At the turn of the century, under the direction of Charles M. Schwab (1862-1939) and Eugene Grace (1876-1960), Bethlehem Steel Corporation became the second largest American steel company; combined with its other venture, Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., it became a leading twentieth century American business. The collection includes a wide range of photography which documents the company’s long history and the breadth of its enterprises from east to west coasts and overseas. It contains eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century industrial and non-industrial images and of management and workers. As a research tool, its use will be as varied and extensive as the corporation itself was during its years as an American industrial giant.

The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was the number two steel producer in the United States between 1916 and 1984. For a time it was also the largest shipbuilding firm in the world. The records of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation (parent company) are a series of fragments, lacking the complete runs of corporate and executive documents that normally comprise a business archive, and largely consist of fragmentary corporate records and files from executive officers.