Carnegie Steel Company

The Carnegie Steel Company was founded by Andrew Carnegie steel manufacturer, in which the operation of its iron and steel works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania were summarized in the late 19th century.

Foundation

Carnegie opened his first steel mill mid-1870s: named after the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, profitable Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The gains that have been achieved through the work, allowed him and a number of its partners to buy more steel mills in the area. In 1892, it formed the Carnegie Steel Company.

His headquarters were in the Carnegie Building, an office building in downtown Pittsburgh. In order to emphasize the benefits of steel in construction, this building was fifteen stories high and remained a whole year without a roof. In 1952 the building was demolished.

Metallurgical plants

Carnegie led in the 1880s, important technological innovations one, especially the open-hearth furnace in Homestead in 1886. Henceforth, it was possible to produce steel for bridges and armor plates for the U.S. Navy, which for a higher price a premium product paid. Therefore, the work pace with increasing production continued to a continuous production process. Carnegie installed greatly improved systems for material flow, such as gantry cranes, conveyors, compressed air chargers, tram. All this accelerated the process of steel production and enabled the production of a larger production volume. With the increasing expansion of the hut, the number of employees increased, particularly of unskilled workers. The better educated union members responded in 1892 with the unsuccessful Homestead strike.

Sale

The company was sold in 1901 for 480 million U.S. dollars of U.S. Steel, which accounted for about half of Carnegie himself. U.S. Steel was a group with subsidiaries. In 1936 the name of the subsidiary in Carnegie - Illinois Steel Company has been changed.

Local competition

In contrast, for example, to sites in Germany as the Maxhiitte, Völkinger hut, the Westfalenhütte or Hasper hut, the U.S. steel industry thanks to the Allegheny River, the Monongahela River and the Ohio River had cost routes for the transportation of heavy products and the mass supply of raw materials and supplies. All the factories were directly or near one of the rivers mentioned. Such locations are therefore referred to as "wet locations ."

In 1853, Jones, Lauth and Company established a puddling and rolling mill at the Monongahela about four miles from Pittsburgh. Bernard Lauth invented and patented the cold rolling process in 1859. During the same year, Jane H. Laughlin and Company built directly on the opposite bank of Jones, Lauth and Company. Over time, the two companies merged under the name of Jones and Laughlin Steel and installed in 1886, their first two pears for Bessemer steel production.

J & L Steel was one of the main competitors of the Carnegie Steel Company and U.S. Steel in the neighborhood of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. In 1905 the construction of a new steel mill began on the Ohio River about 32 km downstream from Pittsburgh in Aliquippa ( Pa.). In 1908, a twelve -story office building was built in Pittsburgh.

J & L Steel announced in the period between the years 1955 and 1958, countless business expansions, including an investment of 250 million U.S. dollars. In 1968, Ling- Temco - Vought offered, Inc. ( LTV ) in Texas for the acquisition of a 63 % stake in J & L Steel 428.5 million U.S. dollars (in today's value of U.S. $ 2.88 billion ). In 1974, LTV increased its stake in J & L Steel to acquire full control of the company, which marked the beginning of the end of "Big Steel" in the Pittsbourgh region. In December 2001, LTV sought Chapter 11 and a few months later was acquired by the International Steel Group Inc..

Steel production of the 20th century

There have been changes in the mode of production of the steel before the Carnegie Steel Company in 1901 for 480 million U.S. dollars (in today's value of U.S. $ 3.5 billion) was sold. Steel manufacturers had begun to abandon the Bessemer converter in favor of the open-hearth furnace. Furnaces of this type were widely used until 1970, when the oxygen blowing, the electric steel process and the continuous casting them ablösten. At the same time employment in the remaining factories, which had been since 1900 part of the Carnegie Steel Company, fell exceptional, even if the J. Edgar Thomson Works were still active and rolling slabs produced, which were transported by ship to the Irwin works in West Mifflin to be processed into coils.