For just over 100 years, Pennsylvania was truly "the steel capital of the world." Making steel was a great drama of wealth and poverty, of soaring skyscrapers and gritty mill towns, of the clash between the imperatives of profit and human dignity. Pennsylvania's steel built the Brooklyn Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, the Chrysler Building and the Empire State building.
Continue the Story...
Bring this subject into focus through the following chapters. These stories take exploration of the main story further by providing more detail for you to learn and explore.
Take your students back in history with these discussions and activities for the classroom
1848 |
Andrew Carnegie and family emigrate to US, settle in Pittsburgh |
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1860 |
Lehigh Valley Railroad founds Bethlehem Iron; managers hire John Fritz from Cambria |
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1865 |
Andrew Carnegie "retires" from Pennsylvania Railroad and takes up career as investor and capitalist |
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1875 |
Carnegie opens Edgar Thomson steel rail mill, in Braddock, Pennsylvania |
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1876 |
Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers founded |
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1877 |
Railroad strike in Pittsburgh |
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1883 |
Carnegie buys rival Homestead Steel Works (built 1881) |
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1886 |
Founding of American Federation of Labor led by Samuel Gompers |
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1891 |
Carnegie buys rival Duquesne Steel Works (built 1886) |
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1892 |
Homestead strike at Carnegie |
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1899 |
Carnegie reorganizes his several steel companies to form Carnegie Steel; annual profit next year reaches $40 million |
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1901 |
Banker J.P. Morgan forms U.S. Steel Corporation from Carnegie holdings; strike in steel industry |
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1904 |
Charles Schwab merges Bethlehem with United States Shipbuilding Co. to form Bethlehem Steel Corp. |
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1917 |
Pittsburgh area supplies 80% of the munitions steel during World War I |
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1917 - 1918 |
U.S. in World War I; forms (temporary) War Labor Board |
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1919 |
Three-month nationwide steel strike; "red scare"; deaths of both Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick |
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1925 |
U.S.S. Lexington, America's first aircraft carrier, launched at Bethlehem's Fore River (Quincy, Mass.) shipyard |
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1929 |
Stock Market crashes; Great Depression begins |
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1931 |
Bethlehem Steel forms Fabricated Steel Construction division from McClintic-Marshall erecting company |
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1932 |
Franklin D. Roosevelt elected president |
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1933 |
President Roosevelt signs National Industrial Recovery Act, setting up industrial "codes" with labor-friendly section 7(a) |
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1933 |
Pennsylvania unemployment reaches 37% |
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1935 |
John L. Lewis forms Congress of Industrial Organizations |
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1935 |
National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) passes, giving workers the right to bargain collectively |
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1936 |
CIO forms Steel Workers Organizing Committee in Pittsburgh, headed by Philip Murray |
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1937 |
SWOC signs contract with Carnegie-Illinois division of U.S. Steel |
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1937 |
Memorial Day massacre in Chicago's Republic Steel plant during "Little Steel" strike |
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1937 |
Supreme Court upholds 1935 Wagner Act in NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp. |
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1941 |
U.S. enters World War II; U.S. government forces Bethlehem Steel to recognize SWOC union; at wartime peak Bethlehem employs 300,000 |
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1942 |
SWOC becomes United Steelworkers of America; Philip Murray elected president |
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1947 |
Congress passes Taft-Hartley Act restricting union activities |
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1950 |
Pittsburgh city population peaks at 677,000; Korean War begins |
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1952 |
President Truman intervenes in national steel strikes |
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1953 |
David J. McDonald becomes president of USWA |
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1955 |
Merger of the AFL and CIO |
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1959 |
540,000 steelworkers begin 116-day strike, longest in industry's history |
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1964 |
Bethlehem opens large Burns Harbor, Indiana, complex; installs first BOF furnaces at Lackawanna, NY. |
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1965 |
I.W. Abel elected president of USWA |
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1975 |
Bethlehem operates first "continuous caster" at Burns Harbor Mill |
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1976 |
Bethlehem Steel closes Fabricated Steel Construction division, owned since 1931 |
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1982 |
Bethlehem Steel begins shutdown of Lackawanna Steel in Buffalo, New York |
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1986 |
U.S. Steel, having bought Marathon Oil in 1982, changes name to "USX Corporation" |
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1991 |
Walt Disney Co. replaces USX Corp. in Dow Jones Industrial Average |
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1992 |
Bethlehem Steel shuts down Cambria plant at Johnstown |
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1995 |
Bethlehem Steel begins shutdown of flagship steelmaking plant in Bethlehem |
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1997 |
Bethlehem Steel dropped from Dow Jones Industrial Average |
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2000 |
Bethlehem Steel dropped from S and P 500 Index of leading companies |
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2001 |
United States Steel reorganized as free-standing corporation, independent from Marathon Oil |
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2003 |
Bethlehem Steel ends corporate existence, assets purchased by International Steel Group |
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