Midvale Steel
Encyclopedia
Midvale Steel was a succession of steel
-making corporations whose flagship plant was the Midvale Steel Works at Nicetown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, which operated from 1867 until 1976. The company was most notable for producing high-quality steels (including many alloy steels
) and for providing the casting
, forging
, and machining
needed to use them in special applications such as heavy artillery
(naval
, coastal
, and field
); steam turbine
s; naval armor plate
; and pressure vessel
s for use in chemical plants (for example, petroleum refineries
). Midvale also helped pioneer the steel formulas used in the early automotive industry
.
Midvale was never a particularly large company (relative to giants such as Carnegie
, Bethlehem
, and U.S. Steel
), and the flagship Nicetown plant was, in the management's own words, "never a 'tonnage' plant". That is, unlike larger steelmakers, they did not measure their success in terms of the sheer tonnage they could manage to produce per year. Midvale's niche in the steel industry was defined early on by a scientific approach to metallurgy
during the transitional era when steelmaking gradually transformed from black art to applied science
. Even after the rest of the industry caught up in terms of that transition, Midvale continued for decades to maintain a niche for itself in the area of the market defined by high quality, research and development
, and special applications.
The company began in 1867 as the William Butcher Steel Works. The products that founders William Butcher (a scion of the Sheffield, England steel industry) and Philip Syng Justice (an American manufacturer) planned to produce were cast-steel locomotive tires (that is, in British spelling, tyres) and cast-steel forgings, with a plan to make eventually a promising new product—steel rails, which would be far superior to older iron ones. At about this time in nearby Bethlehem, the predecessor company of Bethlehem Steel
was also getting into the steel rail business. The Nicetown site was chosen because plenty of the anthracite coal that moved by river, canal, and rail from northeast Pennsylvania passed by Nicetown on its way to Port Richmond
. Anthracite was superior for steelmaking to bituminous coal. Nicetown's proximity to one of the principal locomotive-building plants of the western hemisphere, the Baldwin Locomotive Works
(which at the time was just a few rail-served miles away in the Spring Garden neighborhood
), was another benefit of the site.
Midvale began with the crucible process
, but 2 years after its founding began using the open-hearth process
, which would in time replace the crucibles. The company's early years were rocky. Eventually, a principal investor, the quietly-but-immensely influential American engineer and businessman William Sellers
, forced out Butcher, whose adherence to the idea of steelmaking as an obscure art of secret recipes did not serve him well when his recipes did not turn out right and he was unable to analyze why. With Butcher gone, Sellers renamed his erstwhile-namesake steel works the Midvale Steel Works. Kanigel states that the name reflected the fact that Midvale was roughly equidistant from the Schuylkill
and Delaware
rivers; however, if accurate, this etymology was fanciful, because a look at a map of Philadelphia shows that the plant, at Wissahickon and Roberts Avenues, was actually much closer to the Schuylkill. Perhaps the emphasis was that it was not directly on either river (as might usually be expected of a steelworks), but between them. In 1872, Sellers brought in a Yale-trained chemist with a talent for organization named Charles Augustus Brinley, who used applied science to straighten out the steelmaking formulas and processes, along the way analyzing and salvaging the scrap that had accumulated during Butcher's tenure.
Brinley hired Russell Davenport, a fellow Yale chemist, to be his assistant. Brinley, Davenport, and Sellers led Midvale to a period of prosperity. By the Centennial Exposition
in 1876, they "were making Midvale into a company as congenial to a scientific approach to industrial problems as could be found anywhere in America".
It was in the 1880s that Frederick Winslow Taylor
rose through the ranks at Midvale, from lathe operator
, to gang boss, to engineer, to chief engineer of the works. During this time he developed the core of his philosophy of scientific management
, which later became enormously influential (and often controversial) throughout the field of industrial engineering
. Other notable people who worked for Midvale Steel or in close cooperation with it include Henry Gantt
, James Buchanan Eads
, Theodore Cooper
, and Francis B. Foley
. Charles E. Brinley, president of Baldwin Locomotive Works during the World War II era, appears to have been the son of Charles A. Brinley, Midvale's metallurgical leader.
Besides the railroad industry, one of the most important client industries for Midvale became armament. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, among many American steel companies, Bethlehem Steel and Midvale Steel especially became the Krupp
s of the Americas. (In fact, they built their armament businesses largely on offering the U.S. War Department
domestic alternatives to buying from Krupp.)
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...
-making corporations whose flagship plant was the Midvale Steel Works at Nicetown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Nicetown-Tioga, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Nicetown-Tioga is a neighborhood in the North Philadelphia section of the city of Philadelphia, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It comprises two smaller, older neighborhoods, Nicetown and Tioga, although the distinction between the two is rarely emphasized today...
, which operated from 1867 until 1976. The company was most notable for producing high-quality steels (including many alloy steels
Alloy
An alloy is a mixture or metallic solid solution composed of two or more elements. Complete solid solution alloys give single solid phase microstructure, while partial solutions give two or more phases that may or may not be homogeneous in distribution, depending on thermal history...
) and for providing the casting
Casting
In metalworking, casting involves pouring liquid metal into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowing it to cool and solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process...
, forging
Forging
Forging is a manufacturing process involving the shaping of metal using localized compressive forces. Forging is often classified according to the temperature at which it is performed: '"cold," "warm," or "hot" forging. Forged parts can range in weight from less than a kilogram to 580 metric tons...
, and machining
Machining
Conventional machining is a form of subtractive manufacturing, in which a collection of material-working processes utilizing power-driven machine tools, such as saws, lathes, milling machines, and drill presses, are used with a sharp cutting tool to physical remove material to achieve a desired...
needed to use them in special applications such as heavy artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
(naval
Naval artillery
Naval artillery, or naval riflery, is artillery mounted on a warship for use in naval warfare. Naval artillery has historically been used to engage either other ships, or targets on land; in the latter role it is currently termed naval gunfire fire support...
, coastal
Coastal artillery
Coastal artillery is the branch of armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications....
, and field
Field artillery
Field artillery is a category of mobile artillery used to support armies in the field. These weapons are specialized for mobility, tactical proficiency, long range, short range and extremely long range target engagement....
); steam turbine
Steam turbine
A steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into rotary motion. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884....
s; naval armor plate
Vehicle armour
Military vehicles are commonly armoured to withstand the impact of shrapnel, bullets, missiles, or shells, protecting the personnel inside from enemy fire. Such vehicles include tanks, aircraft, and ships....
; and pressure vessel
Pressure vessel
A pressure vessel is a closed container designed to hold gases or liquids at a pressure substantially different from the ambient pressure.The pressure differential is dangerous and many fatal accidents have occurred in the history of their development and operation. Consequently, their design,...
s for use in chemical plants (for example, petroleum refineries
Refinery
A refinery is a production facility composed of a group of chemical engineering unit processes and unit operations refining certain materials or converting raw material into products of value.-Types of refineries:Different types of refineries are as follows:...
). Midvale also helped pioneer the steel formulas used in the early automotive industry
Automotive industry
The automotive industry designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells motor vehicles, and is one of the world's most important economic sectors by revenue....
.
Midvale was never a particularly large company (relative to giants such as Carnegie
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:...
, Bethlehem
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...
, and 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...
), and the flagship Nicetown plant was, in the management's own words, "never a 'tonnage' plant". That is, unlike larger steelmakers, they did not measure their success in terms of the sheer tonnage they could manage to produce per year. Midvale's niche in the steel industry was defined early on by a scientific approach to metallurgy
Metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...
during the transitional era when steelmaking gradually transformed from black art to applied science
Applied science
Applied science is the application of scientific knowledge transferred into a physical environment. Examples include testing a theoretical model through the use of formal science or solving a practical problem through the use of natural science....
. Even after the rest of the industry caught up in terms of that transition, Midvale continued for decades to maintain a niche for itself in the area of the market defined by high quality, research and development
Research and development
The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
, and special applications.
History
| Year range | Formal company name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1867–1872 | William Butcher Steel Works | 1867: Butcher and Justice found the steelworks (History detailed below) |
| 1872–1880 | Midvale Steel Works | 1872: Sellers forces Butcher out, hires Brinley, starts Midvale’s tradition of applied science |
| 1880–1915 | Midvale Steel Company | 1880: Reorganized under new name, but same management |
| 1915–1923 | Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company | 1915: The heyday of trusts Trust (19th century) A special trust or business trust is a business entity formed with intent to monopolize business, to restrain trade, or to fix prices. Trusts gained economic power in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some, but not all, were organized as trusts in the legal sense... may be over, but huge financial interests still have plenty of power over big industry (railroads, oil, steel, etc.). A new company buys practically all the stock of the old company; with the ownership change also come management changes, and acquisitions of steel companies at Johnstown Johnstown, Pennsylvania Johnstown is a city in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States, west-southwest of Altoona, Pennsylvania and east of Pittsburgh. The population was 20,978 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Cambria County... , Coatesville Coatesville, Pennsylvania Coatesville is the only city in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 13,100 at the 2010 census. Coatesville is approximately 39 miles west of Philadelphia.... , and Eddystone Eddystone, Pennsylvania Eddystone is a borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,442 at the 2000 census.-Early history:The area at the mouth of Ridley Creek was first called "Tequirassy" by Native Americans. The land was owned by Olof Persson Stille, one of the early settlers from New... |
| 1923–1956 | Midvale Company | 1923: Bethlehem Steel Company acquires all of Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company except the flagship Nicetown plant, which will be run by the new "Midvale Company" |
| 1956–1976 | Midvale-Heppenstall Company | 1956: Heppenstall Steel Company of Pittsburgh merges with Midvale Company to become Midvale-Heppenstall Company |
| 1976 | Nicetown plant is closed | |
| 1980s | Nicetown plant is demolished | |
| circa 2000 | SEPTA bus depot and maintenance facility built on former site of Nicetown plant | |
| present | Heppenstall-Midvale AG Aktiengesellschaft Aktiengesellschaft is a German term that refers to a corporation that is limited by shares, i.e. owned by shareholders, and may be traded on a stock market. The term is used in Germany, Austria and Switzerland... |
Heppenstall-Midvale AG of Switzerland continues to incorporate the Heppenstall and Midvale names |
| Sources: |
||
The company began in 1867 as the William Butcher Steel Works. The products that founders William Butcher (a scion of the Sheffield, England steel industry) and Philip Syng Justice (an American manufacturer) planned to produce were cast-steel locomotive tires (that is, in British spelling, tyres) and cast-steel forgings, with a plan to make eventually a promising new product—steel rails, which would be far superior to older iron ones. At about this time in nearby Bethlehem, the predecessor company of 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...
was also getting into the steel rail business. The Nicetown site was chosen because plenty of the anthracite coal that moved by river, canal, and rail from northeast Pennsylvania passed by Nicetown on its way to Port Richmond
Port Richmond, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Port Richmond, also referred to as simply Richmond, is a neighborhood in the Northeast section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is notable for its extremely large Polish immigrant and Polish American community. The neighborhood is also home to sizable Irish, German and Italian communities as...
. Anthracite was superior for steelmaking to bituminous coal. Nicetown's proximity to one of the principal locomotive-building plants of the western hemisphere, the Baldwin Locomotive Works
Baldwin Locomotive Works
The Baldwin Locomotive Works was an American builder of railroad locomotives. It was located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, originally, and later in nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania. Although the company was very successful as a producer of steam locomotives, its transition to the production of...
(which at the time was just a few rail-served miles away in the Spring Garden neighborhood
Spring Garden, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Spring Garden is a neighborhood in the central Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, bordering Center City on the north. Spring Garden is a neighborhood that combines diverse residential neighborhoods and significant cultural attractions...
), was another benefit of the site.
Midvale began with the crucible process
Crucible steel
Crucible steel describes a number of different techniques for making steel in a crucible. Its manufacture is essentially a refining process which is dependent on preexisting furnace products...
, but 2 years after its founding began using the open-hearth process
Open hearth furnace
Open hearth furnaces are one of a number of kinds of furnace where excess carbon and other impurities are burnt out of the pig iron to produce steel. Since steel is difficult to manufacture due to its high melting point, normal fuels and furnaces were insufficient and the open hearth furnace was...
, which would in time replace the crucibles. The company's early years were rocky. Eventually, a principal investor, the quietly-but-immensely influential American engineer and businessman William Sellers
William Sellers
William Sellers was a mechanical engineer, manufacturer, businessperson, and inventor who filed more than 90 patents, most notably the design for the United States standard screw thread...
, forced out Butcher, whose adherence to the idea of steelmaking as an obscure art of secret recipes did not serve him well when his recipes did not turn out right and he was unable to analyze why. With Butcher gone, Sellers renamed his erstwhile-namesake steel works the Midvale Steel Works. Kanigel states that the name reflected the fact that Midvale was roughly equidistant from the Schuylkill
Schuylkill River
The Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...
and Delaware
Delaware River
The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States.A Dutch expedition led by Henry Hudson in 1609 first mapped the river. The river was christened the South River in the New Netherland colony that followed, in contrast to the North River, as the Hudson River was then...
rivers; however, if accurate, this etymology was fanciful, because a look at a map of Philadelphia shows that the plant, at Wissahickon and Roberts Avenues, was actually much closer to the Schuylkill. Perhaps the emphasis was that it was not directly on either river (as might usually be expected of a steelworks), but between them. In 1872, Sellers brought in a Yale-trained chemist with a talent for organization named Charles Augustus Brinley, who used applied science to straighten out the steelmaking formulas and processes, along the way analyzing and salvaging the scrap that had accumulated during Butcher's tenure.
Brinley hired Russell Davenport, a fellow Yale chemist, to be his assistant. Brinley, Davenport, and Sellers led Midvale to a period of prosperity. By the Centennial Exposition
Centennial Exposition
The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. It was officially...
in 1876, they "were making Midvale into a company as congenial to a scientific approach to industrial problems as could be found anywhere in America".
It was in the 1880s that Frederick Winslow Taylor
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Frederick Winslow Taylor was an American mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency. He is regarded as the father of scientific management and was one of the first management consultants...
rose through the ranks at Midvale, from lathe operator
Lathe (metal)
A metal lathe or metalworking lathe is a large class of lathes designed for precisely machining relatively hard materials. They were originally designed to machine metals; however, with the advent of plastics and other materials, and with their inherent versatility, they are used in a wide range of...
, to gang boss, to engineer, to chief engineer of the works. During this time he developed the core of his philosophy of scientific management
Scientific management
Scientific management, also called Taylorism, was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. Its main objective was improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management...
, which later became enormously influential (and often controversial) throughout the field of industrial engineering
Industrial engineering
Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering dealing with the optimization of complex processes or systems. It is concerned with the development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy, materials, analysis...
. Other notable people who worked for Midvale Steel or in close cooperation with it include Henry Gantt
Henry Gantt
Henry Laurence Gantt, A.B., M.E. was an American mechanical engineer and management consultant who is most famous for developing the Gantt chart in the 1910s....
, James Buchanan Eads
James Buchanan Eads
Captain James Buchanan Eads was a world-renowned American civil engineer and inventor, holding more than fifty patents.-Early life and education:...
, Theodore Cooper
Theodore Cooper
Theodore Cooper was an American civil engineer. He may be best known as supervising engineer on the Quebec Bridge when it collapsed in 1907....
, and Francis B. Foley
Francis B. Foley
Francis B. Foley , was an American ferrous metallurgist.-Biography:Foley was born July 7, 1887 in Philadelphia. His father, Dennis Foley, died in 1889 in Dakota Territory, leaving a wife, daughter, and three sons...
. Charles E. Brinley, president of Baldwin Locomotive Works during the World War II era, appears to have been the son of Charles A. Brinley, Midvale's metallurgical leader.
Besides the railroad industry, one of the most important client industries for Midvale became armament. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, among many American steel companies, Bethlehem Steel and Midvale Steel especially became the Krupp
Krupp
The Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...
s of the Americas. (In fact, they built their armament businesses largely on offering the U.S. War Department
United States Department of War
The United States Department of War, also called the War Department , was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army...
domestic alternatives to buying from Krupp.)