Charles M. Schwab
Encyclopedia
Charles Michael Schwab (18 February 1862 – 18 October 1939) was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

 magnate. Under his leadership, Bethlehem Steel
Bethlehem Steel
The Bethlehem Steel Corporation , based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was once the second-largest steel producer in the United States, after Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based U.S. Steel. After a decline in the U.S...

 became the second largest steel maker in the United States, and one of the most important heavy manufacturers in the world.

Early life

Schwab was born in Williamsburg, Pennsylvania
Williamsburg, Pennsylvania
Williamsburg in Morrisons Cove, is a borough in Blair County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,345 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Altoona, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...

, the son of Pauline (née Farabaugh) and John Anthony Schwab. Both his paternal and maternal grandparents were Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 immigrants from Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. Schwab was raised in Loretto, Pennsylvania
Loretto, Pennsylvania
Loretto is a borough in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is officially part of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area as recognized by the US Census Bureau, but local sources list it as part of the Altoona, Pennsylvania area due to its proximity to...

, which he always considered his "home town". He attended Saint Francis College
Saint Francis University
Saint Francis University is a four-year, coeducational Catholic liberal arts university in Loretto, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1847 and conducted under the tradition of the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular...

, now Saint Francis University, but left after two years to find work in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...

.

Career

Schwab began his career as a engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

 in Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...

's steelworks and in 1897, at only 35 years of age, became president of the Carnegie Steel Company
Carnegie Steel Company
Carnegie Steel Company was a steel producing company created by Andrew Carnegie to manage business at his steel mills in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area in the late 19th century.-Creation:...

. In 1901, he helped negotiate the secret sale of Carnegie Steel to a group of New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

-based financier
Financier
Financier is a term for a person who handles typically large sums of money, usually involving money lending, financing projects, large-scale investing, or large-scale money management. The term is French, and derives from finance or payment...

s led by J.P. Morgan. After the buyout, Schwab became the first president of the U.S. Steel
U.S. Steel
The United States Steel Corporation , more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an integrated steel producer with major production operations in the United States, Canada, and Central Europe. The company is the world's tenth largest steel producer ranked by sales...

 Corporation, the company formed out of Carnegie's former holdings.

After several clashes with Morgan and fellow US Steel executive Elbert Gary, Schwab left USS in 1903 to run the Bethlehem Shipbuilding and Steel Company in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The company had gained shipyards in California, Delaware, and New Jersey through its brief but fortunate involvement as one of the few solvent enterprises in United States Shipbuilding Company
United States Shipbuilding Company
The United States Shipbuilding Company was a short-lived trust made up of seven shipbuilding companies, a property owner and steel company. Its stocks and bonds were unattractive to investors, and several of its member shipyards were overvalued, conditions which brought down the company less than...

. Under his leadership (and that of Eugene Grace
Eugene Grace
Eugene Gifford Grace was the president of Bethlehem Steel Corporation from 1916 to 1945, and chairman of the board from 1945 until his retirement in 1957...

), it became the largest independent steel producer in the world.

A major part of Bethlehem Steel's success was the development of the H-beam, a precursor of today's ubiquitous I-beam
I-beam
-beams, also known as H-beams, W-beams , rolled steel joist , or double-T are beams with an - or H-shaped cross-section. The horizontal elements of the "" are flanges, while the vertical element is the web...

. Schwab was interested in mass producing the wideflange steel beam, but that was a risky venture that required raising capital and building a large new plant, all to make a product whose ability to sell was unproven.
In his most famous remark, Schwab told his secretary, "I've thought the whole thing over, and if we are going bust, we will go bust big."

In 1908, Bethlehem Steel began making the beam, which revolutionized building construction and made possible the age of the skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...

. Its success helped make Bethlehem Steel the second-largest steel company in the world. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 74,982, making it the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie,...

 was incorporated, virtually as a company town
Company town
A company town is a town or city in which much or all real estate, buildings , utilities, hospitals, small businesses such as grocery stores and gas stations, and other necessities or luxuries of life within its borders are owned by a single company...

, by uniting four previous villages.

In 1910, Schwab broke the Bethlehem Steel strike by calling out the newly-formed Pennsylvania State Police
Pennsylvania State Police
The Pennsylvania State Police is the state police force of Pennsylvania, responsible for statewide law enforcement. It was founded in 1905 by order of Governor Samuel Pennypacker, in response to the private police forces used by mine and mill owners to stop worker strikes and the inability or...

. Schwab kept labor unions out of Bethlehem Steel, which was not organized until 1941, two years after his death.

In 1911, Bethlehem Steel formed a company soccer team known as Bethlehem Steel F.C.
Bethlehem Steel F.C.
Bethlehem Steel Football Club was one of the most successful early American soccer clubs. Known as the Bethlehem Football Club from 1911 until 1915 when it became the Bethlehem Steel Football Club, the team was sponsored by the Bethlehem Steel corporation and played their home games first at East...

  In 1914 Schwab took the team professional. Until its demise in 1930, the team won 8 league championships, 6 American Cup
American Cup
The American Cup was the first major U.S. soccer competition open to teams beyond a single league. It was first held in 1885. In the 1910s, it gradually declined in importance with the establishment of the National Challenge Cup...

s and 5 National Challenge Cups. It was considered among the greatest soccer teams in U.S. history. The company disbanded the team as a result of financial losses incurred during the internecine 1928-1929 "Soccer Wars" between American Soccer League
American Soccer League
The American Soccer League has been a name used by three different professional soccer leagues in the United States. The first American Soccer League was established in 1921 by the merger of teams from the National Association Football League and the Southern New England Soccer League. For...

 and United States Football Association and onset of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 in 1929.

During the first years of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Bethlehem Steel had a virtual monopoly in contracts to supply the Allies
Triple Entente
The Triple Entente was the name given to the alliance among Britain, France and Russia after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907....

 with certain kinds of munitions. Schwab made many visits to Europe in connection with the manufacture and supply of munitions to the Allied governments, during this period.
He circumvented American neutrality laws by funneling goods through Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

On April 16, 1918, Schwab became Director General of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, a board granted by Congress with master authority over all shipbuilding
Shipbuilding
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...

 in the United States. He was appointed over Charles Piez, the former General Manager of the corporation. President Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...

 had specifically asked Schwab to assume this responsibility. Schwab's biggest change to the shipbuilding effort was to abandon the cost plus profit contracting system that had been in place up to that time and begin issuing fixed-price contracts.
After America's entry into the war, he was accused of profiteering
War profiteering
A war profiteer is any person or organization that profits from warfare or by selling weapons and other goods to parties at war. The term has strong negative connotations. General profiteering may also occur in peace time.-International arms dealers:...

 but was later acquitted.

Schwab was considered to be a risk taker and was highly controversial. Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...

 once famously called him the "master hustler". His lucrative contract providing steel to the Trans-Siberian Railroad came after he provided a $200,000 "gift" to the mistress of the Grand Duke
Grand Duke
The title grand duke is used in Western Europe and particularly in Germanic countries for provincial sovereigns. Grand duke is of a protocolary rank below a king but higher than a sovereign duke. Grand duke is also the usual and established translation of grand prince in languages which do not...

 Alexis Aleksandrovich.

Schwab's innovative ways of dealing with his staff are given a mention in Dale Carnegie
Dale Carnegie
Dale Breckenridge Carnegie was an American writer, lecturer, and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills...

's most famous work, How to Win Friends and Influence People
How to Win Friends and Influence People
How to Win Friends and Influence People is one of the first bestselling self-help books ever published. Written by Dale Carnegie and first published in 1936, it has sold 15 million copies world-wide....

(1936).
In 1928, Schwab was awarded the Bessemer Gold Medal for "outstanding services to the steel industry". In 1982, Schwab was inducted into the Junior Achievement
Junior Achievement
Junior Achievement or JA or JA Worldwide is a non-profit youth organization that was founded in 1919 by Horace A. Moses, Theodore Vail, and senator Winthrop M. Crane. JA focuses on educating kids in K-12 about the free enterprise system...

 U.S. Business Hall of Fame.

Personal life

Schwab eventually became very wealthy. He moved to New York City, specifically the Upper West Side
Upper West Side
The Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 125th Street...

, which at the time was considered the "wrong" side of Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...

, and where he built "Riverside
Riverside (house)
Riverside was an extravagant private residence on the Upper West Side of New York City that existed in the first half of the 20th century. It was built for steel magnate Charles M. Schwab, and was the grandest and most ambitious house ever built on the island of Manhattan...

", the most ambitious private house ever built in New York. The US$7 million 75 room house combined details from three French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 chateau
Château
A château is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally—and still most frequently—in French-speaking regions...

x on a full city block. After Schwab's death, New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia turned down a proposal to make Riverside the official mayoral residence, deeming it too grandiose. It was eventually torn down and replaced by an apartment block.

He also owned a 44 room summer estate on 1,000 acres (4 km²) in Loretto called "Immergrün" (German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 for "evergreen"). The house featured opulent gardens and a nine hole golf course. Rather than tear down the existing house, Schwab had the mansion raised on rollers and moved 200 feet to a new location to make room for the new mansion. Schwab's estate sold Immergrün after his death and it is now Mount Assisi Friary on the grounds of Saint Francis University.

Schwab became notorious for his "fast lane" lifestyle including opulent parties, high stakes gambling, and a string of extramarital affairs producing at least one child out of wedlock. The affairs and the out-of-wedlock child soured his relationship with his wife. He became an international celebrity when he "broke the bank" at Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....

 and traveled in a $100,000 private rail car named "Loretto". Even before the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

, he had already spent most of his fortune estimated at between $25 million and $40 million. Adjusted for inflation, that equates to between $500 million and $800 million in the first decade of the 21st century.

The stock market crash of 1929
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 finished off what years of wanton spending had started. He spent his last years in a small apartment. He could no longer afford the taxes on "Riverside" and it was seized by creditors. He had offered to sell the mansion at a huge loss but there were no takers.

At his death ten years later, Schwab's holdings in Bethlehem Steel were virtually worthless, and he was over US$ 300,000 in debt. Had he lived a few more years, he probably would have seen his fortunes restored when Bethlehem Steel was flooded with orders for war material. He was buried in Loretto at Saint Michael's Cemetery in a private mausoleum with his wife.

A fine bust-length portrait of Schwab painted in 1903 by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury
Adolfo Müller-Ury
Adolfo Muller-Ury was a Swiss-born American portrait painter and impressionistic painter of roses and still life.-Heritage and early life in Switzerland:...

 (1862–1947) was formerly in the Jessica Dragonette Collection at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming
University of Wyoming
The University of Wyoming is a land-grant university located in Laramie, Wyoming, situated on Wyoming's high Laramie Plains, at an elevation of 7,200 feet , between the Laramie and Snowy Range mountains. It is known as UW to people close to the university...

 at Laramie, but has recently been donated to the American National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. Müller-Ury also painted his nephew and namesake Charles M Schwab (son of his brother Joseph) as a boy in a sailor-suit around the same date.

Schwab is not related to Charles R. Schwab
Charles R. Schwab
Charles R. "Chuck" Schwab is the founder and chairman of the Charles Schwab Corporation.-Early life:Schwab was born in Sacramento, California. Despite having the same name, he is not related to Charles M. Schwab, the American steel magnate of the first half of the Twentieth Century...

, founder of the brokerage firm Charles Schwab Corporation.

Schwab had no children by Eurana, he had one daughter from a mistress. The Schwab family maintained ownership in the company in the late 1980s when it had to be sold in order to avoid bankruptcy. According to US public tax records, the nineteen heirs of this sale each grossed over $40 million. Charles Schwab himself died bankrupt, living on borrowed money for five years before his death.

Further reading

  • James H. Bridge, 1903. The Inside History of the Carnegie Steel Company.
  • Arundel Cotter, 1916. The Story of Bethlehem Steel.
  • --------, 1921. United States Steel: A Corporation with a Soul.
  • Burton J. Hendrick, 1969. The Life of Andrew Carnegie, 2 vols. 1st ed., 1932.
  • Burton W. Folsom, Jr.
    Burton W. Folsom, Jr.
    Burton W. Folsom, Jr. is an American historian and author who holds the Charles F. Kline chair in history and management at Hillsdale College. He received his BA from Indiana University in 1970, his M.A. from the University of Nebraska in 1973, and his doctorate in history from the University of...

    , The Myth of the Robber Barons
    Robber barons
    Robber baron may mean:*Robber baron, German nobles who levied illegal tolls in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries*Robber baron , a pejorative term for certain 19th to early 20th century American industrialists...

    . Young America.
  • Louis M. Hacker, 1968. The World of Andrew Carnegie.
  • Hessen, Robert, 1990. Steel titan: the life of Charles M. Schwab, Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press.
  • Napoleon Hill
    Napoleon Hill
    Napoleon Hill was an American author who was one of the earliest producers of the modern genre of personal-success literature. He is widely considered to be one of the great writers on success...

    , 1937. Think and Grow Rich
    Think and Grow Rich
    Think and Grow Rich is a motivational personal development and self-help book written by Napoleon Hill and inspired by a suggestion from Scottish-American businessman Andrew Carnegie...

    .
  • Stewart H. Holbrook, 1953. Age of the Moguls.
  • Ida M. Tarbell
    Ida M. Tarbell
    Ida Minerva Tarbell was an American teacher, author and journalist. She was known as one of the leading "muckrakers" of the progressive era, work known in modern times as "investigative journalism". She wrote many notable magazine series and biographies...

    , 1925. The Life of Elbert H. Gary.
  • Joseph Frazier Wall, 1970. Andrew Carnegie.

External links


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