Caption:
Image Donated by Corbis - Bettmann
Caption: Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation's Soho Works once employed more than 5,000 workers. Closed in 1977, its blast furnaces were demolished in the mid-1980s.
Courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art
Caption: Exterior view of one of the industrial structures at the Carnegie Steel Company's Homestead Steel Works. The objects neatly stacked in the center of the photograph may be blooms, semi-finished hot rolled products that are rectangular in cross section, which were later processed into a variety of shapes including structural members, bars and rods.
Courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art
Caption: Homestead Steel Works, , by B. L. H. Dabbs, 1893-1895. View of the 35-inch Structural Yard at the Carnegie Steel Company's Homestead Steel Works. The 35-inch Structural Mill, built in 1891, closed between 1926 and 1927. Note the two men in the center of the photograph, one lying on his side, on the large overhead cranes.
Courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art
Caption: Lacking room to expand his galvanized steel mill Apollo, PA, company president George McMurtry bought a 650-acre farm site several miles downstream on the Kiskiminetas Rive, and here built his new American Sheet and Tin Plate Co. Mill and the town of Vandergrift. In 1909 the company closed the mill to all union activity, and in the years that followed kept out union organizers, with violence if necessary.
Courtesy of the Victorian Vandergrift Museum and Historical Society
Caption: After the completion of its 42-inch Universal Plate Mill in 1899, Andrew Carnegie's Homestead Steel Works had the most extensive universal plate capacity in the World. The 42 inch Mill would shut down in 1933.
Collection of William J. Gaughan, AIS 94:3, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
Caption: United States Steel Corporation. Homestead Steel Works. Boring Mill, June 26, 1968.
Collection of William J. Gaughan, AIS 94:3, Archives Service Center,
University of Pittsburgh
Caption: In early 1900s, local officials kept tight control of the town of Homestead, refusing permission for labor meetings or speeches. The residents of Homestead regained the right of assembly and freedom of speech only after the great union organizing campaigns of the mid-1930s.
Collection of William J. Gaughan, AIS 94:3, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
Caption: Harrisburg Steel Corporation
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Bessemer Mill and Open Hearth Furnace
The top image is the exterior of Bessemer Steel-Mill, Pennsylvania Steel Works. The bottom image is Open Hearth Furnace and Blooming Mill, Pennsylvania Steel Works.
From Egle, William H., History of the Counties of Dauphin and Lebanon. Philadelphia: Everts and Peck, 1883. Image courtesy of Accessible Archives
Caption: In 1867, the Pennsylvania Steel Works, just south of Harrisburg, PA., produced its first steel ingots, which it shipped to the Cambria Works in Johnstown for conversion into steel rails for the Pennsylvania Railroad. When the Pennsylvania Steel Works began to make rails in 1868, it became the first facility in the United States whose main purpose was the production of steel.
From Egle, William H., History of the Counties of Dauphin and Lebanon. Philadelphia: Everts and Peck, 1883. Image courtesy of Accessible Archives
Caption: Remains of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation's blast furnace row.
Courtesy of Dr. Galen Frysinger
Caption: The City of Johnstown grew up around the Cambria Iron Works and Steel Works. Cambria produced the nation's first Bessemer Steel, and in 1867 made the first steel rails "for a regular commercial order." By1890 the Cambria mills employed more than 7,000 workers and spread out over 13 miles along the Conemaugh, Little Conemaugh, and Stonycreek Rivers.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Smoke billows from stack at U.S. Steel Clairton Coke Works, Clairton, Pa., November 20, 1975.
Image Donated by Corbis-Bettmann
Caption: Apollo Iron and Steel Works, West of Washington and Lincoln Avenues, Vandergrift, Westmoreland County, Pa.
Library of Congress
Caption: In 1889, the Duquesne Steel Works opened a state-of-the-art Bessemer steel mill just a short distance up the Monongahela River from Braddock and Homestead. When Carnegie Brothers and Co. purchased the works in 1891, Andrew Carnegie acquired one of the most modern and best equipped steel works in the country.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption:
Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: General view of the United States Steel Corporation's Fairless Works on the Delaware River near Morrisville, Pennsylvania. Undated photograph.
Image Donated by Corbis-Bettmann
Caption: Luken Steel Company Ingot Stock yard, Coatesville, Pa.
Image Donated by Corbis - Bettmann
Caption: In the early 1900s, the sprawling Duquesne Steel Works was one of United States Steel's major plants. By 1934, less than a quarter of its open hearths were in operation and 29 percent of Duquesne's steelworkers were unemployed.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Harrisburg Steel Corporation
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Bethlehem Furnaces
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: The steel business boomed during and after both world wars. When this photo was taken in 1948, the sprawling Duquesne Works employed more than 8,000 people.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: In the decades surrounding the turn of the 20th century, steel mills sprang up in empty fields across western Pennsylvania and were soon surrounded by booming mill towns. Located 70 miles north of Pittsburgh, the Sharon Steel Works began in the 1890s, and became part of the Carnegie Steel empire in 1902. By the time South Sharon changed its name to Farrell, after United States Steel Corporation president J. A. Farrell, in 1912, the town had more 10,000 residents.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Henry Disston and Sons, Keystone Saw, Tool, Steel, and File Works, Philadelphia, Pa.
From Scharf, Thomas J., and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia. 1609-1884. Philadelphia. L.H. Everts and Co., 1884. Image courtesy of Accessible Archives.
Caption: Republic Iron and Steel Company Blast Furnace at New Castle, Pa. 2400 Horse Power Wheeler Boilers.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption:
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: First developed in 1848 by Daniel J. Morrell, the Cambria Iron Company in 1871 built a state-of-the-art Bessemer steel plant directed by Captain William Jones. Johnstown grew up around the Cambria mills. At the height of the steel industry in Johnstown, mills spread out over 13 miles along the Conemaugh, Little Conemaugh, and Stonycreek Rivers.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Andrew Carnegie established the Thomson Steel Works specifically to build Bessemer Steel Rails. He began production on September 1, 1875.
Courtesy of American Premier Underwriters
Caption: Print showing a bird's-eye view of the skyline of Pittsburgh at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers.
Library of Congress
Caption: A landmark of American industrial history, the Edgar Thomson Works in 2005 employed 900 people and produced 2.8 million tons of steel, about to 28 percent of U.S. Steel's production.
Courtesy of the State Museum of Pennsylvania, Don Giles photo
Caption: The Carpenter Steel Company, Reading, Pennsylvania.
Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library.
Caption:
Courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library
Caption: The Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company, Coatesville Plant.
Courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library
Caption: Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company, Coatesville Plant, street view.
Courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library
Caption: Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company, Nicetown Plant, steel works.
Courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library
Caption: In the late 1800s, the Lackawanna Iron and Steel Company of Scranton was one of America's leading manufacturers of railroad rails.
Courtesy of the Lackawanna Historical Society
Caption: On June 16, 1874, Lackawanna Iron and Coal laid foundation for two Bessemer converters -the tenth company in the United States to do so - and on December 29, 1875, the firm began rolling steel rails.The Bessemer Steel works and rolling mill #2 were constructed on the low bluff on the side of Cedar Avenue opposite the blast furnaces.
Courtesy of the Lackawanna Historical Society
Caption: Scranton Steel had two-six ton capacity Bessemer Converters, several large cupola furnaces, and an extensive rolling mill. They did not produce their own pig-iron. They relied on outside suppliers to deliver pig-iron by rail.
Courtesy of the Lackawanna Historical Society
Caption: In 1875, Andrew Carnegie opened his first steel plant, the Edgar Thomson Works, in Braddock, Pennsylvania. Carnegie named his flagship steel mill after Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) president Edgar Thomson, his former mentor. Always looking for an advantage, Carnegie located the mill between the PRR and B&O main lines so that the two railroads would reduce their rates to win his business.
Courtesy of the American Premier Underwriters, Inc.[reproduction provided by The Library Company of Philadelphia]
Caption: Homestead Steel Works
Image Donated by Corbis - Bettmann
Caption: When William Rau took this panoramic photograph in 1896, the Bethlehem Iron and Steel Works was already a leading manufacturer of hardened steel plate for the U. S. Navy. After former U.S. Steel president Charles Schwab reincorporated it as the Bethlehem Steel Company in 1904,Bethlehem doubled its workforce in just six years. By 1916, people representing more than 30 nationalities were working in the mills and living in South Bethlehem.
Library of Congress