and the Selling of the West. Sioux Falls: Center for Western Studies. Mountfield, David. 1979. The Railway Barons. New York: Norton. Muir, John. 1912. Edward Henry Harriman. New York: Doubleday, Page. O’Connor, Richard. 1973. Gould’s Millions. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Ogburn, Charlton. 1977. Railroads: The Great American Adventure. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society. Overton, Richard C. 1965. Burlington Route: A History of the Burlington Line. New York: Knopf. Stover, John F. 1970. The Life and Decline of the American Railroad. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 1978. Iron Road to the West: American Railroads in the 1850s. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 1997. American Railroads, 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1999. The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads. New York and London: Routledge. Strouse, Jean. 2000. Morgan: American Financier. New York: Perennial, 2000. Vanderbilt, Arthur T., II. 1989. Fortunes Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt. New York: William Morrow. Veenendaal, Augustus J. 2003. American Railroads in the Nineteenth Century. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Ward, James A. 1986. Railroads and the Character of America, 1820–1887. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Webb, William. 1986. The Southern Railway System: An Illustrated History. Erin, Ontario: Boston Mills Press. Wheeler, Keith. 1973. The Railroaders. New York: Time-Life Books. Williams, John Hoyt. 1988. A Great and Shining Road: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Times Books.

Lives of the Workforce Mitchell Newton-Matza

W

hen the Industrial Revolution became an accepted part of U.S. society, there were feelings of both hope and apprehension. To many, the country’s industrialization was a betrayal of the Jeffersonian-agrarian ideal of a nation of farmers who lived in harmony with nature. To others, industrialism meant much more: a chance to make a fortune, obtain some degree of individuality (especially for women who were entering the workforce), and achieve a level of status and power not previously thought available. For those who worked on the railroads—whether in building, operation, or maintenance—this ambivalence was often profound. Although the industry provided employment opportunities that enabled workers to support their families, exploitation of workers was commonplace, and many industry occupations were hazardous. Understanding the lives of the railroad workforce is complex. There were myriad different ways in which one might find work in the industry. People were employed to survey territory, excavate land, lay tracks, drive the train as an engineer, provide customer service as a conductor or in a ticket office, maintain trains or tracks, or perform any variety of other necessary duties. These duties often differed according to regional requirements. Furthermore, the interaction between the railroads and the rest of the country’s industries influenced not only the way the country was settled, but also how workers fit within the emerging industrial system. 87

88

•

Railroads

Railroad Workers in the Antebellum Era The United States first began building its own railroad system during the 1820s, both to haul coal and other freight and to provide passenger service. One of the first railroads was New York’s Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, chartered in 1826 with construction beginning in 1830 and operations the following year. It was the famous Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) railroad, with construction beginning in 1828, that first began to challenge canals as a viable source of transportation, although the cars were initially pulled by horses rather than steam engines. The B&O took about twenty-five years to finish, and by the time of its completion many other towns had built their own short lines. “By 1840, only four states—Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Vermont—had no railways running within their borders” (Veenendaal 2003). To the growing social class of workers during these early decades of the U.S. Industrial Revolution, the opportunities in the fledgling railroad industry were exciting. For those who were interested in the technical aspects of railroading, the industry offered a chance to make one’s mark. “In the 1830s it seemed that every blacksmith, tinker, and ironworker, every wagonwright, carriagesmith, and boilermaker—all the craftsmen of America—wanted to build a better locomotive” (Brown 1977). There were also opportunities in supplying materials for construction and a related need for more factory workers to produce railroad components. Finding labor was a challenging job for the railroads. As the Industrial Revolution expanded, so did the demands on the workforce. Furthermore, as the country itself expanded westward, many of those who might have previously been lured into working on the railroads instead looked to the new land as a way to establish themselves. When railroad construction began to grow in the antebellum years, so did the railroads’ efforts to entice workers. Some of the first, and more prominent, workers to join the railroad labor force were the poor and landless. Some of these landless individuals were younger sons who stood no chance at inheritance, because in many places the eldest son still held that privilege alone under the practice of primogeniture. So when the railroads first began flourishing during the 1830s and 1840s, many saw what they believed to be unlimited opportunities. Although one might start out as a “common” laborer laying tracks, a brighter future with the roads might be in the works.

Lives of the Workforce

•

89

This belief reflected the growing mythology of the era. A common theme in nineteenth-century novels and stories often centered around the opportunities afforded by the Industrial Revolution. The works of Horatio Alger, for example, proclaimed that anyone could start out from humble beginnings and emerge as a successful entrepreneur through ambition, talent, and a bit of luck. The great industrialist Andrew Carnegie argued that anyone with $50 to $100 could invest it and make a tidy profit. During this time, one scholar noted, “the distinction between labor and capital was not clearly drawn, and many young men who took jobs as laborers hoped to join the ranks of the capitalists and investors who controlled emerging transportation companies” (Gordon 1996). This view would not quickly fade over time. Many men left their homes and families behind in order to find gainful employment constructing the rail lines of the rapidly growing nation. For those who did leave their homes and families behind, finding affordable lodging was nearly as high a priority as finding employment. This need was best served by boardinghouses. In some instances, workers maintained lodging at several homes as they moved about. It was not unusual for a town to see a steady stream of workers moving in and out, especially as opportunities—real or perceived—presented themselves elsewhere. New England employers especially bemoaned the numbers of people moving west and south for these purposes, thus putting a further strain on the labor supply for agricultural and factory work.

The Railroad Occupations Thanks to the siren call of the western frontier, along with competition from other emerging industries, the early railroads faced severe labor shortages. The lack of a solid workforce actually affected the quality of the first railroads. During the early years of construction, “labor was scarce and expensive, and so the lesser quality of most of the railroads had to be accepted” (Veenendaal 2003). During the 1850s, railroad companies began to step up their efforts to recruit, and maintain, a steady workforce. As mentioned above, the term railroad worker could encompass any number of duties. From clearing land and laying track to operating locomotives and serving customers, there were innumerable jobs

90

•

Railroads

Railroad conductors were the most visible members of the industry workforce. (Library of Congress)

to be performed. A number of railroad occupations have become a trademark of U.S. labor. Conductors, engineers, brakemen, firemen, porters, and newsboys all promoted the allure of employment with railroads, which fascinated many people and made them yearn for the adventurous life of a railroad employee. The conductor’s function was the overall administration of passenger trains. The specific duties included ensuring accurate schedule compliance, promoting adherence to safety measures, announcing arrival and departure times, giving assistance to passengers in need, and removing misbehaving passengers. In the early years of rail travel, conductors did not wear uniforms—only badges that designated their position—but as time passed a standard uniform was required by many railroad companies (Alvarez 1974). To make sure the conductors were effective in their roles, other railroad employees called “spotters” were hired to observe the activity of conductors and report their findings to the railroad management (Holbrook 1947).

Lives of the Workforce

•

91

Train engineers were not in the public eye—at least that of the train’s passengers—as were the conductors. However, they were certainly the key players in railroading. The engineers operated the trains and had to possess skills in a number of areas, including the ability to operate the locomotives, often through difficult terrain and at high speeds, and to make any necessary repairs to the machines. Due to a large number of accidents in the early years of the railroads, a convention of engineers gathered to upgrade the standards of the profession. Competence in the areas mentioned above were reinforced, and it was also recommended that engineers be logical, literate, and of good reputation (Alvarez 1974). The brakemen were another important group of railroad employees. Normally considered to have the least desirable job on the locomotive, the brakemen were responsible for making sure the train stopped safely. Prior to the invention of the air brake, the brakemen had to climb atop the freight car and turn an iron wheel that ran down the train to the rail and halted the train. The job was not an undesirable one in good weather, but in inclement conditions it could be incommodious or even dangerous. The brakemen tended to be a hard-living group of people. Although the job was not very glamorous, many in their occupation were consoled by the fact that most of those holding the prestige positions (engineers and conductors) had started as brakemen. Firemen occupied a central position in railroading as well. Although the job of fireman was safer than that of brakeman, it required much physical labor, skill, and a willingness to endure a significant level of monotony. Their jobs were easier in the era when the trains burned wood than later, when coal (referred to as “black diamonds”) came into use. The firemen were often used as scapegoats if anything went wrong. Often when people think of passenger train travel, the first workers to come to mind are the porters, perhaps due to their frequent portrayal in movies and television shows. In the golden era of passenger trains, porters—usually African American men—handled baggage, maintained the appropriate temperature in the cars, made the beds in the sleepers, and generally made sure that the travelers were properly attended. They often received much training and worked for wages and tips. The most noted porters were the Pullman porters, who were well trained and sufficiently paid to ensure that wealthy customers were comfortable on their trips (Holbrook 1947).

92

•

Railroads

A fireman poses in a Chicago and North Western Railroad yard. (Library of Congress)

Lesser known but highly visible to those who rode trains in the heyday of train travel were the newsboys. This group—also called newsagents, train boys, and news butchers—were adolescent or preadolescent males who sold a variety of goods to the travelers on passenger trains. Their sale items included cigars, cigarettes, food, water, and books (including some of a pornographic nature). The boys were usually fairly aggressive, often flamboyant, and better acquainted with aspects of adult life than most teenage boys of the nineteenth century. The boys were easily noticeable on the trains, as they normally wore blue uniforms with brass buttons and sported a badge that read “newsagent.” Notable people who were once newsboys include theatrical producer William A. Brady, author Earnest Haycox, and inventor Thomas Alva Edison. Writer Horatio Alger

Lives of the Workforce

•

93

Railroad stations became the centerpieces of towns across the country in the last half of the nineteenth century. (Library of Congress)

romanticized the newsboy in his book Erie Train Boy (Holbrook 1947). There have been, and still are, many occupations associated with life on the railroads other than the ones listed above—such as telegraph operators, switchmen, mail clerks, stationmasters, construction workers, mechanics, and administrative personnel. They are all part of the machinery that has added to the uniqueness and mystique of the craft of railroading.

Hazards of Railroad Work Despite their romantic image, many of the various railroad occupations involved serious hazards—particularly those relating to the construction of rail lines and the operation of locomotives. Work-site injuries were an unfortunately common occurrence in many indus-

94

•

Railroads

tries during the Industrial Revolution, and even beyond. To make matters worse, workers’ compensation and health insurance were far off in the future, and fraternal benefit organizations such as the Knights of Columbus would not be established until later in the century. A person who was unable to work due to accident or illness simply collected no wages. The railroad companies would just as soon replace an injured worker as soon as possible. Despite widespread labor shortages and heavy recruitment drives, many companies showed little, if any, concern for those workers who were unable to perform their duties. In terms of operation, railroad accidents were frequent and common, resulting in both injury and death. One particularly frightening aspect of railroad operation was poor bridge and trestle construction. Quite often, such structures were erected with poor preparation and groundwork, especially if the soil in which they were placed was of questionable grade. Other structures suffered as a result of poor engineering and improper attention to bridge mechanics. An engineer’s best efforts were not enough to prevent a bridge or trestle from giving out upon a crossing. The historical record includes several images of trains having crashed into a crevice or valley due to a bridge collapse. Brakemen probably faced the greatest daily hazards among the early railroad workers. In order to stop a train, brakes were operated manually by workers standing on top of the railroad cars. This process could become quite dangerous when the train approached a station. If the brakes were applied too soon, the train would naturally halt before it reached its destination. If applied too late, the train would pass the station. Attempts to coordinate the braking of railroad cars often led to brakemen falling off the train or crushing limbs. In fact, it was often said that missing fingers was a sure sign of a person who worked for the railroad. George Westinghouse worked to eliminate this hazard when he patented his air brake in 1869. Building the railroad lines was a dangerous prospect as well. Explosives were a necessary part of railroad construction. Whether used for blasting through a mountain or for various other earthmoving purposes, the handling of explosives meant extreme danger. Losing a limb, or a life, in an explosion gone awry happened too often. The workers involved in building the nation’s railroad lines also suffered from high rates of illness and disease. They often worked in conditions of extreme heat or cold and lived in settings with poor shelter

Lives of the Workforce

•

95

Wreck of a railroad train near Chatsworth, Illinois, in 1867. (Library of Congress)

and sanitation. Combined with the hard physical labor they performed, it is little wonder that their jobs took a toll on their health. For railroad workers injured or killed on the job, there was little, if any, financial recourse. Several legal rulings supported the companies in this policy. For example, the fellow servant rule said that if a worker was injured due to the neglect or fault (intentional or otherwise) of a fellow employee, the employer was not liable. The 1842 Massachusetts case of Farwell v. Boston & Worcester Railroad helped set the standard regarding employee injury. In this case, an engineer named Farwell was thrown from his train, and his hand was crushed under a train wheel, when the negligence of a switchman caused the train to derail. Farwell sued, but Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled against him. Shaw held that railroad employees understand that there are risks involved in their jobs. Shaw claimed that Farwell’s pay rate of two dollars a day indicated that Farwell took such risks into con-

96

•

Railroads

Good Help Is Hard to Find: Recruiting Difficulties on the Illinois Central The Illinois Central Railroad (IC) provides a prime example of the difficulties that many railroads faced in recruiting and retaining workers. Chartered in 1851, the IC was the first federal land-grant railroad, receiving more than 2.5 million acres of land from the government. Management determined that the company needed to hire between 7,000 and 12,000 workers to complete the road, but finding laborers presented an immediate problem for the IC. When the IC began construction, there was an insufficient number of potential workers available in the area. The company tried several approaches in order to recruit, and maintain, workers. One of the more enticing offers involved parcels of the public land granted to the railroad. The inexpensive asking price of these plots of land proved very attractive to rail workers who had never owned property before. Both immigrants and native-born Americans recognized that working for the IC would give them a chance to finally own their own land, which was always considered to be part of the American dream. Between 1851 and 1861, the IC sold well over half of its 2.5 million acres, and the state’s population greatly increased. Like other railroad companies, the IC also utilized advertising and agents to attract laborers. Ads that appeared in newspapers in the East and abroad offered a daily wage of $1.25 and guaranteed employment of not less than two years. They also offered a reduced fare to travel to Illinois, as well as affordable meals. The ads also provided information about lodging and land sales. For many workers, especially immigrants escaping famine in Europe, any wage was a good wage. The IC attracted a truly international workforce that included laborers from many different European nations, including Germany, Ireland, Poland, and Scandinavian countries. For those born or already established in the United States, working for the railroads provided a means for self-sufficiency, especially as wages climbed due to the lack of workers. But the labor shortage also

sideration when accepting his position. Therefore, Farwell was on his own in terms of financial support following his injury. The fellow-servant rule was applied to countless cases during the Industrial Revolution, with the effect of protecting employers from compensating workers for job-related injuries. Although workers in-

Lives of the Workforce

•

97

made it difficult for the railroads to retain workers, and financial incentives were often necessary to prevent them from jumping over to the construction of another road. Word of the availability of higher wages—whether in railroads, agriculture, or factory work—could easily cause an exodus, no matter how small an increase the new salary offered. Compounding the problems involved in retaining workers was the fact that constructing the railroads was anything but easy. The entire operation was fraught with peril for the workers. A number of factors served to increase turnover rates, including illnesses, accidents and injuries, alcohol abuse, slack times due to lack of construction materials, and the lure of higher wages from another employer. Illness often acted as a deterrent to potential IC employees. Many feared that parts of Illinois were not safe places to live. Illinois was known for being a host for cholera and ague (a type of fever), as well as malaria and dysentery. Cholera was especially prevalent during the 1850s throughout Illinois, and railroad workers were certainly affected. The numbers of deaths at railroad construction sites ranged from three to as many as eighty. It was said that at the first sign of an outbreak, workers would drop their tools and run. Improperly drained marshes and swamp areas also contributed to the spread of disease, especially after heavy rains. Working in the open fields of Illinois during the hot summer months certainly affected workers’ health, as did inadequate shelter and sanitation. Furthermore, food was not usually of good quality, and when coupled with inadequate amounts of drinking water, it was easy to see how the health of a worker could quickly deteriorate. Sources Lightner, David L. 1977. Labor on the Illinois Central Railroad, 1852–1900: The Evolution of an Industrial Environment. New York: Arno Press. Stover, John F. 1975. History of the Illinois Central Railroad. New York: Macmillan.

jured due to the negligence of a fellow worker could sue the responsible person, that person was likely to have as few financial resources as his accuser. Another source of health problems and on-the-job injuries in the railroad industry was alcohol abuse, which was a constant concern of

98

•

Railroads

employers and reformers alike. Beginning with the earliest temperance crusades of the antebellum era, many argued that workers who drank too much would be unable to work and thus unable to support their families. Quite often, railroad workers got into fights, sometimes resulting in deaths, due to alcohol. Railroad companies did all they could to curb alcohol use among their workers, including banning alcohol shipments on their lines. Many railroad employers considered their workers—no matter what their racial or ethnic origin— to be irresponsibly heavy drinkers, and this opinion was not always off the mark. More than one supervisor lamented payday, when the workers would cheerfully disappear into saloons to spend their money on drink. But sometimes alcohol only provided an outlet for already-simmering hostility between railroad workers. Ethnic differences— such as those between the Irish and Germans—exploded into violence on more than one occasion. Even immigrants from the same country sometimes entered into political and religious disputes stemming from the turmoil in their homeland. For example, Irish railroad workers sometimes attacked each other merely because they came from different regions of Ireland. Nativeborn Americans also frequently expressed animosity toward foreigners. Other problems facing railroad workers in their efforts to earn a living included slack periods and a lack of job security. Sometimes the process of railroad construction entered slack periods, when work stopped and workers were not paid. For example, work stoppages frequently occurred when landscaping was not ready on time. Landscaping could involve a number of different projects, including grading work. Until these necessary projects were completed, the road could not be continued. Making sure the terrain was properly prepared for laying track was absolutely imperative for construction success. Railroads also faced delays due to a shortage of materials or equipment. Such problems brought construction to a halt until the necessary items arrived. Despite the widespread labor shortages affecting the railroad industry, some workers still suffered from a lack of job security. Quite often, laborers were needed only for temporary work. If finances were tight, the railroad companies were known to institute wage or hour reductions or both.

Lives of the Workforce

•

99

Railroads after the Civil War Between 1862 and 1893, the United States embarked on one of its greatest internal improvement projects when it endeavored to connect the East and West Coasts by rail. Several routes were designed, and links were planned at key points. The major transcontinental railroad lines included the Central Pacific (CP, chartered in 1858), the Union Pacific (UP, chartered in 1862), the Northern Pacific (1864), and the Texas and Pacific (1871). The federal authorization of the railroads had far-reaching effects on the lives of those who would build the railroad lines, as well as those who would settle the lands in which these roads existed. Outside of the logistics involved in linking the nation’s coasts by rail (quite a remarkable achievement by itself), one of the greatest challenges in building the transcontinental railroads was recruiting and maintaining the required labor force. Many railroad companies used labor agencies to attract workers. Such agents advertised railroad work opportunities in urban areas of the East as well as in Europe. Some agents used elaborate, and not always accurate, marketing campaigns to lure workers to the frontier. From the time they accepted a railroad job, workers were often subjected to numerous pay deductions. For instance, there was no free ride to the work site. No matter if the railroad company or the agency recruited the worker, the cost of transportation was deducted from their pay. Meals were hardly free, and in some cases the cost of tools was deducted as well. Furthermore, many new employees were expected to pay a fee to the labor agency. Later in the nineteenth century, labor agencies were often targeted for cheating people. Quite often, a person seeking employment would pay a fee to an agency, only to discover that no jobs were available. In addition, many agencies collected sizable fees, only to close shop and run. In the period following the Civil War, the combination of deteriorating social and economic conditions in Europe and recruiting efforts by expanding U.S. industries led to a large increase in immigration. The increased immigration brought scores of unskilled, and thus low-paid, workers to fill America’s factories and settle its frontier. But it also exacerbated existing tensions between native-born Americans and various immigrant groups, as well as between different immigrant groups. The tensions were especially apparent during

100

•

Railroads

the building of the transcontinental railroads. Poor ethnic and racial relations only increased the dangers already faced by those building the roads. Throughout the Industrial Revolution, it was hardly uncommon for employers to play one racial or ethnic group against another. During strike periods, for instance, employers would turn to whatever group was willing to take the jobs of the strikers. African Americans were often used as strikebreakers. Many blacks did not know they were being recruited to work as “scabs,” or replacement workers, although many understood the situation and accepted the jobs anyway. In other instances, employers would turn to immigrant labor, either as strikebreakers or simply as lower-paid workers. The railroads took full advantage of the fact that blacks and immigrants could be paid considerably less than their white, native-born counterparts. Such divisions between workers were important to the railroad companies, which sought to minimize their expenses. At first, Irish immigrants provided the main source of labor for building the transcontinental railroads. The Chinese were eventually used to counter the Irish. When the Chinese began to agitate for higher pay, they in turn were replaced by blacks, especially freed slaves.

Chinese Workers and the Railroads The transcontinental railroads faced their share of labor shortages, as did virtually every other railroad. The Central Pacific, which built eastward from California, found competition for workers within California to be especially fierce. Many of those who traveled to the region from the eastern portion of the country were there not to make money building the roads, but rather to strike it rich by mining for gold and silver. In addition, the CP experienced a high turnover rate and found it difficult to retain its workforce. When the CP found itself in dire and immediate need of 5,000 workers, the railroad’s construction chief, Charlie Crocker, advocated the use of Chinese immigrants currently living in San Francisco. James Harvey Strobridge, a man with considerable experience in constructing railroads, did not like the idea—especially because he and Crocker were not exactly the best of friends. Strobridge considered the Chinese to be weak and claimed that they would not be able to perform the physically demanding tasks. Crocker responded by

Lives of the Workforce

•

101

pointing out that the Chinese had a long history of physical labor, as demonstrated by the Great Wall of China. Nevertheless, Strobridge proclaimed the diet of the Chinese to be “disgusting” and said that he had no desire to supervise or be responsible for their work. In the end, Crocker would win the argument. The railroad continued to face high turnover rates and severe labor shortages. When Crocker noted that the Chinese could be paid far less than white workers, Strobridge consented to hiring 50 Chinese, but for the lowest positions available. The first 50 Chinese workers were brought in fill dump carts at the rate of one dollar per day. Under the watchful eyes of white supervisors, the Chinese put in a grueling twelve-hour day. Their hard work impressed Strobridge, who then requested an additional 50 workers, to be followed by requests for even more. Strobridge eventually had to admit that the Chinese laborers possessed considerable skills that would benefit railroad construction. He then went on a wide recruitment drive, utilizing labor agencies run by both whites and Chinese. These agents not only recruited Chinese already in the United States but also went to China in search of labor. It is estimated that this recruitment drive resulted in the hiring of more than 12,000 Chinese railroad workers. One of the traits the Chinese exhibited that initially impressed Strobridge and Crocker was that, as opposed to white workers, they were not viewed as “troublemakers.” Although they certainly had their “flaws”—such as gambling, eating unconventional diets, and following religious superstitions—the Chinese were not thought to be a threat as labor agitators. The railroad soon used this fact against employees from other ethnic groups. When it appeared that Irish workers might be ready to stir up trouble, for example, a few words from management about recruiting Chinese to take over their duties served to intimidate the Irish back to work. The CP also found its Chinese workers to be highly trainable and willing to perform a wide variety of duties. Labor agencies out of San Francisco especially recruited Chinese workers out of Kwangtung. Once they arrived in the United States, they were placed into groups or “gangs” of up to 20 people. Shortly after immigrating, the Chinese were subjected to the pay deductions that faced other workers across the country, such as the agency fee, transportation costs, and meals. But the longer the Chinese worked on the roads, the more their pay increased. At first, the CP believed

102

•

Railroads

it could pay the Chinese about twenty-six dollars per month. This wage would eventually rise to thirty-five dollars per month. As it turned out, however, the Chinese were hardly as complacent as the railroad companies originally thought. When the Chinese began working on the railroads in large numbers—especially those who were brought over from China rather than those who were already living in the United States—they started receiving “benefits,” such as a cook to prepare their own cuisine. As the Chinese began to move into more complex tasks, they also started to demand more money. What was once seen as a docile but hardworking labor force eventually began agitating for higher pay. During the late 1860s, Chinese workers on the CP demanded as much as forty dollars per month. But the Chinese attempts at labor organization would eventually fall apart.

Irish Railroad Workers Unskilled immigrants from Ireland provided a great deal of early labor for the transcontinental railroads, particularly for the Union Pacific and other lines running from east to west. Although the railroads and other employers did not mind recruiting the Irish in large numbers, the country had trouble accepting these immigrants. Many Americans viewed the Irish as ignorant, drunken savages. Furthermore, Irish Catholics were widely considered anti-American. Competition for railroad jobs only exacerbated existing prejudices and caused numerous clashes between the Irish and the Chinese. Quite often, Irish laborers would refuse to work with the Chinese. The Irish also resented that railroad companies were willing to employ Chinese in large numbers for lower pay, especially in jobs that Irish workers might normally perform. When the two groups worked in close proximity to each other, physical confrontations were common. On occasion, one group might set off explosive charges—something quite common to railroad construction—without giving prior warning to the other.

African Americans and the Railroads Although African Americans provided an important source of labor for the railroads, the racism that prevailed during this period in his-

Lives of the Workforce

•

103

A Pullman porter makes up an upper berth aboard a Chicago-bound train. (Library of Congress)

tory meant that advancement was difficult, if not impossible, for black workers. Part of the problem lay in the overall divisions within the labor movement. Blacks were often used as strikebreakers, if not as a means to convince other groups to refrain from striking, which contributed to the animosity that other ethnic groups felt toward African Americans. In the South, particularly, black workers constructing railroads endured treatment not unlike slavery, including being watched by armed guards. Blacks also tended to occupy lower positions on most railroads, serving as shop men or brakemen rather than conductors or engineers. In fact, becoming an engineer was out of the question for African American railroad workers. Still, whenever the supply of white workers was low, railroad companies had no problem hiring blacks, although at a lower pay rate. Despite such limitations, however, the railroad industry did offer African Americans opportunities during the nineteenth century.

104

•

Railroads

Blacks began to make a name for themselves as porters, waiters, and domestic servants onboard trains. These duties were not unknown to black workers, who had performed similar tasks as slaves and onboard steamboats. Shifting this background to railroad work appeared to many as natural. The Pullman Company, which manufactured luxurious railway cars, hired blacks to perform numerous “customer service” jobs, from carrying baggage to serving dinner. The image of African Americans as simple-minded porters was perpetuated long into the twentieth century in Hollywood movies. In 1925, the African American leader A. Philip Randolph helped create the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which gave black railroad workers a chance to organize when white unions, such as the American Federation of Labor, excluded them.

Railroad Workers and the Law: The Great Strikes and Their Implications From the 1870s through the end of the century, the lives of railroad workers were strongly affected by the national economy. Railroad workers faced the constant threat of layoffs, wage reductions, and violent confrontations with both their employers and the government. The workers also battled among themselves as each group of railroad laborers struggled to maintain employment. During the 1870s, the nation faced a severe economic depression, and the railroad companies struggled to cut costs. One of the first places they looked was the workforce. The western railroads, though still facing expansion, had an advantage over those in the East due to a lack of serious competition. There were very few roads in the West as compared to the East, and those in the East did not have enough business to sustain them all. The two main strikes during this decade were those of 1873 and 1877. In each case, the railroad companies instituted wage reductions and layoffs, which were followed by frustration and violence on the part of the workers. Many workers believed that their only recourse was to turn to violent actions. In 1873, wages were either decreased or the workers received no pay at all. Railroad companies did not always forewarn their employees of cuts; in fact, workers often learned

Lives of the Workforce

•

105

of wage reductions only one day in advance. Some workers resorted to vandalism, ripping up tracks or sabotaging an engine so that it could not run. Several thousand engineers and firemen went on strike during the last part of December, but the movement eventually fizzled out. When it came to negotiating with employers, railroad workers had extreme difficulties working in tandem. Strikebreakers often came from within their own ranks. If a particular railroad occupation should go on strike, for example, and another group was currently unemployed due to layoffs, those workers who were unemployed would often serve as strikebreakers. Furthermore, because the 1870s was a time of economic turmoil, the railroads had little trouble finding people to work for incredibly low wages, especially among the immigrant groups. People were willing to take whatever jobs they could to survive, even if it meant undercutting their own wages in order to prevent another person from being hired. In 1877, the frustrations of the railroad workers erupted in what is known as the Great Upheaval (also referred to as the Great Uprising). In May 1877, many railroads announced a 10 percent wage cut. What especially set the uprising in motion was the wage cuts instituted by railroad baron Jay Gould on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in July. Workers began shutting down lines in the East, and within a few weeks the nation’s railway system ground to a halt. It is estimated that more than 10,000 strikers were involved, in cities from Martinsburg, West Virginia, to St. Louis and San Francisco. Many of the striking workers engaged in violence, from tearing up tracks to burning railroad property. The railroad companies turned to the government for assistance in suppressing the strikes and received support from local militia and federal troops. By August, the strike was crushed, once again demonstrating the power of the railroad companies over the lives of their workers.

Pullman Town: Turning Workers into Model Citizens Tangible evidence of the railroad companies’ power over their employees could be found in the town of Pullman, Illinois (now part of Chicago), which was built by railroad baron George Mortimer Pull-

106

•

Railroads

man (1831–1897) as a model town for his workers. Pullman made his mark in the railroad industry by building the first sleeper cars, which brought a degree of comfort and even luxury to long-distance railway travel. Perfecting his invention near the end of the Civil War, Pullman received a great deal of publicity when one of his cars was added to the funeral train that transported the body of the recently assassinated Abraham Lincoln back to his home state of Illinois. In 1880, Pullman acquired land just south of Chicago with the idea of building a model town. He believed that such a town would ameliorate the horrible conditions under which so many people lived in large urban settings. In creating his town, Pullman considered all aspects of a worker’s life, especially health and morals. He constructed houses, a church, stores, a theater, parks, and a five-room library. But workers soon found that to live in Pullman’s town meant obeying his strict rules. Both alcohol and unions were prohibited. Plays presented at the theater were carefully chosen. Workers also had to pay high rents and utilities. Some estimates claim that Pullman made a 300 percent profit, if not more, on necessities such as utilities. Prices all the way around were inflated, and workers would have very little left in their pockets after paying all the expenses of living in Pullman. Still, Pullman believed he was providing a greater good by looking out for the health and well-being of his railroad-car workers. It was certainly an experiment in social engineering. But many of the workers thought they had little more than those who lived in slums. The frustrations felt by railroad workers over the past few decades exploded in 1894 during the Pullman strike. As with the strikes during the 1870s, this strike was also the result of an economic depression. Reacting to financial pressures, Pullman moved to cut wages, but he did not reduce the prices of living in his town. A grievance committee consisting of American Railway Union (ARU) members approached Pullman in May, only to be fired the next day. The following month, the ARU launched a boycott of Pullman cars, to which the company responded with a lockout. As with the previous major strike waves, this one spread swiftly, shutting down the entire midwestern rail system within a few weeks. At the urging of the railroad owners, President Grover Cleveland sent in federal troops to restore order and safeguard the mails. Not receiving any further assistance, the strike was crushed. Pullman

Lives of the Workforce

•

107

himself never recovered from the incident and passed away a few years later, in 1897.

Concerns of Railroad Workers Addressed The most prominent issues facing railroad workers in the nineteenth century included workplace safety, job security, ethnic and racial tensions, the right to organize, and government influence or interference or both. For railroad workers, as well as others who were part of the Industrial Revolution, these issues would carry over far into the twentieth century. As the Industrial Revolution drew to a close, a series of provisions was passed to improve the lives of workers. Labor disputes on the railroads served as a major impetus for such legislation. The Erdman Act of 1898 provided for the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Bureau of Labor to mediate disputes. Between 1906 and 1913, sixty-one railroad disputes were solved through mediation. The Adamson Act of 1916 established the eight-hour day and provided for time-and-a-half pay for overtime for railroad workers in interstate commerce. The Transportation Act of 1919 provided for the Railroad Labor Board in order to help settle wage disputes. Finally, the Railway Labor Act of 1934 created the National Railroad Adjustment Board as well as affirmed collective-bargaining rights for railroad workers. The railroads played a vital role in the Industrial Revolution and the settlement of America’s western frontier. It is perhaps too easy to credit these accomplishments to the railroad owners and administrators. Those who constructed the first railroad lines across the continent—facing extreme hardships and danger along the way—also deserve consideration. Without the laborers who did the actual work, the railroad bosses would never have succeeded. At the same time, without the vision of the bosses and the investments made by their companies, thousands of people would have been without a livelihood. From the earliest promises of opportunities in railroads to the present era, much was shared among those who labored on the roads. Even if the different classes of workers were pitted against each other at times, working for the railroads gave many a sense of pride and accomplishment.

108

•

Railroads

Sources Ackerman, Kenneth D. 1988. The Gold Ring. New York: Dodd, Mead. Alvarez, Eugene. 1974. Travel on Southern Antebellum Railroads, 1828–1860. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Ambrose, Stephen E. 2000. Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863–1869. New York: Simon and Schuster. Bain, David H. 1999. Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Viking. Brooks, John Graham. 1913. American Syndicalism: The I.W.W. New York: Macmillan. Brown, Dee. 1977. Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Buder, Stanley. 1967. Pullman: An Experiment in Industrial Order and Community Planning, 1880–1930. New York: Oxford Press. Carwardine, William H. 1973. The Pullman Strike. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr. Chaplin, Ralph. 1972. Wobbly: The Rough-and-Tumble Story of an American Radical. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Conlin, Joseph Robert. 1974. Bread and Roses Too. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Dubofsky, Melvyn. 1969. We Shall Be All. Chicago: Quadrangle Books. Duis, Perry. 1998. Challenging Chicago. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Foner, Philip S. 1974. Organized Labor and the Black Workers, 1619–1973. New York: Praeger. Frantz, Joe B. 1976. Texas. New York: W. W. Norton. Gompers, Samuel. 1925. Seventy Years of Life and Labor. New York: E. P. Dutton. Gordon, Sarah H. 1996. Passage to Union: How the Railroads Transformed American Life, 1829–1929. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. Graham, Don. 2003. Kings of Texas. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Green, James R. 1998. The World of the Worker. New York: Hill and Wang. Gutman, Herbert. 1977. Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America. New York: Vintage Books. Holbrook, Stewart H. 1947. The Story of American Railroads. New York: Bonanza Books. Jones, Jacqueline. 1998. American Work. New York: W. W. Norton. Klein, Maury. 1986. The Life and Legend of Jay Gould. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Laurie, Bruce. 1998. Labor Histories: Class, Politics, and the Working Class Experience. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Leab, Daniel J., ed. 1985. The Labor History Reader. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Lens, Sidney. 1973. The Labor Wars: From the Molly Maguires to the Sitdown. New York: Doubleday. Lightner, David L. 1977. Labor on the Illinois Central Railroad, 1852–1900: The Evolution of an Industrial Environment. New York: Arno Press. McPherson, James M. 1988. Battle Cry of Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press.

Lives of the Workforce

•

109

Norris, Frank. 1994. The Octopus: A Story of California. 1901. Reprint, New York: Penguin Books. Pelling, Henry. 1960. American Labor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rayback, Joseph G. 1966. A History of American Labor. New York: Macmillan. Renshaw, Patrick. 1968. The Wobblies. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Stavis, Barrie, and Harmon, Frank, eds. 1960. The Songs of Joe Hill. New York: Oak Publications. Stover, John F. 1975. History of the Illinois Central Railroad. New York: Macmillan. Veenenrdaal, Augustus J. 2003. American Railroads in the Nineteenth Century. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements Mitchell Newton-Matza

A

lthough the idea of workers banding together to better their lives had been around prior to the nineteenth century, the influence of the railroads on the working class led to significant advances in labor organization. As railroads became more important to the development of U.S. society, so too did the need of the workers to ensure themselves a vital place in the grand scheme. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, laborers and labor organizations would struggle fiercely to determine the course of how railroad workers would share in the benefits of this dynamic industry. From the first antebellum organizations to post–Civil War groups such as the Knights of Labor (KOL) under Terence Powderly and Eugene V. Debs and the short-lived American Railway Union (ARU), efforts to use the railroads to regulate the interaction between labor and management—and where they both fit within American society—involved both peaceful tactics and violence. One of the main problems in unifying the labor movement concerned the difference between craft (also known as trade) and industrial unionism. As the word implies, craft unionism involves organizing workers according to a specific skilled occupation. Examples of such crafts include, but are not limited to, carpenters, bricklayers, printers, and shoemakers. Craft unions, especially as embodied in the American Federation of Labor (AFL), did not offer membership to 111

112

•

Railroads

those considered to be unskilled labor. Industrial unionism, on the other hand, opened its doors to all workers regardless of status or skill level. Working for a wage was the only requirement for membership. These distinctions made it difficult for the various labor organizations to reach consensus on tactics and goals.

Early Movements Although unions are often viewed as a modern invention, workers’ organizations have actually been around for centuries. Originally known as guilds, these early unions were a means by which laborers tried to improve their lives. Many of their concerns were identical to those of labor unions today: improving working conditions, establishing wage scales, regulating the training of apprentices, and maintaining the right to bargain with employers. These guilds also provided educational facilities for members by establishing small libraries. They also offered some economic benefits, such as providing money to a family should the primary breadwinner be injured or killed on the job. Although there were peaceful means through which workers strove to improve themselves, there were also periods of labor unrest from the time the new republic was established. Strikes took place in several parts of the country. For instance, New York printers went on strike in 1794, followed two years later by the cabinetmakers. The issues in these early labor disputes focused on shorter hours, better wages, apprenticeships to be controlled by the unions, and the closed shop. Another forum through which workers sought to protect their interests was in the formation of political parties. The first real labor party was formed in Philadelphia in 1828 and experienced some success by placing representatives in the city council. This success inspired other labor-oriented political parties in Boston and New York. But the major problem was that, especially in the case of New York, the leaders were not necessarily from the labor movement. Instead, they tended to be small businessmen and reformers from wealthy backgrounds. Though this in itself is not necessarily negative, the fact remains that these leaders were not from a working-class background. Their inability to fully understand the plight of workers sometimes resulted in a condescending, paternalistic attitude toward laborers. As

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

113

for the legal status of unions and labor organizations, the 1842 Massachusetts case Commonwealth v. Hunt set the standard. In this case, which centered on a strike for the closed shop, Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled that unions had the legal right to exist, provided their purposes were legal, and that the strike for the closed shop was legal as well. Although “legal activities” for unions would be redefined by the U.S. court system well into the twentieth century, this case was important in that it granted unions some form of legal recognition.

Railroad Expansion and Early Worker Organizations The development of railroads in the United States is well documented. As one historian noted, “American railroads were built more cheaply than comparable British or European roads. . . . But labor was scarce and expensive, and so the lesser quality of most of the railroads had to be accepted, at least in the early years” (Veenendaal 2003). The first true movements toward improving the lives of workers came with the increased immigration from Europe, especially Ireland, which swelled the ranks of the low-paid, unskilled labor force. Reformers began to argue for the rights of laborers beginning in the late 1820s. As epitomized by groups such as New York’s Workingmen’s Party and reformers such as Frances Wright and Elizur Wright Jr., the drive for a ten-hour day and a minimum wage was believed to be the cure for society’s ills. Other antebellum reforms crossed over into the labor movement. The temperance movement, for instance, played a huge role in promoting a healthier workforce. Many reformers argued that a sober worker was a productive worker. A sober worker would bring home his pay to be spent on the welfare of himself and his family, rather than throwing it away at the local pub. But the life of a railroad worker was dangerous. Accidents and illnesses were commonplace, so quite often many workers turned to “stress relievers” such as alcohol. The organization of railroad workers was difficult prior to the Civil War. Building and running the railroads was backbreaking work, and the physical demands of railroad jobs led to high turnover rates. This is not to say that there were no attempts at or-

114

•

Railroads

ganization, but it was not until the post–Civil War years that the more successful groups came into being. “When the 1873 depression started, most railroad workers were without unions of any kind,” confirmed one historian, although the Machinists’ and Blacksmiths’ International Union did have a small membership of laborers who worked in railroad repair shops (Gutman 1977). Likewise, collective bargaining in railroads was virtually nonexistent prior to the Civil War. There were attempts by the railroad workers to form associations in order to protect their interests, but none of these had much impact, and they certainly never lasted very long. Conductors on the Illinois Central created the Conductors Union in 1868, and “it was the first well authenticated example of organization among conductors on any American railroad, but it is doubtful that company officers were aware of, much less influenced by, this early labor union” (Lightner 1977). By and large, collective action of railroad workers would not reach any true significance until the following decade. The early railroad union that would have a lasting impact—for better or worse—was the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE), created in 1863. Though labor strikes were hardly uncommon, it was an 1854 strike against the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad that inspired many engineers to move toward organization. In comparison to what many believed of post–Civil War unions, the BLE was not interested in overturning the system; rather, the union worked toward a peaceful relationship with the industry. This stance led to accusations that it was too centralized, with a “top-down” sort of administration, and not concerned with “lesser” groups of railroad workers. The leader of the BLE was the Grand Chief Engineer Charles Wilson, who was known as a conservative trade unionist. Under Wilson, the BLE placed great emphasis on employer-employee relations, with any unauthorized strikes (something Wilson himself opposed) resulting in expulsion. Wilson’s interaction with employers was apparent through his work with the American Railway Association, a railroad employers’ group. Regardless of its close ties with management, the BLE certainly helped to lay some groundwork. However, the more vital labor organizations would not come about for several more years.

115

A poster for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, which combines a depiction of a steam engine with figures from classical mythology. (Corbis)

116

•

Railroads

Worker Concerns after the Civil War The labor movement, especially in railroads, really took flight after the Civil War. As industrialism in the United States grew at an enormous rate, so did the conflicts between the owners of industry and the laborers. The railroad industry was an arena in which the animosity between management and labor grew acrimonious to a level never before seen. Each side certainly had their valid points. Employers were not necessarily all villains, and protesting laborers were not necessarily all martyrs. Nor were the battles between the two based upon misunderstanding or raw ignorance. To be certain, the working classes were doing their best to survive in an economic climate that did not provide the same opportunities to all. Many employers not only invested their own money in a company but quite often worked every bit as hard as anyone else. The workers helped produce the profits, if there were any, and the employers offered them a chance to earn a living. However, these general statements do not take into account what each side endured. Company owners had to deal with a fiercely competitive marketplace and needed to minimize their expenses while expanding their profits. In the meantime, the workers had to live on wages that were at or barely above the poverty line, which meant that they had no money to spend on anything other than their basic subsistence. The one reform that united workers across all industries was the eight-hour day. The movement grew out of an earlier drive to reduce the workday from twelve to ten hours. People such as Massachusetts labor leader Ira Stewart argued that an eight-hour workday would benefit both workers and employers. Three eight-hour shifts would mean that factories would be able to run on a nonstop basis. Furthermore, increases in production would potentially bring increased sales. Although this may seem to imply that the marketplace would be swamped with goods, resulting in layoffs, Stewart further argued that if workers put in only an eight-hour shift, and still received a decent wage, the economy would actually benefit because the working classes would then have time on their hands as well as money in their pockets. In contrast, he claimed that forcing people to work inordinately long shifts, with little pay, ensured that they would spend their money on trying to survive, rather than enjoying some luxuries in life. A twelve-hour day was the norm for railroad workers, making

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

117

Railroad crews such as this one, tending a locomotive at a crossing of the Green River in the Cascades, 1885, received meager salaries for their labors. (Bettmann/Corbis)

the eight-hour movement all the more appealing. From a health standpoint, the eight-hour day made perfect sense for railroad workers, especially for engineers. The more tired an engineer became, the more likely he would be to make a mistake and have an accident. Thanks to the work of Stewart, the eight-hour movement gained true momentum in 1866. During the following year, many states, including Illinois, New York, and Missouri, provided for an eight-hour day. However, gaping loopholes in the state legislation allowed for employers and employees to contract for a longer day. This of course led to abuses, as people would be denied employment if they did not agree to the longer day. In 1868, the U.S. Congress enacted an eighthour day for laborers and mechanics working for the federal government. During 1867 and 1868, there were brief strikes on the railroads in an attempt to win the eight-hour day. For instance, workers on the

118

•

Railroads

Illinois Central—many of whom were already seeking to organize— staged several small strikes, but they either were ineffective or simply did not last long. In May 1867, railroad workers in several Illinois cities, such as Chicago and Centralia, joined with other workers in an attempt to win the eight-hour day. However, the Illinois Central had no problems continuing to operate, and the strike eventually folded. Another vexing problem in uniting the railroad workers was that of race, especially in the years following the end of the Civil War. As historians such as Philip Foner and Herbert Gutman have pointed out, not only did the workers hold deep-rooted prejudices but employers more often than not used these negative feelings to further divide the workers. One method to separate the workers came during strikes. Should the white workforce go on strike, employers would often turn to black (and immigrant) workers to serve as strikebreakers, or “scabs.” Many times, the black workers were not told that they were being used as scabs, and these replacement workers would then often have to face violent opposition from the strikers upon showing up to work. Other times, the blacks knew that they were strikebreakers and did not care. Many of them believed that if the white workers did not want the job, they would gladly take it. But regardless of how the strike was resolved—through a win on the part of the workers or the strike falling apart—the blacks would usually find themselves out of a job when regular work resumed. As with workers in any other industry, railroad laborers certainly had their share of complaints. Job security was a major grievance. Even in periods of economic stability or growth, a vindictive foreman could dismiss a worker merely because of personal reasons, such as if there was a personality conflict. Workers would often be discharged without warning—especially older workers or those who fell ill or were injured. Workers saw their wages docked for any amount of time not worked. This led to a related complaint about downtime. Should a locomotive need repair, for example, and an engineer become idle for this reason, they were not paid. The wage issue was a consistent concern for railroad workers. Not only were wages low (a very common working-class complaint), but many workers were also forced to buy food and other necessities at greatly inflated prices from the infamous “company store”—literally, a store created and run by the employer. In some instances, any employee who did not patronize this store, and dared to purchase goods from a noncompany store, would be fired. In addition, should any

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

119

part of a train become damaged—regardless of the cause—quite often the engineers were forced to bear the financial brunt of the repair. Furthermore, many railroad workers would often go for extended periods of time without receiving pay, especially if the railroad company was having financial difficulties. The battle to organize railroad workers was most certainly uphill. Several factors played into these difficulties, including the opposition by most employers to organization, the use of the legal system to stifle organization, and, most important, the struggles of railroad lines to weather economic downturns. In 1873, the United States entered the worst depression the country had ever faced up to that time. As the depression took hold on the nation, so did the need for companies to cut their expenses. Virtually every railroad across the nation cut wages. In many cases, the wage cuts took effect immediately, with as little as one day’s notice.

The Granger Movement Prior to the violent labor strife of the nineteenth century, there was a movement within the agricultural society to curb the power of monopolies, especially the railroads. Although its original intent was to protect and promote the lives of farmers, the Granger movement also worked to curtail the abuses of the railroads. The rapid expansion of railroads after the Civil War gave the companies incredible amounts of economic and legal authority, which led to resentment from other segments of society. Farmers reacted to this situation by organizing to protect their own interests. The Granger movement, officially known as the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, was established in 1867 in Washington, D.C. Railroad rates were a constant concern for farmers during this time, especially as addressed at the 1873 Farmers’ Convention held in Springfield, Illinois. Rural growers depended on the railroads to transport their livestock and produce to larger markets. But they often confronted inconsistent and seemingly unfair pricing arrangements. For instance, a freight haul traveling a short distance quite often had to pay a higher rate than one moving over a longer stretch. Also, if a large company sent a higher volume of freight than a smaller company, the large company would more often than not be charged a more favorable rate. Furthermore, many railroad compa-

120

•

Railroads

nies had agreements with one another to regulate the flow of traffic and the rates for various routes. Railroad companies argued that there was nothing wrong with these agreements; rural areas with little or no competition should be charged higher rates. But to the farmer, who was often barely breaking even himself (if not in debt), these rates were unfair, favoring the larger producers while forcing the smaller ones to carry the financial load. The Granger movement, Frank Norris, author of The Octopus. whereby farmers formed (Bettmann/Corbis) cooperatives for both buying and selling purposes, arose in response to these railroad practices. What many people did not realize was that the Grangers were often backed by eastern businessmen who also wished to decrease railroad charges. Frank Norris’s classic 1901 muckraking novel The Octopus relates the strained, and often volatile, relationship between the farmers and the railroads. Farmers settled on railroad-owned land with the understanding that they would be allowed to purchase this land at a later time and at a very low price. The farmers then prospered, as did the railroads, but the two sides also entered into a quiet struggle to obtain the upper hand. The farmers wanted fair shipping rates, no matter what time of year. But the railroads thought they had the right to charge more during the harvest season to make up for the fact that many farmers did not provide much business during other parts of the year. The situation came to a head when the railroads finally agreed to sell the land but at prices far higher than they originally hinted. The farmers felt betrayed, as many of them could not afford

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

121

the price and because they had not only settled but also cultivated the land, increasing its value. It was exactly these sentiments that drove the Granger movement forward. But the Grangers also had other purposes in mind. One of the issues addressed at the Springfield convention involved establishing “reasonable” maximum railroad rates by law. In order to achieve this goal, the Grangers needed to place their own candidates in state legislatures—something they were already doing with some success in midwestern states. Illinois passed the first “Granger law” in 1871. This law created a railroad and warehouse commission that would establish the much-sought-after maximum rates. Other states soon followed suit, including Wisconsin and Iowa. In each of these instances, the established rates applied only to intrastate commerce—or commerce that took place wholly within those particular states. Interstate commerce—or business that took place between two or more states—fell under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Questions about the legal authority for state legislatures to regulate intrastate commerce culminated in the 1873 U.S. Supreme Court case Munn v. Illinois. Although this case involved the legislation of several states, it particularly addressed the Illinois law. The main issue was whether states could set maximum rates that grain elevators could charge, especially since so many grain elevators were owned by the railroads. The Supreme Court upheld the law, arguing that there was a public interest at stake, which made the businesses subject to state regulation. This ruling, however, would be watered down in such later cases as Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific R.R. Co. v. Illinois and Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul R.R. Co. v. Minnesota. The 1886 Wabash case invalidated an Illinois law regulating transportation contracts. The 1890 Chicago ruling stated that Minnesota’s regulatory rate-setting commission, whose actions could not be appealed to the courts, deprived the use of property without due process of law. Regardless of these rulings, however, the Granger movement marked the first important challenge to the power wielded by the railroad companies.

Railroad Strife and the Rise of Unionism During the second half of the nineteenth century, all of the various railroad occupations divided themselves into separate brotherhoods,

122

•

Railroads

which were really not labor organizations in the true sense of the word. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers came about in 1863. Five years later came the Locomotive Conductors’ Brotherhood, but it was not a terribly effective organization, with a mere twenty-one locals after five years of existence. Another group of railroad workers to organize were the firemen in 1873. But the most important development during the this period was the rise of large national unions. The three most dominant organizations during the post–Civil War decades were the Knights of Labor, the American Federation of Labor, and the American Railway Union. In the early twentieth century came the formation of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Though these groups held differing views as to how labor organization should proceed, who should be included, and what the eventual goals would be, each contributed in a very important way to how railroad workers would fit within the system. But quite often the impetus for creating these organizations grew out of violent struggle.

The Strikes of 1873 and 1877 Violent protest was one means by which the railroad workers sought to improve their lot. Unfortunately for the labor movement—especially the railroad workers—these violent upheavals merely succeeded in convincing government officials and average citizens that the workers were non-law-abiding, anti-American radicals. Even when the workers laid their grievances before the American public in a way that they hoped would benefit all, mainstream America did not take well to perceived radical activities. Strikes were one method the workers used not only to protest working conditions but also to present a list of demands for changes. Therefore, strikes certainly fall within the definition of “reform movement,” even if a certain strike had no firm direction or met with no success. One of the railroad magnates who was noteworthy for his poor relations with workers was Jay Gould. Following brief forays into surveying and tannery operation, Gould became involved with the railroads during the 1860s. He initially bought mortgage bonds of the Rutland and Washington Railroad, making himself its president and manager. It was during this time that Gould would meet, and enter into partnership with, “Jubilee” Jim Fisk and Daniel Drew. In

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

123

1867, Gould and Fisk joined the directorate of the famed Erie Railroad. The two men financially plundered the company, especially through phony stocks, and Gould later bribed the New York legislature to legitimate their actions. Gould eventually became involved with a number of other railroads, such as the Baltimore and Ohio, Union Pacific, Missouri Pacific, Wabash, Texas Pacific, and St. Louis and Northern. By 1880, Gould held control of approximately 10,000 miles of track. To the railroad workers, Gould was a tyrant. His poor reputation developed in 1873, when the country entered a period of depression brought about by the collapse of the gold market. Gould and Fisk played a role in this national financial disaster by attempting to corner the gold market. With the economic crash came the usual consequences: a collapse in the marketplace, reduced wages, and large numbers of layoffs. One of the hardest-hit industries was the railroads. When the economic downturn began, wages in the railroad industry were reduced or simply not paid at all. In many cases, the wage reductions were announced within a day of implementation. Some workers approached their employers about reducing the number of work hours rather than wages, but with no success. In other cases, such as in Pennsylvania, workers did agree to a pay cut, only to see the railroad owners back out on the deal. Eventually, the disenchanted railroad workers turned to other means to express their feelings to management. In some cases, railroad cars were tampered with to prevent their movement, whereas in other cases tracks were ripped up. Some of these actions had the desired effect of stopping railway traffic, which did not go unnoticed by the U.S. government. During a ten-month period, various strikes broke out against the railroads, mostly in the East, with some activity in the Midwest. Although most railroad workers were not organized at this time, their concerted actions helped set the stage for struggles to come. Railroad engineers and firemen were especially noted for their attempts at united action, even if the end results were unsatisfactory. On December 26, 1873, for instance, approximately 3,000 engineers and firemen in half a dozen urban settings walked out. The strike was relatively ineffective, however, and died out within a few weeks. The strike of 1873–1874 might not have had the impact of the Great Uprising of 1877, but it was nonetheless important in demonstrating the anger and the determination of the railroad workers to

124

•

Railroads

influence their own lives. As one historian noted, “Most of the 1873–1874 strikes revealed the power of the railroad workers to disrupt traffic on many roads” (Gutman 1977). Another noticeable aspect of these strikes is the support they received from the general population. Though not all of mainstream society was happy with the turn of events, many sympathized with the plight of the railroad workers, especially when it came to the wage issues. But in this time of economic downturn, the employers had the upper hand. With the abundance of unemployed workers, particularly immigrants, finding replacement workers was not difficult. Employers also used the power of the law to their advantage, adopting techniques that would become standard procedure. They used state militia to suppress strikes, for example, and also fired strike leaders, placing these individuals on the now-infamous black list. On many lines, those who wished to return to their railroad jobs were forced to quit any union to which they belonged or to agree never to join one (a practice known as a yellow-dog contract).

The Great Uprising: The Strike of 1877 During a two-week period in July 1877, the United States experienced a labor uprising the likes of which it had never seen before. The strike paralyzed the country’s railway system and in many instances broke out into violence. There have been many theories about this wave of strikes, which centered around the railroads. But one idea stands out: the laboring classes were demanding their rightful place within the U.S. economic and political systems. The violence involved in the strikes led the workers to be branded as lawless thugs by many at that time, whereas later interpretations painted the strikers as frustrated and justified (without necessarily justifying the violence). Regardless, the strike of 1877 had lasting effects on the movement toward reform in the railroad labor movement. In addition to the strikes of 1873, a series of violent incidents beginning in 1862 involving a group of miners known as the Molly Maguires is believed to have set the stage for 1877. An offshoot of the Irish group the Ancient Order of Hibernians (a group fighting landlord encroachments), these miners advocated labor violence. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, working with the Pinkerton detectives, struck back at the Molly Maguires in 1875. Twenty-four

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

125

Artist’s rendering of the 1877 “Great Uprising.” (Library of Congress)

members of the group were arrested, ten of whom were later hanged, and the movement was officially ended. But the tensions left behind after the Molly Maguire affair were not swiftly forgotten. Railroad workers were still fed up with low wages, job insecurity, and occupational hazards that were ignored by the employers. Other segments of U.S. society were upset with the railroad system as well. Many people did not care for the noise and pollution caused by locomotives, while others objected to the large land grants and monetary concessions given to the railroad companies. Businessmen and farmers alike believed that railroad rates were not applied fairly, especially during key shipping seasons. When coupled with the continuing economic depression, the time was ripe for rebellion. Starting in May 1877, railroad companies began to announce wage cuts of 10 percent. In July, the B&O, in which Gould held considerable interest, announced its wage reductions. This announcement sparked the strike, which officially began on July 16 when railroad workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and Baltimore, Maryland,

126

•

Railroads

stopped the movement of trains regardless of their positions. Still promoting a peaceful coexistence with employers, the BLE showed no support for the strike but could not restrain the workers’ growing frustrations. The strike quickly spread to places such as Pittsburgh and Reading, Pennsylvania. Local militia called out to operate the trains were actually in sympathy with the strikers, which prompted President Rutherford B. Hayes to order the deployment of federal troops on July 18. Instead of restoring railroad service, however, this action led to the outbreak of violence in Martinsburg, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore. Nine people were killed in Martinsburg and twenty-six more in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh strikers also destroyed railroad property, burning down buildings and ripping up tracks. The strike soon spread to other cities, as railroad workers in St. Louis, San Francisco, and Chicago joined in. At the peak of the strike, it is believed that 100,000 people participated, including thousands of unemployed workers in the cities. Within a matter of weeks, the nation’s railway system was almost completely shut down, with more than half the freight carried by the railroads stopped in transit. The forces of government eventually gained the upper hand, however, and by August the railroad system was again running—even if the protection of state and federal troops was necessary to ensure continued service.

Railroad Reform: Political Movements and New National Unions The strikes of 1873 and 1877 had numerous implications across society. To mainstream America, the labor movement—especially the railroad workers—came to seem like it was made up of violent, lawless thugs who had no respect for decent society. What scared many segments of society was the influence of radicalism in these strikes. Several radical groups, including socialists and anarchists, were involved in the reform movements. This further fueled anti-immigrant fears that had already been in existence since the antebellum years. Whereas in those years people objected to groups such as the Irish, due to their Catholicism, in the post–Civil War years people blamed immigrants from eastern Europe for bringing in “anti-American” and disruptive ideologies.

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

127

Other Americans thought that the railroad workers should have been glad to have jobs in a period of economic downturn. With so many people unemployed, they believed, any job was a good job. Furthermore, many Americans subscribed to the belief that opportunity was open to all and that success came to those who wanted it and were willing to work toward it. Though there was nothing wrong with wanting to improve one’s lot, these people argued, the strikers and radicals were troublemakers who refused to live by good American ideals. But to the workers, these arguments were not valid. Not everyone had the same opportunity to succeed. With many industries, especially the railroads, forming pools and trusts, smaller companies found themselves left out of the financial landscape. The Grangers needed to move goods to market in an economical fashion, but they certainly did not have the resources to construct their own railroads. Also, whereas some state militia members were sympathetic to strikers, for the most part the strikers did not receive any support from state and federal governments. The scarcity of jobs during the depression, coupled with the increased arrival of immigrants, produced an overabundance of workers, which continued to drive down wages. In the wake of the strike of 1877, all of these factors combined to help national labor unions begin to make their mark. One of the first successful national unions was the Knights of Labor. Although this industrial union had been founded in 1869, it was only after 1877 that the group started to make noise.

The Knights of Labor The KOL came about in Philadelphia at a tailors’ union meeting at the urging of Uriah Stephens. Because the KOL drew from fraternal organizations, particularly the Masons, the group stressed secrecy in its early days—which was actually detrimental to the development of the union. In 1879, two years after the great strike, Stephens stepped down and Terence Powderly, an Irish Catholic, took over. Under his leadership, the KOL shed the secret rituals and focused instead on social reform. This focus became especially apparent in the KOL’s efforts to organize not just both skilled and unskilled workers but also those who had been ignored by previous organizations—namely, African Americans, women, Mexican Americans, and immigrants.

128

•

Railroads

Many of these groups did not find immediate acceptance in the union, however. Women were not welcomed at first, having to work their way into the KOL. Many African Americans found themselves placed into separate locals and barred from the skilled occupations. The KOL also excluded the Chinese workers, especially those who worked on the railroads in the West. This decision was based not only on racism but also on the widespread resentment that white Terence Vincent Powderly, Grand Master workers felt toward the Workman of the Knights of Labor. Chinese for taking railroad (Corbis) jobs that they believed belonged to white Americans. But regardless of its shortcomings, the KOL distinguished itself from other labor organizations of the period by promoting the idea that the wage system would eventually give way to the creation of cooperatives. Powderly had some concerns about including railroad workers in the KOL. By and large, the KOL did not advocate strikes, instead encouraging arbitration and the use of boycotts to promote labor’s agenda. In fact, the KOL openly expressed an attitude similar to that of the BLE, that is, that labor and management had identical interests and should work together toward achieving those ends. In December 1884, Powderly worried that workers might re-create the events of 1877 on a larger scale. In February 1885, Gould enacted yet another 10 percent pay cut on his Southwest Railway system. The lines affected were the Missouri Pacific, the Wabash, and the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas. Shop men on the Wabash wasted no time and went on strike the day following the announced cuts. The other lines followed suit shortly, and

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

129

by early March more than 10,000 miles of track were affected. Other railroad workers supported the striking shop men; for example, engineers refused to handle Southwest engines. On March 15, Gould rescinded the wage cut. The successful strike helped swell the ranks of the KOL. The KOL had already organized railroad workers on the Union Pacific, and these workers not only supported the Southwest strike but also contributed funds and a KOL organizer. The KOL took advantage of this situation and organized more than thirty locals. As a result, KOL membership climbed from 110,000 in 1885 to more than 700,000 by 1886. But the railroad companies were not content to let the KOL turn this one strike victory into a precedent. Shop men on the Wabash were targeted for retaliation and soon found themselves out of a job. In a united action, all KOL workers on the Wabash struck again in 1885, this time in the summer. Although KOL leaders still did not favor strikes, they did get involved in negotiations, culminating in a meeting between the KOL Executive Board and Gould. The owner ended up backing down in order to avoid a repeat of 1877. The fired Wabash workers were restored, and the railroad agreed to deal with the KOL on a fair basis. The KOL, and the labor movement overall, was buoyed by these successes. KOL membership continued to increase, even if many new members disagreed with Powderly’s “nostrike” policy. But the positive momentum did not last. Although the KOL tried to unite as many workers as possible, there were still too many divisions in terms of occupation, skill, age, race, and gender, not to mention geographic locale. Urban workers across the country might have had similar grievances, but city rivalries often divided these workers. The year that would prove most destructive to the KOL was 1886. Two important events took place during that year: the Haymarket riot in Chicago and the loss of a strike against a Gould railroad. The Haymarket riot took place on May 4 at Haymarket Square, when a meeting called by anarchists to protest police brutality erupted into violence. When police moved in to break up the peaceful meeting, a still-unknown person threw a bomb into the crowd, killing one policeman instantly. Several others were injured, and the police responded by opening fire on the crowd. The following year, four men who clearly did not throw the bomb were hanged. One of those four was Albert Parsons, a known anar-

130

•

Railroads

chist and a KOL member. Powderly and the Knights worked feverishly to disavow any connection to Parsons, his anarchist associates, or the Haymarket incident itself. But these attempts failed to change the attitudes of the mainstream public, which viewed any organization or individual who sought to alter the system in any way as a danger to society. The other incident took place at almost the same time as Haymarket. In March 1886, the Southwest railroad workers again went on strike for higher wages and the rehiring of a dismissed worker. This time, however, the company was not about to give in and add to the growing power of the labor movement. On May 4—the day of the Haymarket riot—the KOL gave up the strike. KOL membership plummeted afterward, and the organization comprised a mere 100,000 members by 1890. By this time, however, the rise of the AFL and the ARU had begun to eliminate the need for the KOL. Although the AFL was not inclusive like the KOL, it nonetheless took center stage in the labor-organizing arena. As for the ARU, its story was every bit as tragic as that of the KOL.

The American Railway Union The main goal of the KOL was to unite as many workers as possible into one umbrella organization. This proved to be a difficult task to accomplish among railroad workers. One problem was that railroad companies took full advantage of the variety in railroad occupations. In many instances, when one group of workers went on strike, they were simply replaced by workers from a different railroad duty. If firemen went on strike, for instance, engineers who were currently facing slack time would gladly take over the vacated positions. The fact that the railroad owners were usually victorious in any strikes also weakened organizing efforts. The American Railway Union was one union that hoped to overcome these obstacles. At the center of the ARU was the famous reformer Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926). Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, Debs began working for the railroads at the age of fifteen as a locomotive paint scraper, working his way up to fireman two years later. Five years after beginning his railroad career, he joined the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (BLF), of which he would eventually rise to become the national vice president. Of particular concern to Debs were the divi-

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

131

sions within the labor movement, especially among the railroad workers. These divisions were exacerbated during 1887 and 1888, when members of the BLE occupied jobs vacated by KOL workers on strike and the KOL later retaliated. A firm believer in industrial unionism, Debs left the BLF and formed the Supreme Council of the United Order of Railway Employees in 1889. But a lack of support from the other brotherhoods, particularly the BLE, caused the Eugene V. Debs, labor organizer. organization’s demise by (Library of Congress) 1892. Not to be deterred, Debs and others formed the ARU in June of the following year. As an industrial union, the ARU welcomed skilled and unskilled alike, although blacks were denied membership. Within a year, the ARU boasted a membership of 150,000, a mere 25,000 less than the AFL held at that same time. Along with its impressive initial membership numbers, the ARU had an early strike success. In 1893, the ARU won a strike against the Great Northern Railroad, which was under the direction of James Hill. To be successful in such an early outing helped swell its membership to the 150,000 mark. But several factors began working against not only the ARU but also the labor movement in general. The country entered yet another depression in 1893, one that would last approximately four years. With this depression came the loss of many jobs, especially on the railroads. Once again, should railroad employees object to wage cuts and go on strike, all the companies needed to do was to fill the spots with workers from other road occupations. Finding scabs, even among the brotherhoods, was far

132

•

Railroads

from difficult in such dire economic conditions. Employers remained in the driver’s seat, even as they struggled to remain afloat financially.

The Pullman Strike of 1894 The person most responsible for demonstrating the continued power of railroad owners over the ARU and other labor organizations was George Mortimer Pullman (1831–1897), the man behind the Pullman Palace Car Company. Pullman made his fortune by addressing the need for greater comfort in railroad travel, which in the early years was more often than not an uncomfortable experience, especially when traveling long distances. He perfected his first railway sleeping car in 1864, while the Civil War still had a year to go. The cost of such a car was extremely high, especially when compared to an ordinary traveling car. But popular demand grew tremendously after one of Pullman’s cars was used to transport the widow of assassinated U.S. President Abraham Lincoln as his funeral train made its way back to Illinois. Pullman had no competition and managed to create a monopoly in the luxury railroad car business. Pullman also had a significant impact on the labor and reform movements within the railroad industry, especially in the Chicago area. Like many others of the day, Pullman was concerned with the plight of the cities. He saw the squalor in which so many lived, the inability of people to obtain needed services, and the crime these problems created. In an attempt to address this situation, Pullman conducted an elaborate social experiment. In 1880, he obtained a tract of land just south of Chicago where he built what he hoped would be a model town. He constructed houses, stores, a church, a theater, parks, a hotel (named the Florence after his daughter), and a library, as well as provided utility services that many in cities took for granted. Pullman believed that such a town would be conducive to the health and well-being of his workers. In his view, workers would live better than ever before and, with their loyalty, be more productive. But living in the town, called Pullman City, came at a price. Workers were required to pay rent and utilities, shop at Pullman’s stores, and overall abide by his rules. Prices were greatly inflated, especially utilities. One account claims that after paying the Pullman rents, one man received a paycheck of a whopping two cents. It was also re-

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

133

ported that the rent on the church was so high that many denominations were scared away. Pullman also attempted to control other aspects of his workers’ lives. In keeping with the idea that alcohol led to unproductive work habits, saloons were banned from the town. Labor unions were also not allowed to operate within the town. Although many people chafed at the high prices and personal restrictions, Pullman believed that his social experiment would not only succeed but also demonstrate the benefits of a company town. Of course, the workers did not necessarily share this vision. They recognized that the inflated rents and prices did not benefit them but produced profits only for the company. In fact, the high cost of living meant that many people in Pullman City found themselves just as deprived of luxuries as those who lived in slums. Other factors contributed to the rising anger. The depression of 1893 was the worst the nation had ever seen up to that time. Also, Chicago’s workforce swelled with the temporary labor that constructed the Columbian Exposition. It was in this atmosphere that the ARU moved to organize the Pullman workers. In 1893, Pullman laid off approximately 5,500 workers. During the first few months of 1894, a large number of Pullman employees joined the ARU. In April 1894, Pullman began to cut wages by as much as 40 percent. At the same time, however, he maintained the inflated rents and prices charged to the residents of his company town. The time seemed ripe for a strike, although Debs did not think the ARU could take on such a big chore so soon. In May 1894, a grievance committee approached Pullman about the company’s wage reductions. Although the owner promised not to retaliate, the next day three members of the grievance committee, all of whom belonged to the ARU, were fired. Pullman also refused to submit the issue to arbitration. In June, the ARU voted to launch a boycott of Pullman cars, to which Pullman responded with a lockout. The strike spread rapidly, and within two weeks rail service across much of the Midwest ground to a halt. The railroad owners turned to President Grover Cleveland for assistance in breaking the strike. Completely ignoring the protests of Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld, Cleveland sent in federal troops to restore order and safeguard both the mails and interstate commerce. Violence soon broke out with the burning of railroad cars. On July 2, a federal court issued an injunction against the strikers, forbidding interference with the mails or interstate commerce. Debs ig-

134

•

Railroads

nored the injunction and continued the strike, and he was jailed for contempt of court. Debs also failed to gain the support of Samuel Gompers or the AFL. Gompers feared a general strike, so when Debs asked for Gompers’s help in approaching the railroads to rehire the striking workers, Gompers refused. The conflict between the unions resulted in the loss of the strike and the demise of the ARU. But the Pullman strike of 1894 did succeed in demonstrating to members of U.S. society, regardless of their station, that something needed to be done to improve the lot of workers. In the meantime, Pullman was heartbroken by the strike and felt betrayed by his workers. When he died in 1897, he was buried in a Pullman sleeper with steel rails and concrete placed on top to prevent desecration of his body.

Working within the System: The American Federation of Labor The one major labor organization formed during the nineteenth century that would last through the next was the American Federation of Labor. Formed in December 1886 in Columbus, Ohio, the AFL was a craft union—a departure from the KOL and the ARU. The AFL organized workers according to trade, which would lead to many problems later, for many believed that such organizing efforts separated rather than united workers. Led by the dominant personality of Samuel Gompers, the AFL believed in “pure and simple unionism” and in working within the economic system. Gompers also believed that unions should not become involved in creating a labor political party but should actively support labor-friendly candidates instead. The railroad workers were not involved during the early decades of the AFL. One reason was that many railroad brotherhoods, particularly the BLE, openly excluded blacks, while some shunned the idea of collective bargaining. In addition, “the brotherhoods were very exclusive bodies, rarely willing to collaborate with one another” (Pelling 1960). But another problem was that many of the railroad workers were considered to be unskilled laborers, a group that the AFL did not wish to organize. It would not be until the second decade of the twentieth century that the AFL began to organize railroad workers on a noted scale.

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

135

A Return to Radical Organization: The Industrial Workers of the World Marxist-based groups also did all they could to organize the labor movement. The Socialist Labor Party, Socialist Party, and United Workingmen’s Party all had varying degrees of “radical” ideology. But the group that raised the greatest fears in mainstream U.S. society was the Industrial Workers of the World, formed in Chicago in 1905. The IWW openly embraced radicalism while also trying to function as an industrial union—the “One Big Union,” as it referred to itself. Although the IWW was indeed a radical organization, however, the level of radicalism among its members was not uniform. Its founding members—a group that included Debs, Mary “Mother” Jones, and William D. Haywood—certainly had leftist leanings, but not all members subscribed to Marxist-based ideologies with the same fervor. Although it was never a dominant organization, the IWW made enough noise to garner a place in labor history. The presence of Debs in the IWW ensured that the organization would take railroad workers into consideration. In keeping with the ideals of industrial unionism, and in recognition of Debs’s own experience with railroad brotherhoods, the IWW hoped to organize all workers, regardless of skill, and break down what they perceived to be the barriers of craft unionism. The IWW especially wanted to prevent what hampered the success of past railroad strikes—that is, workers from one railroad function serving as scabs for other workers on strike. The IWW would essentially be destroyed after World War I, and there are no precise figures as to how many people were actually members.

Out of the Industrial Revolution and into the Twentieth Century The federal government became involved in the efforts to reform the railroad industry in February 1887, with the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act, which created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The U.S. Supreme Court had affirmed that the regulation of interstate commerce fell under the jurisdiction of the federal gov-

136

•

Railroads

ernment, much to the detriment of the states trying to curb railroad abuses. Then in 1885, the Cullom Committee, headed by Senator Shelby Cullom, held hearings across the country concerning railroad practices. The committee’s findings included a call for stronger federal presence in interstate commerce, to which Congress responded by creating the ICC. The legislation dealt with many issues concerning the railroads. Although it did not fix rates, it required all freight and passenger charges to be “reasonable and just.” Rates also had to be posted and could not be changed without a ten-day public notice. The act also outlawed pools, rebates toward “favored” clients, and charging higher rates for short as opposed to long hauls. The ICC was authorized to oversee railroad management but had no true enforcement powers. Its members usually had some experience in the railroad industry, which meant they sometimes had trouble seeing issues from the public’s point of view. Finally, there were plenty of loopholes in the act, and many of the outlawed practices continued. By the end of the century, it appeared as if the ICC was nothing but a figurehead. Once the Industrial Revolution came to an end, the desire to perfect and work within the system did not fade away. The Progressive Era, usually considered to have been at its height during the second decade of the twentieth century, subscribed to many of the ideals fought for so vigorously during the previous century. The railroad workers still had much for which they wished to work, and the battles during the Industrial Revolution provided a solid foundation.

Sources Ackerman, Kenneth D. 1988. The Gold Ring. New York: Dodd, Mead. Ambrose, Stephen E. 2000. Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863–1869. New York: Simon and Schuster. Bain, David H. 1999. Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Viking. Brooks, John Graham. 1913. American Syndicalism: The I.W.W. New York: Macmillan. Brown, Dee. 1977. Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Buder, Stanley. 1967. Pullman: An Experiment in Industrial Order and Community Planning, 1880–1930. New York: Oxford Press. Carwardine, William H. 1973. The Pullman Strike. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr.

Labor Organizations and Reform Movements

•

137

Chaplin, Ralph. 1972. Wobbly: The Rough-and-Tumble Story of an American Radical. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Conlin, Joseph Robert. 1974. Bread and Roses Too. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Dubofsky, Melvyn. 1969. We Shall Be All. Chicago: Quadrangle Books. Duis, Perry. 1998. Challenging Chicago. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Foner, Philip S. 1974. Organized Labor and the Black Workers, 1619–1973. New York: Praeger. Frantz, Joe B. 1976. Texas. New York: W. W. Norton. Gompers, Samuel. 1925. Seventy Years of Life and Labor. New York: E. P. Dutton. Gordon, Sarah H. 1996. Passage to Union: How the Railroads Transformed American Life, 1829–1929. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. Graham, Don. 2003. Kings of Texas. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Green, James R. 1998. The World of the Worker. New York: Hill and Wang. Gutman, Herbert. 1977. Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America. New York: Vintage Books. Jones, Jacqueline. 1998. American Work. New York: W. W. Norton. Klein, Maury. 1986. The Life and Legend of Jay Gould. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Laurie, Bruce. 1998. Labor Histories: Class, Politics, and the Working Class Experience. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Leab, Daniel J., ed. 1985. The Labor History Reader. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Lens, Sidney. 1973. The Labor Wars: From the Molly Maguires to the Sitdown. New York: Doubleday. Lightner, David L. 1977. Labor on the Illinois Central Railroad, 1852–1900: The Evolution of an Industrial Environment. New York: Arno Press. McPherson, James M. 1988. Battle Cry of Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press. Norris, Frank. 1994. The Octopus: A Story of California. 1901. Reprint, New York: Penguin Books. Pelling, Henry. 1960. American Labor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rayback, Joseph G. 1966. A History of American Labor. New York: Macmillan. Renshaw, Patrick. 1968. The Wobblies. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Stavis, Barrie, and Harmon, Frank, eds. 1960. The Songs of Joe Hill. New York: Oak Publications. Stover, John F. 1975. History of the Illinois Central Railroad. New York: Macmillan. Veenendaal, Augustus J. 2003. American Railroads in the Nineteenth Century. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Environmental Impact A. M. Mannion

D

uring the American Industrial Revolution, U.S. rail networks altered natural environments and ecosystems in a multitude of ways, both directly and indirectly. Direct impacts included the consumption of large swaths of timber for the construction of railcars and tracks and large volumes of coal to fuel their enormous steam engines. Indeed, the railroad industry’s dependence on these resources made it a major client to the timber companies and mining operations that carved up large tracts of previously untouched wilderness in the second half of the nineteenth century. But the railroads’ indirect impact on the land—as the chief instrument by which Americans settled and altered the landscapes of the Great Lakes region, the Great Plains, and the West—was in many ways more far reaching and substantive.

Land Alteration in the Days before Railroads Prior to the advent of the railroads, the landscape and ecosystems of the United States had been subjected to alteration for thousands of years at the hands of indigenous peoples who tilled land, hunted animals, caught salmon and other fish, and made use of the continent’s flora and fauna in a host of other ways. The Native American tribes typically exercised a relatively light touch on the land, however, and they were careful not to exhaust the natural resources around them or dramatically alter the ecological systems in which they existed. 139

140

•

Railroads

Beginning in the seventeenth century, European colonists eager to harvest the New World’s natural bounty arrived. They established communities along the Atlantic seaboard that were heavily dependent on natural resources, notably wood and wood products, and crops such as cotton, corn, and tobacco. Transformation of the land accelerated in the eighteenth century, as the eastern interior was settled and the United States came into being. By 1825, the broadleaf and needle-leaf forests of the East, which originally extended along the entire length of the country and west just beyond the mountains of the Adirondacks and the Appalachians, had been substantially altered. Their biomass provided settlers with fuel (both wood and charcoal), fencing, furniture, and building material as well as an industrial base for lumber and paper.

Dawn of the Railway Age When prototype railways were first constructed in Germany in the 1550s and in England in the 1600s, it would have been impossible to predict the immense environmental and economic impact that their more sophisticated successors would have on the landscape of the United States two centuries later. As iron-coated narrow planks of wood, these prototypes facilitated the swift removal of coal and other minerals from source to road or boat by wagons. These “trackways” developed into the railways of the early 1800s. By the 1820s, railways were spreading rapidly throughout Europe and the eastern United States, where they had a profound impact on many spheres of life. In Europe, they supplanted roads, rivers, the sea, and canals as primary means of transport. This phenomenon also occurred in the United States, but in North America the advent of the railways coincided with the opening up of the western portions of the continent to settlement and exploitation. In contrast to Europe, where the railroads were superimposed on already established agricultural systems and settlement patterns, the railroads of the United States played a pivotal role in shaping townscapes and cityscapes. The railroad age also coincided with manufacturing industrialization, technological advances in agriculture such as mechanization, as well as substantial immigration to the land of opportunity. Interplay among all these factors helped to mold the ecological landscape of the country in a multitude of important ways.

Environmental Impact

•

141

In addition to being an essential instrument in the settlement of the West, the railroads also linked the northern and southern regions of the country. Economic impacts included increased and more varied agricultural output; as new lands came under cultivation, crop productivity increased substantially and meat production became a major activity. Timber, mining, and other extractive industries also gained pace, as the new railroad systems provided efficient movement of raw materials and manufactured goods to both the established commercial centers of the East and the freshly minted towns and cities sprouting along the tracks of the westward-moving nation. When the first transcontinental railroad linking the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts was completed in 1869, settlement of the West received yet another major boost. This signal achievement, which was quickly followed by the completion of several other transcontinental lines, prompted the creation of a new wave of fast-growing towns and cities armed with a prodigious appetite for the forests, prairies, wildlife, and other natural resources that surrounded them.

Railroads Dictate Settlement Patterns By the 1850s, when the railroad industry received huge land grants from the federal government to facilitate rail expansion into the largely unsettled West, the railroads enjoyed significant economic power and political influence. They parlayed these advantages masterfully, emerging as the driving force behind the settlement of the West. Once they became established, the American railroad companies of the Industrial Revolution were tireless promoters of the frontier. With each new mile of track laid into previous unsettled areas of the country, the Iron Horse altered the surrounding landscape, for the rail lines inevitably brought settlements trailing behind them like sparks from the locomotive wheels. “The railroad changed the pace and nature of pioneering. Settlers were recruited by railroad companies that wanted their government land grants filled with people and their boxcars filled with grain” (Wishart 1987). Americans in the East and immigrants from Europe were quick to heed the call of the railroads. In the decade between 1877 and 1887, an estimated 4.5 million people came west. They came by a variety of means—some via the Oregon Trail, the Santa Fe Trail, and other

142

•

Railroads

overland routes, and some aboard the dwindling number of steamboats that still plied inland waterways. Most, however, reached their new homes via the rail carriers that were extending lines into even the most remote hinterlands. And however they reached their destination—and nearly half of those 4.5 million pioneers settled on the western plains—once they arrived, they all depended on the Iron Horse as their social and economic lifeline to the outside world. As migrants established themselves on the Great Plains, the shape and structure of the settlements themselves were created with an eye toward appeasing and accommodating the railroads, the sole economical means by which they could transport their crops to population centers. Indeed, the farmers, ranchers, and other businesspeople of the interior recognized the power that railroads held over their communities. “It became a matter of a railroad’s choice whether a town was to become a metropolis, a tank-town whistle stop—or a ghost town. . . . The town of valley or trading post on the prairie through which a railroad passed knew it had a future, but the place without a railroad was headed for oblivion. Great care had to be taken to attract the favor of the railroad company and to avoid its wrath, to confer land and privileges, and, when pressed, raise money for it” (Wheeler 1973).

Railroads and Vanishing Forests The railroad empires that emerged across the United States in the nineteenth century had an enormous impact on the nation’s consumption and alteration of forest resources. The railroads themselves were major consumers of timber. From the beginning, the industry’s infrastructure—tracks, stations, telegraph poles, railcars, and fencing—all required wood, and as the railroad companies grew, their need for timber grew accordingly. According to one expert, approximately 2 million acres of forest were cut down for tracks and other railroad operating needs between 1870 and 1910 (Williams 2003). Approximately 1 million cords of wood were consumed by the railroads of Ohio alone in 1885 (Dahl and Allord 1997). Moreover, the railway builders were selective in the tree species they targeted. White and chestnut oak and black locust were especially popular, most notably in the Appalachians, until the late 1800s, when creosoting for preservation became common. A further volume of wood was

143

Large swaths of forest were cut to make way for tracks deep into the American wilderness. (Michael Maslan/Historic Photographs/Corbis)

144

•

Railroads

consumed as fuel until the 1880s, when most locomotives switched to coal. As mentioned above, the railroads also altered forest resources and ecosystems by delivering large numbers of settlers to the steadily receding western frontier. By 1850, when settlement began to expand beyond the Appalachians into the interior, approximately 180,000 square miles of forest had already been cleared in the eastern region. By this time, forested land was being cleared, mostly for farmland, at a rate of more than 37,000 square miles annually (Williams 1990). Railroads had their greatest impact on American forests, however, when they assumed the role of virtual conveyor belts delivering timber from remote areas to the doorstep of growing towns and cities. As the century progressed, the railroads unfurled ribbons of steel deep into previously untouched wooded wilderness. The virgin forests of the Appalachians were the first to be thus impacted, followed by the northern Great Lakes region, the South, and the Pacific Northwest. Railroad construction greatly facilitated access to such resources. Initially, rail lines were reluctant to lay down tracks for the sole purpose of extracting timber. But in the 1870s, a series of developments made the building of logging lines a much more lucrative prospect. First, railroad companies blessed with land grants established business alliances with big timber barons such as Frederick Weyerhaeuser, whose myriad logging enterprises extended throughout much of the Chippewa, St. Croix, and upper-Mississippi watersheds. “In his way,” wrote one historian, “Weyerhaeuser was the counterpart of [John D.] Rockefeller in oil or [Andrew] Carnegie in steel” (Williams 1989). Increasing lumber prices in the late 1870s and loggers’ frustration with the obstacles of wintertime harvesting also contributed to the drive to build logging lines. By 1887, eighty-nine logging railroads sliced through the forests of upper Michigan. The existence of these rail lines transformed large swaths of wilderness into erosion-prone stump land that fouled rivers, wiped out various flora and fauna, and, in general, annihilated the regional ecosystem (ibid.). After the forests of the Great Lakes states became depleted in the late nineteenth century, timber companies and their railroad allies (in some cases, a single company held both timber and rail subsidiaries) turned their attention to the forests of the South. “Lumber production in the South skyrocketed in the 40 years after 1880,” noted one historian. “The original forest cover in the southern states declined

Environmental Impact

•

145

John Muir Comments on the Railroads John Muir (1838–1914), the famed environmentalist who helped establish the Sierra Club conservation organization, was actively lobbying for the preservation of wilderness areas and the development of a national conservation ethic at the very time that railroads emerged as a major force in economic expansionism and land development. Muir’s writings suggest that although he found certain aspects of the Iron Horse to be decidedly unpleasant, he did not see it as a dire threat to the natural world he loved. In fact, he praised it as an instrument by which people could experience the country’s natural wonders. Writing about the advent of the railroads to the West, Muir noted: Of course, with this wonderful extension of steel ways through our wilderness there is a loss as well as gain. Nearly all railroads are bordered by belts of desolation. The finest wilderness perishes as if stricken with pestilence. Bird and beast people, if not the dryads, are frightened from the groves. Too often the groves also vanish, leaving nothing but ashes. When I first heard of the Santa Fé trains running to the edge of the Grand Canyon of Arizona, I was troubled with thoughts of the disenchantment likely to follow. But last winter, when I saw those trains crawling along through the pines of the Coconino Forest and close up to the brink of the chasm at Bright Angel, I was glad to discover that in the presence of such stupendous scenery they are nothing. The locomotives and trains are mere beetles and caterpillars, and the noise they make is as little disturbing as the hooting of an owl in the lonely woods. Muir’s remarks presaged the birth of a new outdoor-oriented travel industry of immense wealth-generating capacity. Source Muir, John. 1994. Steep Trails. 1918. Reprint, San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.

by an astonishing 40 percent, falling from roughly 300 million acres to just 178 million by 1919, as industrial logging, aided by the increasing penetration of the railroad, emerged to clearcut the countryside” (Steinberg 2002).

146

•

Railroads

This liquidation of the southern forests was made possible by the turmoil of the Reconstruction era. At that time, southern legislators eager to resuscitate the regional economy arranged to pass huge quantities of state and federal land over to timber barons and other private interests. As a result, 6 million acres of federal land passed into private hands between 1877 and 1888, while the state of Texas alone sold off more than 32 million acres during the same period. “Ownership of vast stretches of the Frederick Weyerhaeuser used alliances southern landscape now with railroads to become the rested with a relatively “Rockefeller of the timber barons.” small number of individu(Bettmann/Corbis) als and companies who eyed it mainly for its speculative, timber, or mineral potential. The natural wealth of the countryside, however, was worth little if it could not be transported to markets elsewhere in the nation. To meet this need, railroads crisscrossed the region in a network so vast and all consuming that it almost defies comprehension” (ibid.). The combined amount of track in thirteen southern states rose from slightly more than 9,000 miles in 1865 to nearly 39,000 miles by 1910, with much of this mileage devoted primarily to bringing timber to market. One railway even dubbed itself “the great lumber route” (Cox et al. 1985). Once the railroads and timber companies left a cutover region, they made little or no effort to clean up the mess. As a result, monstrous piles of slash littered the Appalachians, the upper Midwest, and various parts of the South. This debris often erupted into fires of serious dimensions, either from lightning strikes or stray sparks from passing locomotives.

Environmental Impact

•

147

The emergence of railroads allowed timber companies to dramatically expand their operations. (J.G. Peters/Corbis)

Railroads and the Birth of the Farm Belt As the frontier moved west, the treeless expanse of the Great Plains in the continental interior was irrevocably altered as well. Even before the railroads, waterways and overland routes had carried settlers in search of a livelihood on the land. These semiarid grasslands extended west of the forests of the states adjacent to the Mississippi, from Canada in the north to Texas in the south and into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to the west. The tentacles of the railways were extending into this region by 1860, and even before they traversed the continent they provided a jumping-off point for people looking to settle down beyond the railhead settlements. Over the next fifty years, a massive land transformation took place, and today

148

•

Railroads

much of the landscape bears little resemblance to the one in place a mere century and a half ago. “From any vantage point in the vast, ‘treeless’ region called the Great Plains . . . , the earth-transforming effects of human activity are apparent. Agriculture settlement of this semiarid plain over the past century pervasively altered its flora, fauna, pedologic (soil), and biogeochemical faces and flows” (Riebsame 1990). Prior to 1850, approximately 113.7 million acres of land had been cleared in forested regions and only 500,000 acres in the nonforested United States. By century’s end, however, a further 168 million acres had been cleared in the forested region, and nearly 228 million acres had been converted from their natural state in the nonforested United States. These data reflect the movement of the agricultural frontier westward into the prairies—a movement that was decisively propelled by the rail industry’s acquisition of generous land grants in the West and attendant construction of new rail lines. In 1879, there were approximately 2.66 million farms dotting the United States with an average size of 154 acres, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); a mere twenty-one years later, the nation held 5.74 million farms with an average size of 147 acres. As the vast midsection of North America was settled, farming families made optimal use of the rich soil therein. Native vegetation was replaced with croplands of wheat—which quickly became the nation’s most important commercial crop—corn, oats, rye, and barley. In 1866, the first year of USDA records, wheat was planted on 15.4 million acres, garnering nearly 170 million bushels; by 1900, the amount of land under wheat had increased more than threefold, to more than 49 million acres, and production had increased to approximately 600 million bushels. Data for corn reflect a similar trend: in 1866, some 30 million acres were cultivated and produced 730,000 bushels; by 1900, the acreage had more than tripled to 95 million acres producing 2.67 million bushels. The well-established Cotton Belt also expanded westward, increasing in size from 7.6 million acres in 1866 to 24.9 million acres at the turn of the century; production grew along a parallel track, with U.S. cotton growers reporting a jump from 2.1 million bales of cotton in 1865 to 10.1 million bales in 1900. Gradually, farmers gravitated toward specialization and monocultural planting, which further boosted production. This in turn enabled the markets of the East to invest their money and workforce in factories and other manifestations of the Industrial Revolution. “In

Environmental Impact

•

149

effect, the West’s surplus of soil wealth underwrote industrial development further east” (Steinberg 2002). It is also important to note that the replacement of natural vegetation of any sort—but especially forest, grassland, and wetlands—by cropland has a significant impact on carbon storage within the living component of the global carbon cycle. Similarly, the degradation of rangelands results in a loss of carbon storage. The considerable reduction in aboveground and belowground storage of carbon in vegetation and in associated disturbed soils means that there is an increased flux of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Thus, the conversion of natural ecosystems to cropland and rangeland degradation are significant contributors to the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and constitute a major force in climatic change. The creation of croplands and exploitation of rangelands in the United States, then, is cited as a contributing factor in today’s global climate changes.

Wetlands Conversion In Florida, citrus growing became increasingly economic in the last quarter century of the 1800s, as railways facilitated the rapid transport of fresh produce to markets in the Northeast. The expansion of citrus and soft fruit growing in Florida, and later California, created an environment in which commercial agricultural interests drained large sections of ecologically valuable wetlands in order to expand their production capacity. The draining of wetlands greatly facilitated the spread of the railways and the use of newly invented farm machinery. In some regions, the demand for new farmland was so great that regional ecosystems were fundamentally transformed. In Ohio, for example, the so-called Black Swamp, an elm- and ash-studded wetland of about 3 million acres bordering the southwestern shore of Lake Erie and extending into the northwestern part of the state, was almost entirely wiped out by the end of the nineteenth century. Many additional smaller wetlands were also drained between 1820 and 1900, in part because of the socioeconomic changes wrought by the railroad industry. Although wetland drainage was not a direct response to railroad construction, the railroad brought settlers and settlers wanted land for agriculture.

150

•

Railroads

Other wetlands that suffered a similar fate for similar reasons included those of the pothole wetlands of the midwestern states, the bottomlands of the Mississippi plain in Missouri and Arkansas, the Mississippi delta wetlands of Mississippi and Louisiana, and the coastal wetlands around the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. The West also suffered wetland losses; wetland drainage began in California in the mid-1800s. In the Central Valley, for example, wetlands covered about 30 percent of the total land area prior to settlement. But the railroads brought agricultural interests that inexorably reduced the wetlands area to the point that this ecosystem type is now a negligible factor in the region (Hundley 1992).

Railroad Complicity in Species Loss The loss of wildlife that accompanied the railroad-fueled settlement of the West is impossible to quantify because of the dearth of records detailing the state of flora and fauna species prior to the great westward migration. Nevertheless, several notable extinctions and near extinctions did occur. The most infamous of these cataclysmic events was the eradication of the American bison or buffalo.

Railroads and Bison Extermination The bison once blanketed the midsection of the North American continent, moving across the grasslands of the Great Plains in herds of truly enormous size. Estimates of the buffalo population circa 1800 range from 25 to 60 million animals. But in addition to being a keystone species in the grassland ecosystem, they were also the single most essential natural resource to the indigenous Indian tribes that roamed the Great Plains in the centuries preceding European settlement of the continent. Virtually every piece of the buffalo was put to use by the tribespeople, converted for food, clothing, or tools. Many historians date the beginning of the demise of the vast American buffalo herds to the opening quarter century of the 1800s, when the populations of eastern cities clamored for buffalo robes to help them stay warm during the bitter winter months. The rise of the robe market prompted some Indian tribes to increase their kill rate for trading purposes, a marked divergence from generations past,

Environmental Impact

•

151

Railroads brought large numbers of market hunters to the West, where they slaughtered buffalo by the thousands. (Library of Congress)

when indigenous peoples took a sustainable approach, slaying no more buffalo than they personally needed (Isenberg 2000). Still, it was not until midcentury, when white hunting of bison began in earnest, that the herds declined appreciably. “Nothing the Indians did rivalled in importance the role of the market in the animal’s demise. . . . Beginning in the 1870s, [white market hunters] flooded into the plains to meet the burgeoning demand for leather in industrial America” (Steinberg 2002). By this time, eastern tanners had devised an effective methodology for turning bison skin into leather, which had become an essential component in driving the industrial machinery of the nation’s manufacturing centers. This production process, however, required “green” (untreated) buffalo hides, which weighed as much as fifty pounds apiece. Clearly, horsepower was insufficient to transport the volume of hides necessary to satisfy rising industrial demand (Isenberg 2000; Manning 1995). The railroads filled this void with a vengeance. As rail companies established new routes across the Great Plains and the mountain West in the 1860s and 1870s, they carried market hunters armed with

152

•

Railroads

King of the Buffalo Hunters Although it is a distortion of reality to link the demise of the bison with only one person, the buffalo-hunting activities of William F. Cody, better known as “Buffalo Bill” Cody, are better known than virtually any other aspect of his long and remarkable life. William Frederick Cody was born in Napsinekee Hollow, Scot County, Iowa, near LeClaire, just west of the Mississippi River, on February 26, 1846. His parents were Isaac and Mary Cody, who moved several times in Iowa before settling in Fort Leavensworth, Kansas, in 1853. Cody began school in LeClaire and continued his education in Fort Leavensworth, but he left at the age of twelve, a few years after his father was killed in a riot, to work for a wagon train en route to Fort Laramie. At age thirteen, he joined the Pikes Peak gold rush to Colorado, and at fifteen he became a rider for the Pony Express, a relay of mail by riders that operated between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento. He also operated as a scout for the Seventh Kansas Cavalry toward the end of the Civil War in 1865. After the war ended, Cody entered the most notorious phase of his life—buffalo hunter. In 1866, Cody married Louisa Frederici (1843–1921), and the union produced four children between 1866 and 1872. In 1867, he joined the Kansas Pacific Railroad, which hired him to hunt buffalo to feed the company’s work crews. By his own count, he killed 4,280 buffalo over the next seventeen months. In 1868, Cody was engaged as a scout for the Fifth Cavalry. He spent the next several years in this capacity, participating in numerous clashes with Indian war parties and earning the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1872. In 1869, the dime novelist Ned Buntline, the pseudonym of Edward Z. C. Judson, created a character named “Buffalo Bill”—based loosely on Cody’s life but heavily seasoned with outrageous exaggerations—that proved enormously popular with American audiences. The unveiling of the Buffalo Bill legend made Cody a celebrity, and the U.S. Army capitalized on this, arranging a series of heavily publicized hunting expeditions in which Cody accompanied visiting dignitaries and army leaders. In 1872, Cody’s talent for self-promotion was on full display, as he agreed to star in a

a mandate to feed the leather needs of the Industrial Revolution. As the hunters disembarked, they knew that locomotives would await their return, ready to carry their bounty back to civilization. Eradication of the species followed in short order. In the early 1870s, the

Environmental Impact

•

153

Buntline-penned stage play titled The Scouts of the Plains. Cody also wrote the first of a series of dime novels based on the Buffalo Bill theme around this time. In 1876, the army recalled Cody to provide scouting services for battles with the Cheyenne. He published his autobiography in 1879, and his theatrical career reached a peak in 1883, when he created “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.” This traveling spectacle utilized live buffalo, horses, and elk as well as Native people and cowboys in wildly inaccurate portrayals of the Wild West from which Cody hailed. The troupe’s antics were nonetheless enormously popular, and Cody’s enterprise has been credited as a significant early factor in the mythology that grew up around the American cowboy and the Wild West. “Buffalo Bill . . . is the one true genius the 19th Century West really produced,” commented historian Richard White. “Buffalo Bill is an incredible self-creation. What Buffalo Bill knew about the West is that, in fact, it gave you the opportunity to make yourself over, and then once you had created a role for yourself, to inhabit it. The lines between reality, the lived experience in the West, and the mythic West, that Buffalo Bill portrayed for a living, become very, very blurred” (PBS 2001). Cody spent his later years engaged in a variety of business enterprises. He invested in a host of industries, including mining, hotels, stock breeding, ranching, coal and oil development, filmmaking, publishing, and tourism. Most of these failed, and Cody eventually lost his Wild West Show to creditors. He died on January 10, 1917, and he was buried in a tomb at the summit of Lookout Mountain near Denver. “In a life that was part legend and part fabrication, William F. Cody came to embody the spirit of the West for millions, transmuting his own experience into a national myth of frontier life that still endures today” (ibid.). Sources Kasson, Joy S. 2000. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West: Celebrity, Memory, and Popular History. New York: Hill and Wang. PBS (Public Broadcasting System). 2001. New Perspectives on the West. Available online at http://www.pbs.org.

Santa Fe, Kansas Pacific, and Union Pacific Railroads alone shipped more than 1 million buffalo hides east in just two years. Market hunters commonly bagged 2,000 to 3,000 hides in any one season, and some cut even deeper into the herd. One hunter reported killed

154

•

Railroads

nearly 6,000 bison in just two months in 1876, rendering himself deaf in the process as a result of the repeated report of his rifle (Isenberg 2000). The market hunters were aided in their slaughter by the U.S. Army, which embraced a policy of bison eradication as a way of subjugating the Plains Indians. As Lt. Gen. John M. Schofield, in charge of the Department of Missouri from 1869 to 1870, stated, “I wanted no other occupation in life than to ward off the savage and kill off his food until there should no longer be an Indian frontier in our beautiful country” (PBS 2001). Eventually, 32 million pounds of buffalo bones made their way from the Plains to eastern factories, where they were ground into fertilizer. Buffalo horns were turned into buttons, combs, and knife handles, and buffalo hooves became a basic ingredient in glue making. “Up and down the plains those men ranged,” recalled one Plains Indian woman. “Behind them came the skinners with their wagons. They piled the hides and bones into the wagons until they were full, and then took their loads to the new railroad stations . . . to be shipped east to market. Sometimes there would be a pile of bones as high as a man, stretching a mile along the railroad track” (ibid.). The wholesale slaughter of the buffalo gradually aroused some concern in Washington, D.C., but a bill that would have extended some measure of protection to the animal was vetoed by President Ulysses S. Grant. As a result, further carnage ensued. In the mid-1870s, bands of Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho, and southern Cheyenne Indians mounted a violent last stand to save the dwindling buffalo herds and their own way of life. “The Indians sensed . . . that we were taking away their birthright and that with every boom of a buffalo rifle their tenure on their homeland became weakened and that eventually they would have no homeland and no buffalo,” stated veteran buffalo hunter Frank H. Mayer. “So they did what you and I would do if our existence were jeopardized: They fought” (ibid.). The Indians were defeated, however, and the market hunters continued to follow new rail lines in pursuit of the remaining buffalo herds. In 1876, for example, the Northern Pacific Railway reached Bismarck, North Dakota, and began pushing its tracks west into the buffalo country. That same year, the U.S. Army began the campaign that broke Sioux control of the northern plains. In 1880, the assault on the herd began in earnest. By 1882, there were an estimated 5,000

Environmental Impact

•

155

white hunters and skinners at work on the northern plains, and by the end of 1883 the herd was no more. The plight of the buffalo and the Native Americans who depended upon them for sustenance was further exacerbated by the arrival of domesticated cattle and sheep, which competed for forage, caused overgrazing in some areas, and spread disease. Moreover, the near annihilation of the bison was spurred by the “lauded and applauded ‘ethic’ of the day that the bison represented a barrier to the ‘taming of the West’” (White 1994). “If you were looking for the definitive symbol of the conflict between the cultures that had existed in the American West for at least ten thousand years, and maybe longer, and the culture that was just a building East of the Mississippi River, this culture of technology, of commerce, of grasping after tomorrow before it arrives, you couldn’t come up with two more powerful symbols than the Railroad and the Buffalo,” confirmed western historian T. H. Watkins. “Because when the Railroad met the Buffalo, the Iron Age met the Stone Age, the machine arrived in the garden, and the West was changed forever” (PBS 2001). By 1890, the American buffalo population—once in the tens of millions—had been reduced to less than 1,000 individuals. At that time, belated remorse began to set in, at least among some who had played an active role in the near extinction of the species. “One by one we put up our buffalo rifles . . . left the ranges. And there settled over them a vast quiet,” observed Mayer. “The buffalo was gone. . . . Maybe we served our purpose in helping abolish the buffalo; maybe it was our ruthless harvesting of him which telescoped the control of the Indian by a decade or maybe more. Or maybe I am just rationalizing. Maybe we were just a greedy lot who wanted to get ours, and to hell with posterity, the buffalo, or anyone else, just so we kept our scalps on and our money pouches filled. I think maybe that is the way it was” (ibid.).

Rail Culpability in the Loss of Other Species Like that of the bison, the fate of many other animals lay in the hands of the western pioneers. For example, prairie dogs lost their habitats and were hunted because they too were competitors for the precious cattle. The white-tailed prairie dog is now close to extinction, as it has lost more than 90 percent of its habitat, and the 5 billion or so

156

•

Railroads

black-tailed prairie dog population that existed at the beginning of the twentieth century has been so reduced to the point that it too is close to extinction. And industrial logging, aided and abetted by the railroads, destroyed the habitat of myriad species, leading to the localized disappearance of deer, bear, turkey, trout, and many other mammal and fish species. Moreover, the extinction of the passenger pigeon—once the continent’s most prolific game bird—came about in roughly the same manner as that of the bison. Prior to European settlement, the passenger pigeon population was estimated at between 3 and 5 billion, but by 1900 it had virtually disappeared. The last remaining survivor (named Martha) died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. According to Blockstein and Tordoff (1985) the species was still abundant at the time of the railroad expansionary period in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Habitat destruction, prolific hunting, and the railroad system—especially refrigerated rail transport, which provided a means of rapid dispatch to markets for meat and feathers—have been cited as the primary factors in the species’ demise: The rise of market hunting aided by the spread of the railroad a