Guide to the Records of the Carnegie Steel Company, 1853-1912 (bulk 1869-1890)
Arrangement
Repository
Heinz History Center
Title
Records of the Carnegie Steel Company
Creator
Carnegie Steel Company
Collection Number
MSS#315
Extent
50 cubic feet(88 boxes)
Date
1853-1912
Date
1869-1890
Abstract
The Carnegie Steel Company was the final conglomeration of several steelworks, bridge companies and coke works under Andrew Carnegie. Beginning with the firm of Carnegie, Kloman and Company, Andrew Carnegie created several more steelworks and other companies eventually becoming the largest producer of steel in the world. In 1901, Carnegie sold his interests in his company to financier J.P. Morgan, leading to the development of US Steel Corporation, which later became known as USX. After retiring from business, Carnegie set his ambitions towards philanthropic activities. Among his efforts were the thousands of libraries created throughout Europe and North America. Altogether, Carnegie gave away over $350 million. These materials include correspondence, letter books, financial materials, organizational materials, legal documents, news clippings, publications and other materials
Language
The material in this collection is in English.
Author
This guide to the collection was originally prepared by: D.MacGregor, Craig Moore and Ernest Ziga on August 25, 2000. Revisions occurred to the finding aid as a part of the encoding process in Spring, 2001.
Sponsor
This finding aid has been encoded as a part of the Historic Pittsburgh project a joint effort of the University of Pittsburgh and the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. Funding for this portion of the project has been donated by the Hillman Foundation.
Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), founder of the Carnegie Steel Company, was born on November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Scotland, to William and Margaret (Morrison) Carnegie. His family immigrated to Western Pennsylvania and settled in Allegheny City in 1848, where Andrew worked as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill. He later became a telegraph messenger, then an operator, for the Pennsylvania Railroad under its division superintendent, Thomas A. Scott. Carnegie worked his way up the organization, becoming an assistant division superintendent in 1856 and eventually replacing Scott as division superintendent in 1859. Andrew's brother, Thomas M. (1843-1885), worked as his assistant. Andrew began to invest his money and to undertake various business ventures, the first of which was the purchase of ten shares of stock in the Adams Express Company in 1856. His first endeavor in the iron business occurred in 1863 when his friends, Thomas N. Miller and Henry Phipps, Jr., asked him to arbitrate a dispute they were having in their partnership with Anthony Kloman. Miller was reluctantly expelled from the partnership in 1863 and replaced by Thomas M. Carnegie. Miller began construction of a rival mill on Thirty-Third Street, known as the Cyclops Iron Company, of which Andrew invested a large share. Thomas encouraged his brother to consolidate the two mills and an agreement was reached in 1865 with the Kloman & Phipps Company to create the Union Iron Mills Company with an Upper Union Mill and a Lower Union Mill. At this time, Carnegie helped form the Keystone Bridge Co., formerly the Piper & Shiffler Bridge Works, to manufacture bridge and structural material. This company became an invaluable source for Carnegie's steel and was successful creating bridges such as the Mississippi River Bridge in St. Louis, Missouri, the Missouri River Bridge in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, and the Ohio River Bridge in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
In 1870, the firm of Kloman, Carnegie & Company was formed in order to construct a blast furnace for the purpose of supplying pig iron, a necessary ingredient in the steel making process, to the Union Iron Mills. The first furnace constructed as a result of this venture was the Lucy Furnace, built at Fifty-First Street in Pittsburgh. Another furnace, the Isabella Furnace, was built, and both began production in 1872.
Another significant enterprise occurred in 1871 when Thomas Carnegie and his father-in-law, William Coleman, obtained the option for 107 acres of land in Braddock, Pa., along the Monongahela River. Carnegie, McCandless & Company was formed to fund the purchase of the tract of land. The purpose of this venture was to construct a plant that used the new Bessemer process to construct rails. Coleman had observed the Bessemer process in Johnstown, Cleveland, and Harrisburg, while Carnegie observed the process in England. The company was dissolved in 1874 as a result of the economic panic of 1873 and replaced by the limited liability company known as the Edgar Thomson Steel Co., Ltd. Alex L. Holley, the engineer responsible for the first such Bessemer mills in America, designed the plant with improvements which would rival those built elsewhere. Carnegie had the foresight to hire talented men to run the new mill. A worker's strike at the Cambria Iron Works afforded him the opportunity to acquire this talent. Among these men was Captain William R. Jones who was made superintendent of the works. The plant was completed in 1875 and began producing rails in that year. Eventually, four furnaces were constructed at the site between 1879 and 1885. The Union Iron Mills, Lucy Furnaces, the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, and several coke interests including the Larimer Coke Works were consolidated in 1881 under the name Carnegie Brothers & Company, Limited.
In 1879, Andrew Kloman, who left the partnership with Phipps and the Carnegies a few years earlier, began to build a new mill in Homestead. In addition, the Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Company Limited, of which Kloman was a partner, purchased neighboring land with the purpose of the mills operating together. Kloman, however, died before its completion in 1881, and the Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Company purchased Klomans mill. The first labor strike occurred at the Homestead mill in the same year as a result of workers refusing to sign a non-union agreement. The strike granted Carnegie the opportunity to relieve Pittsburgh Bessemer of their mill. In 1883, Carnegie and his partners purchased the Homestead works and made Julian Kennedy its superintendent. Marked improvements were added including a new bar and angle mill in 1885 and a slabbing-mill. More important, Phipps encouraged Kennedy to build the first open-hearth furnace in America. Carnegie, Phipps & Company, Limited was organized in 1886 to manage the Homestead mill and its consolidation with Wilson, Walker and Company.
Henry Clay Frick became involved with Carnegie and the steel industry early on. Frick and Company owned some fifty coke ovens in the Connellsville area, which supplied its essential coke product to fuel Carnegie's mills. Ten years later, Carnegie purchased half the stock in Frick's Company, and it was renamed the H.C. Frick Coke Company. By 1889, the H.C. Frick Coke Company owned thousands of acres of coal lands and almost ten thousand coke ovens in the Connellsville area. At this time, Frick became chairman of Carnegie Brothers & Company, Limited. Frick's leadership better consolidated Carnegies' holdings and helped it expand with the acquisition of the Duquesne Works in 1890. Frick later was named chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company Limited, in 1892. This manifestation of the company combined the Upper and Lower Union Mills, the Lucy Furnaces, the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the Homestead Works, Duquesne Works, and Keystone Bridge Works.
A significant event occurred in labor history at the Homestead mill in 1892. Disagreements between workers and management on the reduction of the wage scale, a change in the date of operation for the new scale, and a reduction of tonnage rates, prompted a strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AAISW). Violence erupted between the striking workers and Pinkerton Guards hired by Frick, who attempted to reopen the property sealed by the strikers. Three of the agents were killed, the rest routed. State militia restored order in Homestead and production continued without the eight hundred AAISW workers.
The years following the strike saw a significant increase in net profits. Fricks' leadership in Carnegie Steel helped escalate profits from about $4 million per year in 1892 to $40 million in 1900. Carnegie grew more detached from his steel businesses, spending the majority of his time overseas in Scotland. He expressed interest in selling off his holdings as early as 1889. The opportunity finally presented itself in 1901 when financier J.P. Morgan accepted Carnegies' $492 million offer to purchase Carnegie Steel, thus establishing the United States Steel Corporation. Although Carnegie began his philanthropic activities much earlier, he was now at liberty to concentrate on these efforts. He set up a $5 million pension fund for his former employees, another $10 million to universities in Scotland, and $6 million for churches. His most prolific donations, however, were made to finance public libraries in the United States and England. All told, Carnegie gave away some $350 million. He died in Lenox, Massachusetts, on August 11, 1919.
Scope and Content Notes
These materials include correspondence, letter books, financial materials, organizational materials, legal documents, news clippings, publications and other materials. The papers primarily relate to Carnegie's philanthropic, financial and business concerns. The papers lack a personal side to Carnegie. They focus on the costs, payments and investments. Even Carnegie's personal correspondence centers on the economics of his leisure time. This is quite evident in his correspondence in series one, relative to his horses and stables at Cresson, Pennsylvania. The majority of the papers have been transcribed and in most cases, a carbon copy of the transcription also exists. The transcriptions have been maintained with the original. In some cases additional copies were made and grouped together by a subject. These subject files have been maintained and placed at the end of each relevant category.
Arrangement
The Carnegie Steel Company records are arranged in four series. Series have been designated for Andrew Carnegie, Corporation records, Business records, and Index and Research files.
The Carnegie Steel Company records are housed in eighty-eight archival boxes.
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for research.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
These papers came in two accessions. The first accession was delivered in three shipments. The first shipment of six boxes was received on October 4, 1995. The second shipment of nine boxes was received on January 19, 1996. The third shipment of thirteen boxes was received on March 27, 1996. The second accession came in one shipment of two boxes on March 23, 2001.
Acc# 1995.0252 Gift of James L. Hamilton, III, General Manger, Public Affairs, USX Corporation.
Acc# 2001.0055 Gift of William E. Kesslar, Director-Public Affairs-Corporate, USX Corporation.
Preferred Citation
Records of the Carnegie Steel Corporation 1853-1912 (bulk 1869-1890), MSS# 315, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania
Processing Information
This collection was processed by Doug MacGregor, Craig Moore, and Ernest Ziga on August 25, 2000.
Revision and rearrangement for the encoded version of the finding aid provided by Doug MacGregor on April 19, 2001.
Conditions Governing Use
Property rights reside with the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or publish, please contact the curator of the Archives.
Subjects
Corporate Names
Carnegie Steel Company
Carnegie, Kloman and Company
Carnegie Brothers Company
Carnegie, McCandless and Company
Carnegie, Phipps and Company
Hartman Steel Company
Lucy Furnace Company
Edgar Thomson Steelworks
Keokuk and Hamilton Bridge Company
Keystone Bridge Company
Pennsylvania Railroad
Kloman Mine Company
Larimer Coke Works
H.C. Frick Coke Company
Davenport and St. Louis Railroad
Gilman, Clinton and Springfield Railroad
Iowa Railroad Contracting Company
Mansfield, Coldwater, and Lake Michigan Railroad Company
Pullman Palace Car Company
Central Transportation Company
Texas and Pacific Railway
Union Pacific Railroad
Wilson, Walker and Company
Pacific and Atlantic Telegraph Company
Western Union Telegraph Company
Personal Names
Carnegie, Andrew (1835-1919)
Phipps, Henry, Jr. (1839-1930)
McCandless, Gardner F.
Morgan, J. Pierpoint (1837-1913)
Carnegie, Thomas Morrison (1843-1885)
Scott, Thomas A. (1823-1881)
Thomson, J. Edgar (1808-1874)
Kloman, Anthony
Shinn, William P.
Holly, Alexander L.
Jones, William R., Captain (1839-1889)
Schwab, Charles M. (1862-1939)
Frick, Henry Clay (1849-1919)
Lauder, George, Sr.
Lauder, George, Jr., Dod
Bridge, James H. (1858-1939)
Geographic Names
Dunfirmline -- Scotland -- Libraries
Dunfirmline -- Scotland -- Public Baths
Dunfirmline -- Scotland -- Philanthropy
Other Subjects
Steel Collection
Bridges, iron and steel
Steel foundries -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
Steel industry and trade -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
Steel industry -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh -- 19th century
