Caption: During the years leading up to World War II, through the late 1940s, Pennsylvanians witnessed unparalleled factory production, as well as the greatest rise in union membership in the state's history.
Courtesy of Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation, from Carnegie Library at the Balch exhibit,"Discovering America: The Peopling of Pa."
Caption: The National Tube Works Company was acquired and merged with U.S. Steel by J.P. Morgan in 1901.
Library and Archives Division, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Caption:
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Jones and Laughlin, one of the largest iron and steel manufacturers in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries, was headquartered in Pittsburgh. In the corporation's early years, production included wrought iron, iron bars and plates, from which rails were made. However, by 1894, Jones and Laughlin was totally out of the iron business and solely produced steel.
Library and Archives Division, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Caption: The Connellsville seam, the most important of western Pennsylvania's three bituminous coal beds, contained the best coal in the country for the making coke that fueled Pennsylvania's iron and steel industries.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Work in Pennsylvania's coke industry was low paying, back-breaking and dangerous. With more than 5,000 ovens and a production capacity of 8,750 tons a day, the Henry C. Frick Coke Company was the nation's leading producer of coke.
Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Three "Pull up" boys at the Jones and Lauglin Steel Pudding Furnace, November,17,1886. The job of the "Pull up" boys is to pull up the furnace doors.
Library and Archives Division, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Caption: Steel Worker in Foundry, by Luke Swank. C. 1934. Steel worker, probably at Bethlehem Steel's Franklin Mills, Johnstown, PA.
Courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art, gift of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
Caption: Making Steel, by Luke Swank, 1930-32. Steelworker in iron foundry, Franklin Works, Bethlehem Steel, Johnstown, PA.
Courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art, gift of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
Caption: Homestead Steel Works by B. L. H. Dabbs, 1893-1895.
Courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art
Caption: Homestead Steel Works, by B. L. H. Dabbs, 1893-1895.
Carnegie Museum of Art
Caption: Homestead Steel Works, by B. L. H. Dabbs,1893-1895. Workers process a 90-ton ingot using a 10,000-ton forging press at Carnegie Steel Company's Homestead Steel Works.
Carnegie Museum of Art
Caption: Homestead Steel Works, by B. L. H. Dabbs, 1893-1895.
Workers watch as a foundry ladle prepares to pour molten iron into ingot molds at Carnegie Steel Company's Homestead Steel Works.
Courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art
Caption: Homestead Steel Works and workers standing next to a railroad flat car that carries a large steel product, a 90 ton ingot.
Carnegie Museum of Art, Collection of Photographs
Caption: National Tube Co Inspectors
Library of Congress
Caption: The extraordinary dangers of working in Pittsburgh’s steel mills and other industrial workplaces were first exposed to the American public in the pathbreaking Pittsburgh Survey. Each year, more than 500 died and thousands were injured in industrial accidents. Only a few companies provided compensation to injured or deceased workers.
Library and Archives Division, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Caption: Training Workers, Homestead, Pa. ca. 1954-1955. Photograph taken to show African-American employees in key jobs at Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation. Homestead Steel Works. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Collection of William J. Gaughan, AIS 94:3, Archives Service Center,
University of Pittsburgh
Caption: Open Hearth Tapping Heat, Homestead, Pa., August 9, 1937.
Collection of William J. Gaughan, AIS 94:3, Archives Service Center,
University of Pittsburgh
Caption: Near the Open Hearth furnace, Duquesne Steel Works, Carnegie Illinois Steel Corporation
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: "Looking from middle of hot mill. Reelers in immediate foreground, plug mill to right, plug mill covers view of second piercer or expander. First piercer in background to left of furnaces." Billets were charged in a heating furnace and then delivered to the piercing machine (center background). The piercing was performed by two machines to reduce the strain of the operation on the billets. Both machines were identical except that the mandrel head was broader and had a blunt point in the second piercing machine. The pipe then went to the Plug Mill (far right center), which was a two-high rolling mill that included grooved rolls. The thickness of the pipe wall became about that of the finished pipe after it passed through the rolls several times. The interior and exterior of the pipe were given a smooth finish as it passed through the reelers (foreground). Jones and Laughlin entered the tubular products business with the installation of welded pipe works at its Aliquippa Works. In 1926 the first of three seamless tube mills were built at Aliquippa. These seamless tube products were principally for the oil industry. The Seamless Tube Department consisted of steel conditioning area, a 30-inch round mill, two tube mills, and facilities for finishing and shipping tubes and for producing couplings. In April 1982 the Seamless Tube Department was shut down."
Library and Archives Division, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Caption: In 1926, the Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation built the first of three seamless tube mills at its Aliquippa Works. Expanded to include a steel conditioning area, a 30-inch round mill, two tube mills, and facilities for finishing and shipping tubes and for producing couplings, the Aliquippa Tube Works focused on seamless tube products for the oil industry. The Seamless Tube Department closed in 1982.
Library and Archives Division, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Caption: The Seamless Tube Department at Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation's Aliquippa Works consisted of a steel conditioning area, a 30-inch round mill, two tube mills, and facilities for finishing tubes and for producing couplings. The seamless hot mills produced high strength pipe that was used to drill oil wells, to case wells, and to transport oil and gas. The Seamless Tube Department began its decline in April 1982 and by 1989, the entire Aliquippa Works had shutdown completely."
Library and Archives Division, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Caption: When American steelworkers served in the American armed forces during World War I and Word War II, women stepped in to fill many of their jobs.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Main PRT Repair Shop
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Steam hammer used for forging steel at the Midvale Steel Company, c. 1905.
Courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library
Caption: The Machine shop at Lukens Steel, c. 1890.
Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library
Caption: An interior view of the Nicetown plant, Midvale Steel, featuring workers and machining armor.
Courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library
Caption: Jobs drew thousands of southern blacks to Pennsylvania's steel mills, contributing to a mass migration to Pittsburgh, Johnstown, Coatesville, and other Pennsylvania steel towns.
Courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library
Caption: In 1896, William W. Taylor brought the first 200 African Americans into the Midvale workforce. Hired at first to diminish the power of the craft guilds by breaking up the ethnic work gangs, Midvale's black workers soon proved themselves as competent as their white counterparts. In the early 1900s, Midvale treated its black workers with uncommon equality, paying them the going wage and promoting a few to positions as foremen.
Courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library
Caption: Standard Steel Works Hammer shop. Making connecting rods.
Courtesy of the Greenwood Furnace State Park, Paul Fagley
Caption: Standard Steel Works Axle Shop.
Courtesy of the Greenwood Furnace State Park, Paul Fagley
Caption: Standard Steel Works, Axle Shop, lathing axles.
Courtesy of the Greenwood Furnace State Park, Paul Fagley
Caption: Standard Steel Works, mounting wheels to axles.
Courtesy of the Greenwood Furnace State Park, Paul Fagley
Caption: Standard Steel Works, checking locomotive connecting rods.
Courtesy of the Greenwood Furnace State Park, Paul Fagley
Caption: Standard Steel Works, Machine Shop 2, lathing crankshafts.
Courtesy of the Greenwood Furnace State Park, Paul Fagley
Caption: Workers with sample carts, inside of the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company, Vandergrift, 1913.
Courtesy of the Victorian Vandergrift Museum and Historical Society
Caption: Yard laborers pose next to steel product at the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company, Vandergrift, 1913.
Courtesy of the Victorian Vandergrift Museum and Historical Society
Caption: Workers handling sheet inside of the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company, Vandergrift, Mill, 1913.
Courtesy of the Victorian Vandergrift Museum and Historical Society