Finding Aids

The Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company grew to be one of the six largest basic steel companies in the United States. This volume presents an insider history and personal memoir by a retired operating official of Youngstown's Indiana Harbor Works.

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 early 1980s. The bulk of the archive consists of the Institute's library. Most of the Institute's own publications, plus a large collection of steel industry annual reports, are cataloged individually and stored in the general Imprints Department stacks.

Archibald Johnston (1864-1948) was a mechanical engineer, who joined the Bethlehem Iron Company in 1889 where he was responsible for the erection of the gun forging and armor plate plant. In 1901 he was elected to the company's Board of Directors, and between 1906 and 1908 was president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. The bulk of this collection is concerned with Johnston's work at Bethlehem Steel; a smaller portion consists of strictly personal papers.

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.

Carnegie Steel Company was a large steel manufacturer primarily founded by industrialist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) in 1892, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Lucy Furnaces were blast furnaces that initially produced iron, but switched to steel. This item is a time book registering the hours worked by Carnegie Steel Company Lucy Furnaces employees in 1904.

This collection represents materials collected by Cyrus J. Sharer for his research on the iron and steel industry and particularly the world iron ore trade. The main emphasis is on the iron ore trade of the Great Lakes. The period covered, mid-1960s to mid-1980s, was one of crisis and reorganization in the American steel industry and in the lake ore trade, and this is reflected in the records.

A booklet produced by the American Iron and Steel Institute's Committee of Steel Plate Producers in the 1960s to illustrate imaginative and attractive designs in constructing community water-storage structures with steel.

The Edge Moor Iron Company engaged in the manufacture of iron and steel bridges at a plant located on the Delaware River north of Wilmington. The collection is comprised of a limited selection of documents, primarily connected to the liquidation of the company in 1936. It includes plant and property maps, clippings, and deeds and titles covering the property.

The Erie City Iron Works was founded by Pennsylvania capitalist Bethuel Boyd Vincent (1803-1876) as the Presque Isle Foundry in 1840. The Works was a major manufacturer of boilers, stationary and portable engines and machinery for sawmills and steam riveting as well as railroad freight and passenger cars. Their records are largely comprised of accounting records.

Frederick William Wood (1857-1943) was an executive and engineer in the steel and shipbuilding industries. His papers constitute a major source on the history of the American steel industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The papers are primarily official records of the various companies with which Wood was associated.

George A. Richardson (1886-1976) was an engineer with an expertise in metallurgy. He spent his career primarily involved in technical publicity and sales for major steel manufacturers such as the Midvale Steel & Ordnance Company and the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. The papers consist primarily of materials collected by Richardson during the performance of his official duties with the steel companies, in preparing technical lectures and papers, and in teaching courses in metallurgy.

George A. Richardson (1886-1976) was an engineer with an expertise in metallurgy. He spent his career primarily involved in technical publicity and sales for major steel manufacturers such as the Midvale Steel & Ordnance Company and Metallurgical Laboratories, Inc. (METLAB). These records consist primarily of materials collected by Richardson during the performance of his official duties with the steel companies, in preparing technical lectures and papers, and in teaching courses in metallurgy.

Thomas William Harvey (1795-1854) and his son, Hayward Augustus Harvey (1824-1893), were two important inventors in the arts of metalworking and metallurgy. The Harvey Steel Company constructed a furnace for making file and tool steel in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1887. In 1889, the company erected a much larger plant near Brills Station in Newark, and expanded it into the treating of armor plate. Thomas W. Harvey is represented in this collection by a selection of documents covering his business career. These include deeds to family property. There are small amounts of correspondence regarding his inventions and the patent laws, including an "Essay upon Iron," affidavits regarding his screw machine, and sketches for several inventions. The papers of Hayward Augustus Harvey include copies of patents and drawings of his various inventions and documents arising from patent litigation. However, the bulk of papers concern the Harvey Steel companies and the Harvey process.

The Heintz Manufacturing Company was originally organized by Leo Heintz in Philadelphia in 1921. The firm initially manufactured all-steel pre-assembled truck bodies but later expanded to produce a wide range of pressed sheet-metal products. The records primarily focus on the company’s contractual obligations with the US Navy during World War II; employee retirement and pension plans; descriptions of various welding processes and tools, and material related to the licensing of cold welding under the trademark, "Koldweld."

Helen Sellers Garrett (1857-1946) was one of Wilmington's pioneer businesswomen and served as president of the Labor Commission of Delaware. She was the daughter of one of the Edge Moor Iron Company's founders and granddaughter of abolitionist Thomas Garrett (1789-1871). The collection contains a carbon typescript report of the lawsuit of Helen S. Garrett vs. Edge Moor Iron Company, including financial statements.

Henry Disston & Sons, Inc. was a major manufacturer of saws and other woodworking tools and one of the largest industrial firms in Philadelphia. The Henry Disston & Sons, Inc. had a number of subsidary companies, these records contain a small number of account books from only three of the firms subsidaries. There are accounts for: the Tacony Fuel Gas Company, the Henry Disston & Sons File Company, Limited, and the Henry Disston & Sons Iron & Steel Works, and an insurance ledger from the Estate of Henry Disston.

John B. Lovis (1935-2015) was a longtime employee of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, where he assisted in the design and engineering of the Burns Harbor Plant and held various positions in the company's Corporate Engineering and Planning Department before his retirement as Director, Strategic Planning, in 1995. The collection consists of an unpublished paper prepared in 2007 on the closure of the steel plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and a revision of that paper delivered at Lehigh University in 2014.

The records consist of materials collected by John B. Lovis (1935-2015) for the writing of his book on the history of the Sparrows Point Plant, plus original Bethlehem Steel documents from his tenure in the Corporate Planning Department.

John Oscar Skiles (1895-1960) was a longtime employee of Bethlehem Steel Corporation, where he worked as an analyst in the Metallurgical Department of the company's Sparrows Point, Maryland, plant, beginning in the 1920s until his retirement in 1960. This small collection consists of one folder of materials related to Skiles' employment at Bethlehem Steel.

Keith Reeves Rodney (1875-1956) was a metallurgist at the Fairmount Steel Company in Philadelphia. His diaries document his 1905 European tour of a number of steel mills and machine shops. He visited Italy, France, Germany, and England.

The Lukens Steel Company was a medium-sized, non-integrated steel company and one of the top three producers of steel plates in the United States. Lukens operated continuously at its Coatesville, Pennsylvania, site since 1810 and was one of the few successful survivors of the many nineteenth-century iron works that once dotted southeastern Pennsylvania. This collection of Lukens Steel Company records consists of corporate records, mostly from the Secretary's Office. The records are comprised of seven series: Shareholders' meeting agendas; Stockholder lists; Proxies for annual meetings; Board and committee meeting agendas; Financial statements; Secretary's correspondence; and Counsel's correspondence.

The Lukens Steel Company was a medium-sized, non-integrated steel company and one of the top three producers of steel plates in the United States. Lukens operated continuously at its Coatesville, Pennsylvania, site from 1810, and was one of the few successful survivors of the many nineteenth-century ironworks that once dotted southeastern Pennsylvania. This collection consists of three volumes of logbooks from the Lukens Steel Navy Armor building in Coatesville, Pennsylvania.

Lukens Steel Company was a medium-sized producer of specialty steel products and one of the top three U.S. producers of steel plate. The Lukens Steel Company records documents all aspects of the business from the early nineteenth century through the 1970s.

Lukenweld, Inc. was the first U.S. commercial shop to cut and fabricate shapes from steel plate by arc welding. The records are files of Robert C. Sahlin (1896-1967), a member of Lukenweld's sales staff. Sahlin's files record his dealings with Lukenweld's customers and his other activities as a salesman. Most Lukenweld orders were custom work, fabricating individual machine parts, so there was frequent interplay between sales and engineering staff.

Michael Tenenbaum (1913-2005) was a metallurgist and President of the Inland Steel Company from 1971 to 1978. This small collection of his papers consist of a series of his writings and speeches and a small number of Inland Steel Company publications.

The Phoenix Iron and Steel Company began in the late eighteenth century as a manufacturer of cut nails. It later became a major producer of railroad rails and iron and steel structural members. It operated as the Phoenix Iron and Steel Company from 1950 to 1959, when it was reorganized as the Phoenix Steel Corporation. This small collection primarily consists of a sample of letters received by president Samuel J. Reeves (1872-1878), primarily concerned with the Girard Avenue Bridge contract. There is also a volume of annual reports by the superintendent and a company history written by Catherine S. Sisto in 1950.

The Phoenix Steel Company began in the late 18th century as a manufacturer of cut nails. It later became a major producer of railroad rails and iron and steel structural members. Claymont Division of the Phoenix Steel Corporation was established in 1960 when the company purchased the Claymont, Delaware steel plant from the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. This small collection of materials originating from the Claymont steel plant includes miscellaneous plant announcements, catalogs, labor agreements, photographs, company-issued newsletters, and brief historical essays on the Phoenix Steel Corporation and its predecessors.

The Phoenix Steel Company began in the late eighteenth century as a manufacturer of cut nails. It later became a major producer of railroad rails and iron and steel structural members. Their records include minutes (1856-1929); stock ledgers; brief of title papers and property maps; legal and financial correspondence and tax papers; account books; and a works diary.

The records of the Steel Industry Wage Bureau document the process of establishing wage rates and job descriptions in the U.S. steel industry.

Wilhelm Melas (1869-1916) was an engineer and inventor who specialized in the design of furnaces and other industrial machines. He designed plant and foundry layouts, as well as developed materials for railroad stations. This collection consists of more than 700 drawings related to Melas’ work as an engineer, as well as a compilation of project notes, reference material, and data. This collection would be useful to researchers interested in industrial design, especially related to steel and iron production.

William Douglass (1849-1925) worked his entire professional life in the steel industry. He was an educated steel worker and spent many years as foreman or superintendent at various jobs site, the majority being in Birmingham, Alabama. The papers are a collection of items partly documenting Douglass' career as a foreman in the steel industry in the Pittsburgh and Birmingham Districts from 1889-1915.

WorldAutoSteel is an institutional membership organization comprised of eighteen major global steel producers dedicated to innovative vehicle steel application technologies that are environmentally sustainable and meet the automotive industry's needs. This collection consists of records that document a series of projects conducted by WorldAutoSteel, a unit of the World Steel Association. The files come from WorldAutoSteel headquarters, primarily from Edward Opbroek, who was the director of WorldAutoSteel from 2006 to 2011 and the program director for UltraLight Steel Auto Body (ULSAB) and UltraLight Steel Auto Body - Advanced Vehicle Concepts (ULSAB-AVC). These records would be of value to researchers interested in the intersection of the steel and automobile industries, automotive benchmarking, innovations in steel design and engineering, and communications strategies.

The Worth Steel Company was a manufacturer of steel plates in Claymont, Delaware. Its records consist of papers from its operations and from its predecessor companies (Viaduct Iron Works and Worth Brothers Company, both of Coatesville, Pennsylvania). Items include correspondence, accounts, datasheets, agreements, closing papers in sale to Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation in 1951, and the sale of land in 1958.