April 12, 2018
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION OF TOBYHANNA TOWNSHIP
April 12, 2018 • 5:30 p.m.
Clymer Library, 115 Firehouse Road, Pocono Pines, Pa.
Attendance: 39 members and 19 guests
Speaker: Martha Capwell-Fox— “The Life and Death of Bethlehem Steel”
Vice President and Treasurer Kris Avery opened the meeting at 5:30 p.m., welcoming all that came out of the woodwork. We had the Pledge of Allegiance.
Send your membership dues in, or sign up at the welcoming desk.
The next meeting will be May 10, with a presentation on “Our Pocono Forests” presented by Ike Olson and Dick Cary.
We are going to be changing things up a bit and having the annual picnic June 14 at 5:30 p.m. at the Blanche Price Park, after David Morrison presents “Pennsylvania Governors.” We hope that everyone comes and joins us. We hope that having the picnic at this time, more people will be able to join us.
Scarlett Rehrig will be having an archival gathering at the library on the April 18 at 11 a.m.
Anyone who wants to check out the minutes of our meetings, they are archived on the HATT website.
Kris then introduced the evening’s speaker, returning to HATT for the third time: Martha Capwell-Fox, the archives and museum coordinator for the National Canal Museum in Easton.
Over time, she said, when Lantz Metz became curator of the canal museum, there was a recognition that all the waterways were significant to the steel industry. So Lantz began to collect items that were post Industrial Revolution pertaining to steel. Much of what he took was smuggled to him from others who had memorabilia.
He was also able to accumulate a collection of early films on Bethlehem Steel made since 1930s era. Bethlehem Steel had their own media department for purposes of historic documentation as well as education.
Martha showed a film from the 1950s, which gave information about why Bethlehem Steel produced what they did, what mines were used, and in what areas of the state and country. There was also an illustration of smelting and still making.
The film explained the use of the Lackawanna plant which was used for shipping out the products since the Bethlehem plant was landlocked.
Martha explained that there were various ways of making steel which yielded different grades for different usages. In the 1950s some steel was still made using the open hearth method. Other methods were explained, including smelting which produced bullets and long taffy-consistency sheets of hot metal which were pressed and stretched to produce the desired products.
Some of the finished products were bowls, canisters and other small household items, while some of the steel produced large beams and sheets to make ships. Bethlehem Steel was a major ship builder staring in the early 20th century – and this expanded during World War I.
Bethlehem Steel produced the majority of the “Liberty Ships” in World War II, but they also built freighters, tankers and aircraft carriers. During World War II, the company was producing a ship every 31 days.
Asa Packer founded the Lehigh Valley Railroad in 1854 and the tracks ran from Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe) to Bethlehem, and then in 1855 the rail was continued to Easton.
His brother-in-law, Blakeslee, was the captain of his fleet. Robert Sayre, born in Columbia County, moved to Mauch Chunk in 1820 and with his brother William did canal maintenance for 30 years. The LVRR rails were made of wrought iron and were a terrible quality.
Packer told Sayre to acquire the Bethlehem Rolling Rails. John Fritz, who invented the three-high rail system, came to Bethlehem Steel as a metallurgic engineer. Along with Fritz came the first Bessemer process in 1873.
In 1890, Bethlehem Steel bought Bethlehem Iron for $13,000-$14,000, which provided it with the means to having their own rails for the raw material and ending with the finished product.
The next step was making armor plates with hydraulic forging press for gun turrets and plates for the USS Pennsylvania. Naval ship guns, ship parts, coastal arms and the arsenal for the US with armor piercing shells.
Bethlehem Steel made the axle for the first Ferris wheel, made for the Chicago Expo in 1892 with the railroad going from Buffalo to the Great Lakes. They finally changed their name from Bethlehem Iron Works to Bethlehem Steel. In comes Charles Schwab (no relation to the investment firm) who was not quite 40 and the former president of US Steel in 1904 and he tore down the blast furnaces to build new to be able to make I and H beams and got the patent for that.
World War I came along and they got orders from England for millions of weapons and submarines. Now Bethlehem Steel went into the ship building business in full force. The U.S. merchant fleet was so bad that Schwab left Bethlehem Steel to go beef up the fleet.
In comes Eugene Grace, who was inflexible and autocratic. In 1915 Bethlehem Steel owned baseball and soccer teams and promoted women’s basketball. “Skylines” is a movie made about Bethlehem Steel.
Hoover Mason Trestle carried the ore to the furnaces and it’s still standing and part of the museum. Many women picked up the slack during World War II. Oxygen furnaces were so much more efficient in the 1950s. Bethlehem Steel made the steel for the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, and the Piscataqua River Bridge in New Hampshire.
Concrete construction did in the steel industry, and since Bethlehem Steel was not on a riverway or sea port, it was doomed.
After many questions the meeting was wrapped up at 6:45.
Respectfully submitted,
Peggy Rapp, Secretary
and Kris Avery, Treasurer and Vice-President
