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b

B

UK

CO

721

1233

ec

Coal

U

England mines coal at Newcastle for the first time. The town will become so famous for its coal that “carrying coals to Newcastle” will become a common phrase to signify superfluous effort.

b

B

E

MF

1003

1350

ir

Machine

K

A wire-pulling machine invented in Europe is an early step in the development of metallurgical technology.

c

B

G

C

1992

1599

xir

Krupp

E

Essen merchant Arndt Krupp seizes the opportunity of plague in the Ruhr Valley to buy up extensive lands outside the city at giveaway prices. Krupp survives the plague to found a dynasty (see 1811).

b

IR

UK

CO

2177

1615

ec

Coal

U

England turns increasingly to cheap coal as timber grows scarce and firewood becomes costly (see 1658).

c

B

NA

IR

2453

1649

xm

h

Iron

K

Massachusetts entrepreneur John Winthrop, Jr., 43, produces more than 8 tons of iron per week at the Saugus works he has built in back of Lynn with blast furnaces and a refinery forge manned by workers obtained in England.

Saugus Iron Works

b

IR

UK

CO

2845

1709

ir

h

Coal

K

An industrial revolution begins in England with the discovery that coke, made from coal, may be substituted for charcoal, made from wood, in blast furnaces used to make pig iron and cast iron. Growth of iron smelting has been limited by the fact that it takes 200 acres of forest to supply one smelting furnace with a year’s supply of charcoal, but Quaker ironmaster Abraham Darby, 31, finds that coke serves just as well for his furnaces at Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, where he makes iron boilers for the Newcomen engine, invented in 1705. Regular use of coke will not come for 50 years and will await improvements by Darby’s son and namesake, but Darby’s breakthrough brings an immediate surge in the demand for coal and for the Newcomen engine, whose energy will be used increasingly to permit production of coal from flooded colliery galleries.

b

IR

NA

IR

2963

1723

ir

h

Iron

K

An air furnace to smelt iron near Fredericksburg in the Virginia colony uses bituminous coal which is abundant in the region. Alexander Spotswood has resigned as lieutenant governor to establish the furnace (see 1714; coal, 1742).

Spotswood iron furnace

b

B

UK

IR

3229

1754

xir

h

Iron

K

The first iron-rolling mill is opened by English entrepreneurs at Foreham in Hampshire.

b

K

UK

IR

3779

1783

ir

h

Iron

K

English ironmaster Henry Cort, 43, invents a process for puddling iron that revolutionizes wrought-iron production. He will patent the process next year and will also patent the reverberatory furnace that makes his purifying process possible.

b

K

UK

IR

4023

1794

ir

h

Machine

K

The slide-rest that will be an essential part of the modern lathe is invented in England by Joseph Bramah, or his employee Henry Maudslay, 23, or both working together. The slide-rest is a saddle which moves a cutting tool horizontally along the work being turned.

c

B

G

IR

4365

1811

ir

h

Krupp

K

Krupp Gusstahlfabrik (Cast Steel Works) “for the manufacture of English cast steel and all articles made thereof” is founded at Essen by German industrialist Friedrich Krupp, 24, a descendant of Arndt Krupp (see 1599; Huntsman,

http://www.thyssenkrupp.com/uhde/chronik-online/history2-short.htm; http://www.thyssenkrupp.com/eng/konzern/internet.html; http://webbie.sfpl.lib.ca.us:2126/servlet/BCRC/hits?c=1&code=sic&year2=&year1=&comp=ThyssenKrupp+AG&secondary=false&month2=&month1=&docNum=DD241&companyType=all&day2=&day1=&bConts=1007&contents=&tab=tab_hc&origSearch=false&ticker=TYEKF&t=KW&s=1&r=s&o=DocTitle&n=25&l=rh&locID=sfpl_main&CO=thyssen

c

B

G

IR

4497

1816

ir

h

Krupp

K

Friedrich Krupp produces the first Krupp steel at Essen (see 1811). It is not cast steel, which Sheffield has resumed exporting to Europe, but consists of tiny bars of low-grade steel marketed as files for tanner1838

b

K

UK

IR

4518

1817

ir

h

Machine

K

Welsh inventor Richard Roberts, 28, devises a screw-cutting lathe and a machine for planing metal. He will also invent weaving improvements, advanced steam locomotives, railway cars, and steamships.

b

K

UK

HI

5023

1828

ir

h

Iron

K

Scottish inventor James Beaumont Neilson, 26, devises a blast furnace to improve the manufacture of iron.

b

K

US

HI

5201

1831

ir

h

Iron

K

A patent for making malleable cast iron is issued to U.S. inventor Seth Boyden, 43, who invented his process 5 years ago. Boyden invented a process in 1819 for making patent leather and will go on to invent a process for making sheet iron, a hat-shaping machine, and improvements in railroad locomotives and stationary steam engines.

b

F

HI

5428

1836

st

h

Iron

K

Galvanized iron (coated with zinc) is invented in France.

c

B

G

HI

5573

1838

ir

h

Krupp

K

Alfried Krupp, 26, visits Sheffield, England, and meets J. A. Henckel, founder of a steel mill in the Ruhr valley town of Solingen. Krupp is a son of Friedrich whose Fried. Krupp of Essen is turning out tableware on a hand mill devised by Alfried’s brother Hermann (see 1816; 1851).

b

UK

HI

5749

1841

ir

h

Machine

K

English mechanical engineer Joseph Whitworth, 38, proposes a uniform system of screw threads. He has introduced machine tools and methods that permit working tolerances to be reduced from the generally accepted 1/16 of an inch to a mere 1/1000 of an inch, his suggestion will eventually be accepted, and the British Standard Whitworth (BSW) system will be generally adopted.

c

B

G

HI

6599

1851

st

Krupp

K

German steel maker Alfried Krupp exhibits a 4,300-pound steel ingot cast miraculously in one piece; it dwarfs a

b

K

UK

CH

6611

1851

ch

h

Coal

K

Scottish industrial chemist James Young, 40, patents a method for producing paraffin by dry distillation of coal. Young will manufacture naphtha, lubricating oils, paraffin oil, and solid paraffin from Bogshead coal and, later, from Scottish shale (see kerosene, 1855).

c

B

US

C

7052

1856

st

h

USX

E

Andrew Carnegie, 20, makes his first investment at the encouragement of his new employer and buys 10 shares of Adams Express stock at $50 per share. The Scots-American railway telegrapher has taken a position as secretary to the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Pittsburgh division superintendent Thomas A. Scott, and by 1863 his $500 investment will be returning $1,500 per year in dividends (see 1865).

c

ny

B

US

HI

7667

1862

st

h

Iron

K

New York industrialists Abram Stevens Hewitt, 40, and Edward Cooper, 38, of the iron-making firm Cooper, Hewitt fire up the first American open-hearth steel furnace (see Siemens, Martin, 1861).

Cooper, Hewitt

c

B

US

HI

7772

1863

st

Bethlehe

K

Bethlehem Steel has its origin in the Saucon Iron Co. founded at South Bethlehem, Pa., to make rails from local iron ores. The company soon hires John Fritz of Cambria Iron who has pioneered in making Bessemer steel (see 1886).

c

B

US

C

7970

1865

st

h

USX

E

Andrew Carnegie enters the steel business with former blacksmith Andrew Klopman (see 1856; 1867).

c

pa

B

US

C

8197

1867

st

h

USX

E

United Iron Mills is founded by Philadelphia scale manufacturer Henry Phipps, 28, in partnership with Andrew Carnegie (see 1865; Frick, 1873).

b

B

US

HI

8384

1868

st

h

Iron

K

New Jersey Steel and Iron, owned by Cooper Hewitt, builds the first U.S. open hearth steel furnace at Trenton (see 1862).

Cooper, Hewitt

b

US

TL

8382

1868

g

h

Iron

K

The U.S. Government adopts a standard system of screw threads established by Philadelphia machine-tool maker William Sellers, 44 (see Whitworth, 1841).

c

B

US

PC

8620

1870

st

h

USX

U

Henry Clay Frick, 21, begins construction and operation of coke ovens in the Connelsville area while working for his grandfather Abraham Overholt, who dies at age 86 after 60 years of making Old Overholt Whiskey. The Pennsylvania farm hand works with associates and persuades Irish-American Pittsburgh judge-banker Thomas Mellon, 57, to loan the group money for its ventures (see 1873).

b

US

V

8756

1871

st

h

Iron

D

Birmingham, Ala., is founded and incorporated at a site surrounded by iron ore, coal, and limestone deposits that were exploited in the Civil War to produce Confederate cannonballs and rifles. The town takes its name from Birmingham, England.

b

K

US

TL

9006

1873

at

h

Iron

A

Barbed wire exhibited at the De Kalb, Ill., county fair by Henry Rose is studied by local farmer Joseph Farwell Glidden, 60, and his friend Jacob Haish who independently develop machines for producing coil barbed wire by the mile and obtain patents for two separate styles of the “devil’s rope” that is destined to end the open range in the West; 80.5 million pounds of barbed wire will be manufactured in the next 74 years as the steel wire becomes important not only to farmers and ranchers but also to military operations (see 1867; Gates, 1875).

c

US

R

8945

1873

st

USX

E

The U.S. financial panic enables Henry Clay Frick to acquire most of the coal and coke land in the region of Connellsville, Pa., that can be operated at a profit and when Pittsburgh steel mill operators discover that Connellsville coke is the best coke for steel making, the price of coke will rise from $1 per ton to $5 (see 1870). Frick will have gained control of 80 percent of the Connellsville coke output, will be a millionaire by age 30, will be offered a general managership by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, and will organize the Carnegie Co., whose basic unit will be the Homestead Works (see 1892).

b

K

US

TL

9415

1876

ir

h

Machine

K

The stillson wrench is patented by Somerville, Mass., inventor Daniel C. Stillson who has whittled a wooden model of his pipe or screw wrench.

c

US

BK

10251

1881

st

h

USX

N

Andrew Carnegie donates funds for a Pittsburgh library, beginning a series of library gifts (see 1901).

b

B

NA

ME

10440

1883

mt

Copper

K

Copper ore in the Sudbury Basin of northern Ontario is discovered by builders of the Canadian Pacific Railway,1882,1885

c

B

OZ

R

10591

1885

mt

iron

E

Broken Hill Proprietary Co., Ltd., founded in Australia, will grow to monopolize the nation’s iron and steel production. Mount Gipps sheep station manager George McCulloch, his hired hand Charles Rasp, and 12 other partners have staked claims to a tin mine found by Rasp in 1883, the mine has proved to be the world’s largest silver-lead-zinc deposit, it is the basis of the new company, will gross more than £150 million before it closes in 1939, and will pay dividends of nearly £16 million.

http://www.bhpbilliton.com/bb/aboutUs/aboutBHP.asp

c

B

US

ME

10732

1886

st

Bethlehe

K

Bethlehem Steel’s John Fritz switches from commercial work to ordnance at the suggestion of Navy Secretary William C. Whitney, 45, who has made a fortune in New York City transit lines (see 1863; Ryan; U.S. Shipbuilding, 1902).

c

B

US

C

10906

1888

st

h

USX

E

Andrew Carnegie gains majority ownership in the Homestead Steel Works outside Pittsburgh (see 1881; 1892).

c

pa

B

US

F

10902

1888

mt

h

ASARC

E

Philadelphia Smelting and Refining is organized by Meyer Guggenheim, who last year took a venture in copper stock and did so well that he gives up the lace business he started in 1872 and goes into partnership with his four oldest sons (see 1881). Helped by all seven sons, Guggenheim will establish a second smelter in Mexico in 1891 and a third in 1894 (see ASARCO, 1899).

b

K

US

ME

11235

1890

mt

h

iron

K

The discovery of rich iron ore deposits in Minnesota’s Mesabi region by prospector Leonidas Merritt, 46, helps U.S. steelmakers (see Rockefeller, 1893).

c

B

A

F

11333

1891

mt

h

Copper

E

Union Minière du Haut Katanga is organized April 15 to mine African copper under an agreement between Leopold II of the Belgians and Cecil Rhodes aide Robert Williams, 31, who has sent an expedition north to study outcroppings observed by the late David Livingstone. The expedition has reported back that the copper lies across the border in Katanga territory owned by Leopold so Williams has gone to the king and negotiated (see Benguela Railroad, 1903).

Union Minière

c

B

US

11445

1892

st

h

USX

J

Homestead, Pa., steel workers strike the Carnegie-Phipps mill in June and are refused a union contract by managing head Henry Clay Frick who calls in Pinkerton guards to suppress the strike. Men are shot on both sides, Frick himself is shot and stabbed by Polish-American anarchist Alexander Berkman, 22, but recovers, union organizers are dismissed, and the men go back to working their 12-hour shifts November 20 after nearly 5 months of work stoppage. Andrew Carnegie’s income for the year is $4 million, down only $300,000 from 1891 (see 1888; Carnegie Steel, 1899).

c

B

US

R

11661

1893

mt

h

iron

E

Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines is created by oil magnate John D. Rockefeller who has loaned the Merritt brothers $420,000 to develop the Mesabi iron mines of Minnesota and build a railroad to Duluth (see 1890). Rockefeller has called the loan on short notice, the Merritt brothers have been obliged to forfeit their properties, and Rockefeller’s $29.4 million company leases the properties to Henry Clay Frick of the Carnegie-Phipps mill at Homestead, Pa. (see 1892; Carnegie, Oliver, 1896).

c

B

US

C

12015

1896

st

USX

E

Carnegie Steel and Henry W. Oliver of Pittsburgh buy the Mesabi Range holdings of John D. Rockefeller’s Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines (see 1893; 1901).

b

K

US

ME

12153

1897

st

h

Iron

K

The New Lowe Coke Oven invented by Thaddeus S. C. Lowe improves manufacture of high-grade coke for steel making (see 1873).

c

B

US

C

12273

1898

st

h

USX

E

Illinois Steel of Chicago and Lorrain Steel acquire Minnesota Mining with backing from J.P. Morgan & Co., obtaining a fleet of Great Lakes ore ships and railroads in the Mesabi iron range and in the Chicago area (see 1896; U.S. Steel, 1901).

c

B

US

C

12277

1898

at

h

Iron

E

John W. Gates becomes president of American Steel & Wire, which has a virtual monopoly in barbed wire (see 1875).

c

B

US

C

12276

1898

st

h

Iron

E

Republic Steel is created by a merger of Ohio and Pennsylvania firms (see strike, 1937).

Republic Steel

c

B

US

V

12285

1898

tp

h

Iron

T

Timken Roller Bearing Axle Co. is founded by German-American carriage maker Henry Timken, 67, who opened a St. Louis carriage works in 1855, patented a special type of carriage spring in 1877, and has just patented a tapered roller bearing that will make his company the leader in its field.

Timken; http://www.timken.com/aboutus/history/

c

B

US

C

12379

1899

st

USX

E

Carnegie Steel is created by a consolidation of various steel properties controlled by Andrew Carnegie (see Homestead strike, 1892; U.S. Steel, 1901).

c

B

US

C

12389

1899

mt

h

ASARC

E

The Guggenheims refuse to join the ASARCO copper trust, choosing instead to compete with it (see 1888). Meyer Guggenheim forms alliances with mine owners, gives them financial backing in many cases, and founds a company to seek new ore deposits (see 1901).

http://www.asarco.com/Other/stats_ch.html

c

B

US

F

12387

1899

mt

h

Copper

E

U.S. copper producers merge to create the American Smelting and Refining Co. trust as growing use of electricity increases demand for copper wire.

c

B

US

R

12696

1901

mt

Iron

E

John D. Rockefeller’s Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines Co., whose Mesabi range properties have been leased by Andrew Carnegie, is absorbed into United States Steel to prevent Rockefeller from starting a rival company (see 1893).

c

B

US

C

12690

1901

st

h

USX

E

United States Steel Co. is created by J. P. Morgan, who underwrites a successful public offering of stock in the world’s first $1 billion corporation, nets millions for himself in a few weeks of hard work, and pays $492 million to Andrew Carnegie for about $80 million in actual assets in order to eliminate the steel industry’s major price cutter. Carnegie personally receives $225 million in 5 percent gold bonds and is congratulated on being “the richest man in the world” by Morgan who merges Carnegie’s properties with other steel properties to create a company that controls 65 percent of U.S. steel-making capacity (see Bethlehem, 1905).

http://www.usx.com/corp/ussteel/about.htm

c

B

US

C

12698

1901

mt

ASARC

E

Meyer Guggenheim and his sons gain control of the 2-year-old American Smelting and Refining Co. by buying out Leonard Lewisohn, and they merge their properties into the ASARCO copper trust (see 1899). Daniel Guggenheim, 45, becomes chairman of ASARCO’s executive committee, four Guggenheim sons are on the board of directors, and the Guggenheims begin to extend the copper trust’s operations into areas that include Chilean copper and nitrate mines, Bolivian tin mines, Alaskan gold mines, and Belgian Congo copper mines, diamond mines, and rubber plantations. A nitrate extraction process developed by E. A. Cappelen Smith will be called the Guggenheim process (see Titanic, 1912; Chuquicamata mine, 1910).

c

B

US

C

12858

1902

st

USX

E

United States Steel Co. has two-thirds of U.S. steel-making capacity. Only public opinion and a sense of noblesse oblige restrain its near-monopoly (see 1901; Bethlehem Steel, 1905).

c

B

US

C

13451

1905

st

Bethlehe

E

Bethlehem Steel Co. is founded by Charles M. Schwab who determines to build a great competitor to United States Steel (see 1902). Bethlehem begins as the parent company of Schwab’s United States Shipbuilding Co. (see 1907).

http://www.bethsteel.com/about/history.shtml

c

B

US

C

13585

1906

st

USX

E

J. P. Morgan and steel magnate John W. Gates purchase Tennessee Coal & Iron Co. (see 1898; 1907).

c

B

US

ME

13772

1907

st

Bethlehe

K

Bethlehem Steel’s Saucon Mills open at Bethlehem, Pa., to roll wide-flanged girders and beams that are lighter (and therefore cheaper) than conventional riveted girders but just as strong. Bethlehem has acquired patents from inventor Henry Grey and will license other steel mills to manufacture Grey beams on a royalty basis (see 1905; 1912).

c

B

SC

ME

13769

1907

Iron

K

SKF (Svenska Kullager Fabriken, or Swedish Ball Bearing Factory) is founded at Göteborg by Swedish engineer Sven Gustav Wingquist, 30, who has perfected almost frictionless ball bearings using a steel alloy that contains chrome and manganese.

SKF

c

B

SA

R

14219

1910

mt

ASARC

E

Chile’s enormously productive Chuquicamata copper mine is acquired by the U.S. copper trust ASARCO, controlled since 1901 by the Guggenheim family (see 1923).

c

B

US

R

14526

1912

st

Bethlehe

E

Bethlehem Steel’s Charles M. Schwab journeys to France and buys Chile’s Tofo Iron Mines from the Schneider interests. The Chilean mines contain 50 million tons of ore with iron content 10 percent better than Lake Superior ores (see 1907; 1913).

c

B

US

C

14698

1913

st

Bethlehe

E

Bethlehem Steel’s Charles M. Schwab acquires Fore River Shipbuilding and makes Eugene Grace, 37, president of Bethlehem. Grace will develop the company into the world’s second largest steel maker (see 1912; Sparrows Point, 1916).

b

K

US

CL

14813

1913

mt

Machine

L

Swedish-American inventor Gideon Sundback, 33, develops the first dependable slide-fastener and efficient machines to manufacture it commercially. He attaches matching metal locks to a flexible backing, each tooth being a tiny hook that engages with an eye under an adjoining hook on an opposite tape. He will patent improvements on his slide fastener in 1917 and assign the patents to the Hookless Fastener Co. of Meadville, Pa., which will manufacture the Talon slide fastener (see Judson, 1893; “zipper,” 1926).

c

B

US

C

15236

1916

st

Bethlehe

E

Bethlehem Steel’s Charles M. Schwab pays $49 million to acquire the Pennsylvania Steel Co. formerly controlled by the Pennsylvania Railroad. The company has a plant at Steelton, ore mines in Cuba, more in Pennsylvania, and—most important—a tidewater steel mill on Chesapeake Bay at Sparrows Point, Md., where Bethlehem will create a vast shipyard as it continues to prosper on government shipbuilding contracts.

c

B

US

C

16222

1922

mt

Machine

C

U.S. electrical engineer Vannevar Bush, 32, helps start a company to produce the S-tube, a gaseous rectifier developed by inventor C. G. Smith that greatly improves the system of supplying electricity to radios (see analog computer, 1930).

c

B

US

C

16344

1923

st

USX

E

United States Steel reduces its 12-hour day to 8 hours August 2 following the lead set by American Rolling Mill in 1916.

c

B

G

C

17010

1926

st

Krupp

E

A merger of German industrial giants creates the mammoth United Steel Works (Vereinigte Stahlwerke) cartel, rivaled only by the great Krupp works at Essen. Major mining enterprises join with the Rhine-Elbe Union steel company that Albert Vogler, 49, has built up with help from the late Hugo Stinnes, Nazi industrialist Emil Kirdorf, 79, and Nazi steel maker Fritz Thyssen, 53.

c

B

G

WP

17052

1926

st

Krupp

K

B. F. Goodrich chemist Waldo Lonsbury Semon, 28, pioneers synthetic rubber, using catalysts in an effort to extract the chlorine from the polymer polyvinyl chloride. He polymerizes PVC into a white powder, plasticizes the PVC powder with agents such as tri-creylphosphate, and produces a workable synthetic that can be rolled and treated like rubber. The product is odorless, weatherproof, age- and acid-resistant, and will be introduced commercially in 1933 under the name Koroseal (see Nieuwland, 1925; butadiene, 1939).

b

B

US

HI

19205

1937

st

USX

J

The United Steel Workers union meets with resistance from “little steel” firms, which include Bethlehem with 82,000 workers, Republic with 53,000, Youngstown Sheet and Tube with 27,000, and National, American Rolling Mills, and Inland with a combined total of some 38,000.

c

B

US

HI

19204

1937

st

USX

J

United States Steel permits unionization of its workers March 2 to avoid a strike (see 1936).

c

B

US

C

19621

1939

st

USX

E

U.S. Steel reports a net income of $41 million on sales of $857 million after a 1938 deficit (see 1964). The average U.S. Steel employee works just over 25 hours per week at a wage of just under 90¢ per hour, and his annual wage of about $1,600 is $100 more than the average earned by General Motors employees. Both companies employ roughly 220,000 people.

c

B

US

EL

19861

1940

ec

Coal

U

A continuous coal-digging machine developed by Consolidation Coal president Carson Smith and engineer Harold Farnes Silver, 39, will revolutionize coal mining. Six banks of cutter chains moving at 500 feet per minute will enable the Joy machine to dig out a series of vertical slices 18 inches deep and to bore a tunnel up to 18 feet wide. Joseph Joy, now 56, will purchase the rights in 1947; his Joy Manufacturing Co. will dominate coal-mining equipment production.

b

US

P

20996

1947

ec

Coal

E

U.S. coal mines return to private ownership June 30 after operation by the federal government since May 22 of last year.

c

B

J

C

21551

1950

st

iron

E

Nippon Steel Corp., founded at Tokyo, combines Yawata Iron & Steel with Fuji Steel to create an enterprise with the

Nippon Steel

b

OZ

R

21863

1952

mt

Iron

E

Australian cattleman-prospector Langley George Hancock, 43, discovers a mountain of solid iron ore in the Hammersley

c

B

G

C

22593

1957

st

Krupp

E

Fried. Krupp agrees to supply the Soviet Union with a chemical plant and a synthetic fiber complex. The German

c

B

US

C

23260

1962

st

USX

E

United States Steel raises prices $6 per ton April 10, President Kennedy reacts angrily, two firms do not follow Big

b

US

R

23515

1964

mt

Iron

E

The largest iron-ore contract in world history is signed to supply Japan’s major steel firms with 65.5 million tons of ore

c

B

US

TL

25302

1976

iron

K

Cincinnati Milacron enters the industrial robot business, challenging the pioneer firm Condec Corp. to produce robots

Milacron

c

B

US

C

26109

1982

st

USX

E

U.S. Steel acquires Marathon Oil for $3 billion.