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FEATURE

Around the World with Bethlehem by Sharon Ann Holt

ive blast furnaces still standing at the plant in South Bethlehem cast long shadows over the site and the community. When slag was dumped from the furnaces at night, people living on the surrounding hills thought the flow looked like volcanic lava. At the peak of operations in 1957, the power of those furnaces provided employment directly for 165,000 people and ancillary livelihoods for hundreds of thousands more. As a corporation, though, Bethlehem Steel cast an even larger shadow than Top: Ben Franklin Bridge footwalkF beams during construction, Apr. 1926. its tall furnaces, and the power of its products flowed far beyond the Record Photograph Collection. sightlines of those hills.

Above: Charles M. Schwab. From Arundel Shan Holt is the director of programs at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) at Rutgers Cotter, The Story of Bethlehem Steel University-Camden and has taken a leading role in helping a coalition of Bethlehem citizens’ groups craft a vision (New York, 1916). for the future of the Bethlehem Steel site.

November 2006 LEGACIES 5 Around the World with Bethlehem Steel

From its incorporation in 1904, sense, required this kind of global to guess which would be the most Bethlehem Steel Corporation extension. Steel is a manufactured useful, and therefore profitable, dedicated its operations to putting metal, not something that comes final forms for each day’s output. goods in motion. The Bethlehem naturally from the ground like iron or Each aspect of the business Steel Company functioned as the copper; many different kinds, grades, presented opportunities to reach enterprise within a hardnesses, and degrees of flexibility around the world. corporation that actually had more can be built into steel by carefully Nineteenth-century invested in . With mixing a stew of specific ingredients. entrepreneurs began making iron in Harlan and Hollingsworth yards in The great 19th-century oil magnate, Bethlehem using the rich nearby Wilmington, Delaware, Union Iron John D. Rockefeller, had taught veins of iron ore and plentiful Works in San Francisco, California, American capitalists to be wary of supplies of fuel (wood and later coal) two shipyards each in New Jersey dependence upon other businesses for for the furnaces. By the time and Maine, and one in Groton, essential ingredients. Far better, in Bethlehem Steel Corporation began Connecticut, the Steel started its Rockefeller’s opinion, simply to own its industrial operations, though, corporate life already as a beast with not just the wells but also the drilling those resources had been almost fully many tentacles. Charles Schwab, the companies, the oil-drum makers, the tapped. In less than a decade, forceful personality behind the railroads, and ultimately even the Schwab acquired iron mines in corporation in its formative and retail stations. In something as Michigan and Minnesota and coal flourishing years, had an endless complicated as steelmaking, the same mines in West Virginia, as well as a appetite for acquisitions, something imperatives applied, and Charles variety of mineral sources in Cuba, he had learned in his youth working Schwab followed Rockfeller’s Chile, Venezuela, Mexico, and for ’s legendary steel man, example in full. Canada. Purchasing the struggling Andrew Carnegie. Whenever prices The technology of steelmaking Pennsylvania Steel Company in 1916 were down, Schwab bought, and in has three basic steps. First, iron ore brought Schwab more Cuban mines, the end the empire of Bethlehem is heated with other selected plus rich coal deposits in central Steel Corporation stretched Pennsylvania. across the globe. Iron ore does not Steelmaking, in a certain move by itself, of course, so Rockefeller’s principle and its shaft made by required the acquisition of Bethlehem Steel for the World’s rail and shipping concerns to Columbian Exposition, 1895. Bethlehem bring the resources to the Steel Corporation and Bethlehem Ship furnaces in Bethlehem. The Corporation photograph collection, Beaver Shipping Company of Hagley Museum and Library. Cleveland, Ohio, joined the corporation in 1916, its steamships carrying iron ore around the Great Lakes from Minnesota’s Mesaba Range and Michigan’s Gogebic. ingredients in blast furnaces to Starting in 1927, the Calmar produce molten iron. Second, the Steamship lines operated along the molten iron is mixed and heated coasts of North America and in a changing variety of processes through the Panama Canal, to create steel. Finally, the molten supplying Bethlehem’s furnaces steel is cast, shaped, rolled, with an international mix of drilled, or otherwise made into an mineral resources. almost endless array of useful Iron ore, moreover, will not turn forms. Steelmaking was grueling, itself into steel without the labor of hot, dangerous, and unforgiving; thousands of working men and the skill and endurance required women. The long geographic reach helped create dense bonds of of Bethlehem Steel includes the camaraderie on shop floors places, in the United States and throughout the company. abroad, that laborers left behind to Business success in steelmaking try their luck at the plant. The First depended upon having the World War (1914–18) created a expertise and skill to manage all great deal of anxiety among the varied mixtures, to find the Americans about the loyalty of most cost-effective manufacturing immigrant populations, especially and transportation methods, and those whose origins lay in countries

6 Pennsylvania LEGACIES November 2006 Around the World with Bethlehem Steel allied with the Germans. In early paraded through the small village 1918, only a few months after the there. The Bethlehem Steel United States entered the war, Company band was on hand and Bethlehem Steel reported “that we furnished martial music.” have 10,500 foreign-born employees Apparently “it was a joyous in the various departments of the occasion for the men.” The Bethlehem plant alone, there being corporation also introduced its fifty-eight different nationalities weekly readers to Professor Julian represented in all.” But the company Korski Grove, a Polish-born newssheet, Bethlehem Steel, hurried American and political science to say that “over 2500 of these professor from the University of employees have their naturalization California. Professor Grove had papers, and are citizens of the United been engaged by the federal States” while others, they assured government to “take charge of readers, were in the process of Americanization in this city and becoming citizens. In general, they suburbs.” The editors hoped that soothingly asserted, “there is great workers would “render him all the evidence that our foreign-born assistance possible.” To smooth Construction of the , 1934. employees are fast realizing what it the professor on his way, the editors Bethlehem Steel Corporation and Bethlehem Ship would mean if the Hun should win printed his appeal in English, Polish, Corporation photograph collection, Hagley Museum this war.” Hungarian, Slovak, Greek, Spanish, and Library. The same publication in later and Italian. issues promoted the Hungarian- Bethlehem Steel also celebrated liked working to the music of the American Loyalty League, a African American loyalty to the company band. federally sponsored effort to find national cause, but not without Bethlehem Steel Corporation Hungarians and their descendants overwhelming condescension. Black acted like a gargantuan magnet and administer an oath of allegiance men, many of them migrants from drawing people and resources to the to the United States. It is not clear southern states, found jobs at the . But as wide as its that Hungarians responded with any Steel, but on the general labor crew geographic reach became in the work alacrity to this appeal. The editors and in the coke works, the dirtiest of producing steel, it is even more of the newssheet hoped that Bethle- and poorest paid aspects of the astonishing to map the places where hem’s Hungarians might lead the business. In May 1918, the Bethlehem’s steel was put to use. It way in showing other immigrants newssheet presented the accidental would be a hard job indeed to find a their duty. death of one member of the place untouched by Bethlehem Steel. Northampton coke works crew, New York City drivers routinely rely James Murray, untinged with any on Bethlehem Steel as they travel the It would be a hard official sorrow, merely as an object , the job indeed to find a lesson against laziness and deceit on Williamsburg Bridge, the Queensboro the job. Murray’s death occurred Bridge, the Verrazano Narrows place untouched by when hot coke was dumped in a way Bridge, and the Holland Tunnel. The that sealed an alcove where he had crowds of sports and music fans who Bethlehem Steel. lain down to take a rest, forcing him gather at either to suffocate in the alcove or ought to know that the roof gets its Hungarians were not the only climb across the blistering hot coke. strength from Bethlehem Steel. concern, though. Americanization He chose to try to escape and died of Traffic along I-78 rolls on Bethlehem was actively promoted in these years, his burns. The editors could scarcely Steel across the Newark Bay Bridge and Bethlehem Steel supported it have been more callous, mocking-up at Bayonne, headed to and from directly for many immigrant groups pictures of a man sleeping and then Jersey City. Rail traffic heading out and their descendants. On June 15, trying to escape the hot coke and of the mid-Atlantic toward New 1918, the company reported in its then suggesting that “every employee England crosses the Hell Gate newssheet that “several hundred should profit by James Murray’s Bridge, a gorgeous span over the Italians and Spaniards,” railroad costly experience” and warn each East River designed by Austrian- workers who lived in bunkhouses other against sleeping on the job. born engineer Gustav Lindenthal, behind the No. 5 shop in Bethlehem, One month later, the June 2 issue of famous for his determination that “participated in the raising of an the newssheet celebrated the modern industrial infrastructure American and an Italian flag at the patriotism of the men at the ought to be, and could be, bunk house. . . . After the flags were Northhampton coke works, noting in inspiringly beautiful. raised [accompanied by an oration in classic racist fashion that the men In Philadelphia, Bethlehem Steel Italian] . . . the men took the oath of had cheerfully backed off their shepherds you across either the Ben allegiance and formed into line and demands for a raise and especially Franklin or the Walt Whitman

November 2006 Pennsylvania LEGACIES 7 Around the World with Bethlehem Steel

Bridge, and will follow you across Garden/Penn Station in New York Not only has Bethlehem Steel the Market Street bridge on the and Union Station in Washington, left imprints across the western Schuylkill, the city’s second river. DC, all began life as molten iron in hemisphere, since the dawn of the Drivers who brave rush hour on Bethlehem’s furnaces. 20th century it has played an Philadelphia’s Schuylkill Expressway Heading west to escape the long important role in a century marked admire the river as they wait, shadow of Bethlehem Steel, you decisively by global warfare. In the thankful no doubt that Bethlehem would need to avoid Pittsburgh, early 1890s, Bethlehem Iron Steel bridge spans are strong enough Cleveland, and Chicago, as well as Company delivered steel plates 16 to stand up under the load. Anyone Toledo, Ohio, all sites of Bethlehem inches thick to be used in armoring whose attention wanders may find Steel operations. In 1893, visitors to the Russian battleship Petropavlovsk, reason to be grateful for the strength Chicago’s World’s Columbian the flagship of imperial Russia’s of the guard rails, the originals of Exposition thrilled to ride the Ferris Pacific fleet. Charles Schwab which were made by Bethlehem wheel, turning on a colossal shaft of competed worldwide for naval work, Steel. Bethlehem Steel and rising to heights eventually winning part of the Further south, the Delaware Bay that were breathtaking in the age European market for armor plating Bridge tips its hat to Bethlehem, as before airplanes. Traveling north into in 1906 and, in 1910, a contract to does the Millard Tydings Bridge Michigan, it might take your fancy to equip the Argentine navy. The Fore across the Susquehanna at Havre-de- cross into Canada on Detroit’s River shipyard in Quincy, Grace, . Taking the train famously black Ambassador Bridge. Massachusetts, capable of building will not reduce your On that bridge, the largest ships then known, dependence on you nearly mishandled part of the Argentine Bethlehem Steel. The escape the Steel; project, a setback that prompted Steel was as famous in the Ambassador Schwab to buy out the entire its heyday for its rails was built by shipyard. Once in possession of the as for its structural H- McClintic- yard, Schwab went on to build, beams. Northeast Marshall, repair, and armor ships for the U.S. Corridor rails and Pittsburgh steel Navy through the two world wars. power towers, along fabricators, and In the early years of the First with Madison Square completed one World War, Schwab created a year before scandal by contracting to build Elevated steel water tank, McClintic- experimental submarines for the Garden City, Long Island, 1933, Marshall was British Admiralty. To protect and transmission tower, both of bought up by American neutrality, President Bethlehem Steel. Bethlehem none other than Woodrow Wilson stepped in and Steel Corporation and Bethlehem Ship Corporation Bethlehem Steel stopped the sale. Schwab built the photograph collection, Hagley Corporation. submarines anyway, in his Canadian Museum and Library. McClintic- yards. Though there must have been Marshall also little affection between the built locks for straitlaced Wilson and the high- the Panama living Schwab, Wilson was not one to Canal, so do not think to cruise to overlook talent. Perhaps bowing to the Pacific without being brushed by necessity by 1918, Wilson appointed Bethlehem Steel. Schwab director of the unproductive As you continue westward, you Emergency Fleet Corporation. may want to stop and see the famous Schwab successfully reactivated the Grand Coulee Dam, built with paralyzed agency. Bethlehem Steel Bethlehem Steel, or cross the Golden shipyards built on this reputation Gate Bridge in San Francisco, built, during World War II, repairing like the Oakland Bay Bridge, with nearly 38,000 vessels and building Bethlehem Steel. Perhaps 1,085, including everything from Bethlehem’s most dramatic bridge landing craft to battleships. story concerns “Galloping Gertie,” Bethlehem Steel workers created the nickname of the first Tacoma beams, rails, components, and plates Narrows Bridge built and then blown for many glamorous buildings, down in 1940, to be replaced by a magnificent bridges, and powerful new bridge constructed of Bethlehem ships. But we are a land infused with Steel, which stands to this day, steel. Steel also built things far more connecting Tacoma, Washington, and ordinary, things we might not notice the Olympic peninsula to the rest of at all, unless directed to see them. the state. Bethlehem Steel controlled a huge

8 Pennsylvania LEGACIES November 2006 STEEL IN THE WIND:THE STORY OF GALLOPING GERTIE by Sharon Ann Holt

On July 1, 1940, the state of Washington proudly opened the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, a graceful suspension bridge perched high above a channel in lower Puget Sound. Surpassed in length only by the George Washington Bridge in New York and the Golden Gate in San Francisco, the new bridge linking Seattle residents with the vast lands of the Olympic peninsula had taken two years and $6.4 million to build. Bridge workers and people who used the bridge’s roadway and sidewalks quickly nicknamed it “Gallop- ing Gertie” for its disconcerting tendency to buck and sway in the wind. And only four months and seven days after its grand opening, the bridge dramatically tore itself apart in a high wind, sending the entire roadbed crashing into the Narrows and creating what newspapers called “the most spectacular failure of an engineering structure the West Coast has ever seen.” Galloping Gertie, 11:00 a.m., Nov. 7, 1940. From The Failure of the Tacoma Bob Owens, tolltaker for the bridge, recalled that Narrows Bridge (College Station, TX, 1944). Hagley Museum and Library. on the morning of November 7, 1940, the bridge had been closed between 9:30 and 9:45, as it was “swinging replacing the bridge. Replacement took ten years, very wildly from side to side and up and down.” One thanks to legal maneuvers, insurance claims, and car caught on the bridge bounced into the air and the extensive engineering studies called for by landed on its side. The driver, Leonard Coatsworth, investigations of the collapse. Active outreach and and the driver of a truck also caught on the bridge education about plans for the new bridge helped to scrambled to safety on hands and knees. Coatsworth’s rebuild public confidence, as did a return to time-tested dog, a cocker spaniel named Tubby, could not be saved. designs. After more than two years of construction Too panicked to leave the car, Tubby bit at least one work, the new bridge of Bethlehem Steel opened on would-be rescuer. At 11:10, Owens recalled, “there was October 14, 1950. Engineered to carry 60,000 vehicles one big heave to the North and then back to the per day, the “current bridge” as the state department of South,” then cables snapped and the center span transportation calls it, has seen continually increasing plunged into the water. traffic demands, spurring the department to build a Clark Eldridge, engineer for the bridge, defended second span alongside, set to open in 2007. his original designs, accusing penny-pinching Far below today’s bridge of Bethlehem Steel, bureaucrats of favoring a dangerous design innovation Galloping Gertie still plays a role in the story of Puget proposed by “an eastern firm of engineers, chosen by Sound. The collapsed roadbed lies more than 180 feet the money-lenders.” Investigators, while not absolving deep in the Narrows, playing host to barnacles, schools Eldridge and his team, agreed that the bridge had been of fish, and colonies of octopi. While her far more too slender and light, and that the innovative girders stable sister carries the traffic, Gertie remains an object dangerously resisted and deflected wind that should lesson in engineering classrooms, and an irresistible have been allowed to pass through. They called for destination for scuba divers. t wind-tunnel testing of all bridge designs. The story of Galloping Gertie is recorded in the Bethlehem Steel Bethlehem Steel Corporation took on the job of Corporation records at the Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE. share of the market for steel bars pressure in the water supply. And great dams that irrigate American used to reinforce concrete—the basic many of the high voltage electric farms. Bethlehem is the last building material of every high-speed lines that hum overhead across the remaining integrated steelworks still highway and the concrete floors of land rest on towers made, like so standing in America, the last place every in the United much else, of Bethlehem Steel. where people can see, feel, and touch States. Every morning millions of Today the blast furnaces are this industry that circled the globe. Americans drive to work on those silent and the machine shops echo, Efforts to preserve and interpret the roads and spend their days in those though the Lehigh Valley is filled site depend in the end upon the offices—thanks to the strength of with men and women who remember ability of people around the world to Bethlehem Steel. Even out in the working at the Steel. But the ghost of understand and embrace how country, far from highways and the Steel shimmers in every turn of Bethlehem Steel, and the steel office buildings, far from bridges and the faucet or flip of a switch. Steel is industry more generally, has , the Steel is still there. there behind every trip to the store indelibly marked our time and how Water towers stand on structural or family vacation; it’s there in naval deeply it reaches, even today, into steel from Bethlehem, regulating service records, and it’s there in the our lives. t

November 2006 Pennsylvania LEGACIES 9