Who We Are - Volume 2 - Chapter 7: Steel as a National Project - Part 1
By Anton Chaitkin; Copyright Anton Chaitkin
Who We Are - Volume 2 - Chapter 7: Steel as a National Project - Part 1
By Anton Chaitkin; Copyright Anton Chaitkin
During the Civil War, the leaders of the Pennsylvania Railroad and their closest allies began planning a steel industry for the United States. After the war, they would set up the country’s first steel company, and would organize and drive forward a whole industry of several firms, until American steelmaking exploded toward world leadership.
These Philadelphia planners were political nationalists.
They had fought for the country’s survival. They were eager to revolutionize the U.S. economy. And they wanted to alter the world’s political power structure, which was then stacked against the rise of sovereign nations.
Steel would be essential for these historic changes.
The metal was not new. It was the same material, just hardened and purified iron, that ancient peoples had made slowly and turned into very costly swords and tools.
But the British had just developed the new “Bessemer” process, to produce steel cheaply and quickly. As we discuss this technology, below, we will see that an American inventor had conceived of the same process – but the British had the resources to push the concept through to large-scale output around 1864, while the Americans were beset by the catastrophe of Civil War.
The news of Britain’s breakthrough focused American strategists’ attention on the sudden new potential for U.S. industrial progress. It also rang an alarm bell concerning the gap between the capabilities of the American republic and those of its inveterate enemy, the British empire.
Military logistics men saw an acute problem: iron rails were obsolete.
The needs of war increased railroad traffic; and faster trains with bigger loads required powerful, heavy locomotives. Iron rails could not support the added strains and needed replacement after six months at the busiest junctures. That service disruption added to the expense. Worse still, increased demand for iron raised its price and led to the use of ores and equipment of inferior quality.[1]
Iron’s relative weakness was also a crucial issue with weapons, such as cannons that burst when fired.
Cheap durable steel could solve such problems, and could open the door to deep technological transformation -- but only in the post-war future. Building up a completely new American production capability would require years of struggle: to gain technical expertise, and to prevail over the imperial “free trade” system that blocked independent industrial power.
The narrative you are reading is the first historical account of the creation of America’s steel industry as a project. We will follow a distinct set of leaders acting in the national interest as well as their own, innovating in private industry while shaping the government policy essential to make their enterprise successful.[2]
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