Bethlehem Steel: Builder and Arsenal of America » (1)

Kenneth Warren is Emeritus Fellow of Jesus College, University of Oxford. He is the author of numerous books, including: Industrial Genius: The Working Life of Charles Michael Schwab; Big Steel: The First Century of the United States Steel Corporation 1901-2001; and Wealth, Waste, and Alienation: Growth and Decline in the Connellsville Coke Industry.

Bethlehem Steel presents an original and compelling history of a leading American company, examining the numerous factors contributing to the growth of this titan and those that eventually felled it—along with many of its competitors in the U.S. steel industry.

List of Figures and Tables

Pt. I The Bethlehem Iron Company, 1857-1899

1 The Early Years and the Decline of the Anthracite Iron Industry 3

2 The Establishment and Growth of Iron and Steel Making in Bethlehem 15

3 Failure in Commercial Steels, 1880-1899 32

4 Armaments and Ores 43

Pt. II From a Struggling Plant to the Second Rank in Steel

5 Reorganizing and Redirecting Bethlehem Steel 67

6 War Materiel, Ships, and Commercial Products, 1904-1914 84

7 Wartime Activity, Expansion, and Mergers, 1914-1923 102

8 Bethlehem Steel in the 1920s Boom 116

9 Retrenchment, Reconstruction, and War, 1930-1945 132

10 Material Supplies, Growth, and Competition in the East, 1945-1957 150

11 Steel Making in the Far West and Midwest 165

Pt. III Triumph, Crisis, and Collapse

12 Shipbuilding, Steel, and Labor in Bethlehem's Peak Years 181

13 Responding to Crises in the 1980s 210

14 Paring Away the Unviable 229

15 Hope and Hope Dashed: Trade and Rationalization during the 1990s 245

16 Into the Abyss 259

Epilogue: The Roots of Decline 271

App. A Statistical Tables 275

App. B Chairmen and Presidents of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, 1904-2003 286

Notes 287

Bibliography 311

Index 317