Iron Valley: The Transformation of the Iron Industry in Ohio's Mahoning Valley, 1802–1913: Trillium Books
Autor Clayton J. Ruminskien Limba Engleză Paperback – 30 iun 2017
Youngstown, Ohio, and the surrounding Mahoning Valley supplied the iron that helped transform the United States into an industrial powerhouse in the nineteenth century. The story of the Mahoning Valley’s unorthodox rise from mid-scale iron producer to twentieth-century “Steel Valley” is a tale of innovation, stagnation, and, above all, extreme change. Located halfway between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, the Mahoning Valley became a major supplier of pig iron to America’s biggest industrial regions. For much of the nineteenth century, outside consumers relied on the Valley’s pig iron, but this reliance nurtured a reluctance on the part of Youngstown iron companies to diversify or expand their production.
In Iron Valley: The Transformation of the Iron Industry in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley, 1802–1913, Clayton J. Ruminski argues that Youngstown-area iron manufacturers were content to let others in the industry innovate, and only modernized when market conditions forced them to do so. Desperate to find new markets, some Youngstown iron manufacturers eventually looked toward steel and endured a rapid, but successful, industrial transformation that temporarily kept their old enterprises afloat in a rapidly evolving industry. Richly illustrated with rare photographs of Mahoning Valley ironmasters, mills, furnaces, and workers, Iron Valley sheds light on a previously underrepresented and vital region that built industrial America.
In Iron Valley: The Transformation of the Iron Industry in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley, 1802–1913, Clayton J. Ruminski argues that Youngstown-area iron manufacturers were content to let others in the industry innovate, and only modernized when market conditions forced them to do so. Desperate to find new markets, some Youngstown iron manufacturers eventually looked toward steel and endured a rapid, but successful, industrial transformation that temporarily kept their old enterprises afloat in a rapidly evolving industry. Richly illustrated with rare photographs of Mahoning Valley ironmasters, mills, furnaces, and workers, Iron Valley sheds light on a previously underrepresented and vital region that built industrial America.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780814253762
ISBN-10: 0814253768
Dimensiuni: 255 x 180 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.59 kg
Ediția:1
Editura: Ohio State University Press
Colecția Trillium
Seria Trillium Books
ISBN-10: 0814253768
Dimensiuni: 255 x 180 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.59 kg
Ediția:1
Editura: Ohio State University Press
Colecția Trillium
Seria Trillium Books
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Recenzii
“The Mahoning story is a component of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century history of American iron- and steelmaking that needs to be told. Since there is no comprehensive account of the Mahoning region’s iron industry, Iron Valley is a welcome addition to the history of this business. The story told here contributes valuable source material for economic historians and historians of technology. It provides the background needed to understand the subsequent demise of the Youngstown steel industry.” —Robert Gordon, Yale University
Notă biografică
Clayton J. Ruminski is the Archival Specialist at Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware.
Extras
By the eve of the Great War, the Mahoning Valley’s time-honored and once great iron rolling mills vanished in the face of Big Steel. The rolling mills’ value, however, was limited, unlike the region’s merchant iron furnaces that provided these mills with pig iron to make their wrought-iron products. The large steel combines had successfully exonerated themselves of these often strike-ridden and costly plants, which resulted in higher profits and productivity, but precipitated a gradual loss for merchant furnaces and smaller, independent iron companies that remained. In addition, companies like Republic Iron and Steel and Carnegie Steel sought to fully integrate operations to depend less on outside sources of raw materials and pig iron. However, the conversion from iron to steelmaking in the Mahoning Valley occurred so swiftly that every steel company in the Valley relied on backward integration, giving the region’s vestigial merchant furnace companies a strong but increasingly temporary local market. Steel companies constructed large-scale Bessemer plants and open-hearth steelworks with such rapidity that most still purchased pig iron from outside markets in order to feed their steel furnaces. Acquisition and construction of blast furnaces proved incredibly successful for major corporations like U.S. Steel, but the integration of iron and steel production came slower for other companies.
Between 1905 and 1907, merchant furnace companies in the Mahoning Valley were both prosperous and profitable. As a result, several firms in the region streamlined their furnaces in order to remain competitive and increase their output; between 1908 and 1915, furnace operators rebuilt and modernized four of the Mahoning Valley’s seven merchant stacks. However, the immanency of vertical and horizontally integrated steel firms loomed over the Mahoning Valley’s merchant pig iron operators. The constant fluctuation in the market often prompted impulsive responses from the Valley’s pig iron manufacturers. In 1910, an editorial in Iron Age, an important industry trade journal, stated that “for 20 years each interval of depression, or even of slackness in the iron trade, has brought forward the proposal that Mahoning . . . Valley blast furnaces making iron to be sold to steel companies should join in the formation of a steel company and become the consumers of their own pig iron.” After the turn of the twentieth century, the business of providing steel companies pig iron for converting to steel was more profitable than catering to rapidly vanishing rolling mills and foundries alone. For years, companies like Brier Hill Iron and Coal Co. sold their output to U.S. Steel and other emerging steel companies in the Youngstown region. However, these same companies began to construct their own blast furnaces, nearly eliminating their reliance on the open market. Likewise, U.S. Steel not only made sure their Youngstown plants were self-sufficient in iron production but also invested in blast-furnace construction for the majority of their ill-equipped steelworks around the Pittsburgh, New Castle, and Cleveland areas. Thus, the writing was on the wall for the Mahoning Valley’s remaining merchant furnace companies: conform to steel production or accept increasing insignificance or bankruptcy in the iron and steel industry. These blast furnace firms’ efforts to adapt to a new market exemplified their tenuous foothold in the industry as independent merchant pig iron firms declined and unchallenged steel companies grew to dominate America’s industrial economy.
Between 1905 and 1907, merchant furnace companies in the Mahoning Valley were both prosperous and profitable. As a result, several firms in the region streamlined their furnaces in order to remain competitive and increase their output; between 1908 and 1915, furnace operators rebuilt and modernized four of the Mahoning Valley’s seven merchant stacks. However, the immanency of vertical and horizontally integrated steel firms loomed over the Mahoning Valley’s merchant pig iron operators. The constant fluctuation in the market often prompted impulsive responses from the Valley’s pig iron manufacturers. In 1910, an editorial in Iron Age, an important industry trade journal, stated that “for 20 years each interval of depression, or even of slackness in the iron trade, has brought forward the proposal that Mahoning . . . Valley blast furnaces making iron to be sold to steel companies should join in the formation of a steel company and become the consumers of their own pig iron.” After the turn of the twentieth century, the business of providing steel companies pig iron for converting to steel was more profitable than catering to rapidly vanishing rolling mills and foundries alone. For years, companies like Brier Hill Iron and Coal Co. sold their output to U.S. Steel and other emerging steel companies in the Youngstown region. However, these same companies began to construct their own blast furnaces, nearly eliminating their reliance on the open market. Likewise, U.S. Steel not only made sure their Youngstown plants were self-sufficient in iron production but also invested in blast-furnace construction for the majority of their ill-equipped steelworks around the Pittsburgh, New Castle, and Cleveland areas. Thus, the writing was on the wall for the Mahoning Valley’s remaining merchant furnace companies: conform to steel production or accept increasing insignificance or bankruptcy in the iron and steel industry. These blast furnace firms’ efforts to adapt to a new market exemplified their tenuous foothold in the industry as independent merchant pig iron firms declined and unchallenged steel companies grew to dominate America’s industrial economy.