The records of the American Iron and Steel Institute and its predecessors provide an overview of the American iron and steel industries from their roots in the mid-eighteenth century to the late 1990s. The bulk of the archive consists of the Institute's library.

The Corporate records series include complete minutes of the board of directors (1908-1983) and the executive committee (1933-1982) which give an overview of the Institute's organization and activities. There are also minutes of meetings on the development of the NIRA Steel Code and the Steel Wire Reinforcing Code (1933-1935), as well as bound reports on the Code and its regulations and of the various resolutions issued during the period when it was in force. Records of the Committee on Safety consist of industry-wide fatality reports (1970-1991). Directories (1939-1988) contain lists of officers, directors and members. Records of the annual business meetings include minutes (1908-1982) which document the arrangements, presentations, and speeches; selected banquet programs and menus (including some speeches); copies of the texts of the Schwab Memorial Lectures (1947-1988); and biographical sketches of recipients of the Institute Medal (1929-1936).

Executive officer files are fragmentary. A small body of records from the Washington office describes the Institute's activities coordinating the steel industry during World War I, including correspondence of J. L. Replogle, director of steel supply for the War Industries Board and U.S. Steel's directives for the war effort. Records of the Engineering Division include files of Senior Research Engineer A. L. Johnson, Vice President-Building Research W. G. Kirkland, Vice President-Manufacturing & Research William E. Dennis, and Vice President-Manufacturing & Technology Lawrence (Larry) W. Kavanagh. These files describe the developments of new codes and standards; the competition posed by plastics as a substitute for metals and between steel and wood as a building material; the use of robotics in the 1980s; a survey of safety in sheet mills (1989), and materials related to the Waste Oxide Recycling Program.

Files of General Counsel & Secretary Barton C. Greene describe attempts during the Carter, Reagan and Bush Administrations to reduce imports of cheap foreign steel and the rash of American plant closings. There is also a report on unionism in the American steel industry by the European Social Initiatives & Research Institute, as well as materials related to the Direct Steelmaking Program.

Files of Vice President-Environment & Energy Bruce Steiner mainly consist of technical files and reports.

Files of Vice President-Industrial Relations John H. Stenmark deal with matters of industrial health and safety, noise control, and pollution abatement, including symposia, studies and codes by the Environmental Protection Agency, the International Labour Organisation, the World Health Organization, and the International Iron & Steel Institute. The last includes in-plant environment studies at Kawasaki Steel Corporation and Nippon Kokan, KK.

Files of Vice President-Market Development David C. Jeanes consist of automotive files.

The executive files also include drafts and notes of the 1993 strategic plan and some documentation of the Steel Fellows Program” (1970-1989), a training program to attract and place college graduates in steel industry management.

The largest subseries of executive files are those of outside counsel Cravath, de Gersdorf, Swaine & Wood (1933-1964) who advised the AI&SI on many important matters during the New Deal era. Most of the papers are those of Hoyt A. Moore, the Cravath partner most closely associated with the AI&SI, although Chester McLain and others are also represented.

Moore's most important contribution was in coordinating the formulation and defense of the steel industry's Code of Fair Competition” under the National Industrial Recovery Act, and this is the major subject of the Cravath/Moore files. In addition to the correspondence that traces the development, implementation, and opposition to the Code from beginning to end, there are copies of AI&SI board and committee minutes and agendas, working and final drafts of the Code, resolutions that became amendments to the Code, and Code-required sample forms and standardized agreements with jobbers and transporters. There are also records of hearings and samples of NIRA codes in other industries, particularly the construction industry; records of complaints against the Steel Code, particularly by automakers and some of the smaller steel producers; records of investigations and hearings on the Steel Code by the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department; relevant antitrust case histories, NIRA workplace posters outlining its labor provisions; and memoranda on the Schecter Case under which the NIRA was ruled unconstitutional.

The files also contain extensive papers of the Council for Industrial Progress (1936-1937), including minutes, agendas, membership lists, reports and press releases. The Council was organized by Major George L. Berry, President Roosevelt's Coordinator for Industrial Cooperation, as an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to find an alternative to the NIRA.

One element of steel industry pricing that antedated and survived the NIRA was the basing point” system which set a single, industry-wide shipping charge based on a single shipping point (Pittsburgh) instead of reflecting the actual cost of transportation. Producers closer to the individual consumer than Pittsburgh pocketed the difference, while those further were forced to absorb part of the freight costs. The system had been implemented by U.S. Steel in 1903 and tended to stabilize prices and limit competition. The industry adopted multiple basing points in 1924 after an FTC investigation. Congress outlawed the basing-point system in 1938, and it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1948. Moore's files contain data on the basing point system and the related issue of rail and water freight tariffs. There are copies of the various tariffs in force under the Code, as well as extensive coverage, including transcripts, of the Federal Trade Commission's investigation of a related basing point system in the cement industry in 1937 to 1948.

In addition to NIRA matters, Moore's files also contain important coverage of legal cases and public hearings regarding a wide range of other New Deal legislation. Among these are: the Social Security Act; the Public Utilities Holding Company Act; the Wagner Act, particularly the struggle to amend it in 1939 to 1940; the O'Mahoney Bill for the federal licensing of corporations; the Robinson-Patman Act; the Fair Labor Standards Act; the Walsh-Healey Act; the Anti-Basing Point Bill; the 1939 monopoly investigation of the steel industry; and other bills relating to workmen's compensation, unemployment insurance, uniform wage scales, and pollution control. Post-New Deal issues include the creation of the National Wage Stabilization Board and War Labor Board during World War II, the stainless steel investigation of 1944 to 1945, and the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946.

Moore's files also contain a great deal of information on general Institute business and copies of numerous Institute documents. Among these are: the certificate of incorporation, constitution, bylaws, board meeting minutes and agendas, a run of AI&SI press releases (1934-1959), speeches and booklets by steel industry executives, and miscellaneous Institute and company publications, manuals, and specifications. Files on the Building Code Committee document its attempts to have local building codes revised to permit the broader use of light steel, while those on the Industrial Relations Committee discuss the Institute's plans to expand its collection of statistics relating to labor relations issues during the 1930s. There is also information on the Institute's pension plan and its attempts to seek exemption from certain federal and New York City taxes.

Files on the critical state of labor disputes and the CIO organizing drives in the mid-1930s include memoranda, pamphlets and a report of a meeting held at Homestead, Pennsylvania, on July 5, 1936. There are also copies of numerous collective bargaining agreements signed with the United Steel Workers between 1942 and 1944 covering blue and white collar employees as well as plant watchmen and police. There is also a file on the Aeronautical Research Council (1941), which had erroneously implied in its literature that it was sponsored by the AI&SI, and another on an exhibit of stainless steel architectural elements installed at 101 Park Avenue by the noted architects Kahn & Jacobs.

The research reports series (1939-1985) are arranged in two subseries. The first consists of reports on a variety of research projects sponsored by the Institute and conducted either at universities or private research laboratories like the Battelle Memorial Institute. The second consists of theses and dissertations in metallurgy and allied engineering disciplines that were sponsored by the Institute through research grants. Most of the reports and theses deal with metallurgy and the chemistry of iron and steel, although several concern water and air pollution effects and abatement.

Records from the AI&SI library are arranged in two subseries: A. Vertical File and B. Historical Collections.

The 156-linear foot vertical file (1936-1974) is the largest single series in the archive. It contains publications of the Institute and its member firms, press releases, and speeches by Institute and industry executives. There are approximately 7,700 pamphlets and company reports, 69,000 mounted clippings, 22,000 press release, and 11,000 items of miscellaneous printed matter and ephemera. The vertical file was apparently begun ca. 1936, but it contains tear sheets, pamphlets, publications and photocopies of originals dating back to the 1870s; statistics dating back to the early 1800s, and some illustrations of iron making techniques dating back to the 1600s. Coverage is most extensive for the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. The material covers company histories, descriptions of products and processes, and general topics of interest to the steel industry, such as automation, industrial and labor relations, standardization, and atomic energy. The files describe the entire scope of the industry from basic raw materials and other metals used in combination or alloys with steel, through the various types of steelmaking apparatus and processes, to finished goods. The files also commemorate the use of steel products in trade fairs and exhibitions such as the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair.

Among items of note are files relating to public relations efforts by both labor and management regarding the issue of wages. Several pamphlets, press releases, advertisements, etc. relate to the increasing pressure for wage increases following World War II, and a second group relate to the confrontation between the steel companies and President Kennedy in 1962-1963. Journal articles and presentations by steel executives illustrate the dilemma over modernizing aging steel plants in graphic detail. Pamphlets, editorials and speeches present the industry's reaction to foreign competition and increasing imports of European and Japanese steel. Other posters and pamphlets depict labor's campaign to stem job losses.

The files also contain a wide array of materials aimed at influencing public opinion about the American economic system in general, including open letters, editorials, advertisements, petitions and educational materials furnished to schools and community groups by business corporations, labor unions, trade associations like the National Association of Manufacturers, and a variety of think-tanks and public policy organizations. Copies of government documents and reports of congressional and executive agency hearings depict important disputes over the tariff, antitrust, labor relations, safety and the environment.

Other files document the steel industry during World War II and the Cold War. Efforts to boost war production and worker morale and to encourage conservation on the home front may be traced through both company and government materials aimed at both workers and consumers. Other materials discuss post-war strategies for reconversion, potential recession, and the problems of returning workers, and there is some material dealing with the formation and workings of the United Nations. The Cold War materials deal with anticommunism, civil defense, the defense industries, stockpiling essential industrial commodities, and atomic energy.

A large proportion of the files are concerned with technical matters, covering the entire range of iron and steel making techniques from the mining of raw materials through the creation and marketing of finished products. The latter run the gamut from producer goods like pipe and wire, through bridges, machinery and ordnance to consumer goods like automobiles and appliances, indeed anything that could be made from ferrous metals. The files also include extensive information on non-ferrous metals and any material that could be seen as an actual or potential competitor to ferrous metals. There is likewise extensive coverage of transportation infrastructure (railroads, roads, canals) which serve the steel industry as both transporters and consumers of steel products and of the heavy machinery (e.g., ore docks) needed to move the industry's raw materials.

Other technical subjects include geological exploration, library science as it related to assembling and operating the Institute Library, and business machines and automation. One can trace the evolution of office equipment, warehousing methods, and inventory control. There is a small amount of information of developments of the late 1950s and 1960s, such as transistors and lasers.

Other files relate to the steel company's efforts to attract homemakers purchasing kitchen appliances and home furnishings, and to issues of women's participation in the labor force. Employee bulletins, magazines and newsletters (1940-1965) offer insights into the factory and home life of workers.

The historical files have several components. Perhaps the most important is a group of 105 letters to James M. Swank, most of which constitute responses to the first edition of his History of Iron in All Ages. The bulk are either from surviving iron industry pioneers or their children and grandchildren and were part of Swank's effort to develop an accurate chronology and assign credit for particular innovations, particularly hot-blast smelting with anthracite and coke. The letters exist both in the original and in a notebook of typed transcriptions.

Historical miscellany includes scattered notes, draft articles, bulletins, clippings, etc., on Institute history. There are lists of presidents, honorary vice presidents, original membership lists, lists of medals and awards, and menus from early Institute banquets. A file on Activities of the Washington Office (1916-1921) consists of typed transcripts of letters from government officials regarding fixing production and pricing for the World War I effort and a 1921 speech of General Pershing congratulating steel executives for their contributions.

Other historical items include copies of court documents from the patent infringement suit of William Kelly vs. Henry Bessemer concerning priority on the Bessemer process (1857), an 1889 patent to William R. Thomas of Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, for a magnetic ore separator, and a glossary of terms commonly used in the steel industry.

The Library also contained a collection of four volumes from early American iron producers: account books of the Mount Hope (New Jersey) Furnace and of Noble & Townsend, iron manufacturers in colonial New York; a daily log and time book from the Birdsboro (Pennsylvania) Furnace; and an 1837 personal notebook from George Nock of the Ramapo (New York) Iron Works containing notes on production and techniques.

Records of the American Iron & Steel Association consist of minutes of meetings, secretary's reports and letters, membership and subscription records, and treasurer's account books. These records clearly delineate the scope of the Association's membership and the limited nature of its income and activities. The first volume of membership assessments and subscriptions contains tables on iron and steel production since 1743. There are also sets of the Association's printed Annual Report (1878-1899) and Bulletin (1867-1868, 1901-1912).

Minutes and circulars of the Industrial League (1874-1890) give details on its membership and their financial contributions to the protectionist cause and on the League's gradual absorption into the American Iron & Steel Association.