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The Transformation of Bethlehem Steel, 1904-1909*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Robert Hessen
Robert Hessen
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University
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Abstract

Charles M. Schwab's aggressive and innovative leadership of Bethlehem Steel early in this century made that firm a success. To some extent, however, the growth of Bethlehem was made possible by the conservative strategy of E. H. Gary's giant U.S. Steel. The dominant firm's willingness to tolerate the loss of a portion of its sales to smaller rivals made their survival and expansion easier than would have been the case in a more vigorously competitive environment.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1972 , pp. 339 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1972

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References

1 Editorial, New York Times, April 14, 1915.

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25 Dewing, Corporate Promotions and Reorganizations, 498–99.

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29 This and the next two paragraphs are based on Bethlehem Steel Corporation's Annual Report, March 1906.

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32 Bethlehem Steel Corporation, Annual Report, 1910, 11–12, and 1911, 11; Recollections of F. A. Shick, 1949, Grace Biographical Project.

33 These additions are described in detail in “The Bethlehem Steel Company's Recent Extensions,” Iron Age, November 1, 1906, 1142–46.

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40 Wall Street Journal, December 9, 1905; Philadelphia American, December 22, 1905. “Whipple Notes, 133, 140.

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47 Whipple Notes, 140; recollections of F. A. Shick (1935), Whipple Notes, 147.

48 Whipple Notes, 133, and II, 20, 140.

49 See, for example, the letter to Schwab from A. Barton Hepburn, president of the Chase National Bank, refusing a loan of $1,500,000 to Bethlehem Steel, August 26, 1908, copy in Schwab Memorial Library.

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53 Whipple Notes, 160.

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56 Recollections of Eugene G. Grace (1935) in Whipple Notes, 257–58, 270.

57 Wall Street Journal, August 2, 1909.

58 New York Times, August 5, 1909.

59 Iron Trade Review, November 4, 1926, 1207.

60 Hessen, “Charles M. Schwab, President of United States Steel, 1901–1904.”

61 Whipple Notes, 94.

62 Ibid.; Schwab's testimony, United States v. U.S. Steel Corp., transcript in Columbia University Law Library, XI, May 19, 1913, 4172f.

63 Bethlehem Steel Corporation, Annual Report, March 1906; Whipple Notes, 154.

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68 Gary's speech of October 15, 1909, in volume I of Addresses and Statements of Elbert H. Gary, compiled by U.S. Steel Corp., 8 volumes, 1927, copy in Baker Library, Harvard University.

69 Meade, Edward S., “The Price Policy of the United States Steel Corporation,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, XXII (May, 1908), 452–466CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berglund, Abraham, “The United States Steel Corporation and Price Stabilization,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, XXXVIII (November, 1923), 1–30Google Scholar.

70 Unpublished autobiography of William B. Dickson, Pattee Library, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa. Hereafter cited as Dickson Papers.

71 Dickson to William E. Corey, August 10, 1904, Dickson Papers.

72 Ibid.; Dickson to Corey, February 16, 1909, and section on Elbert H. Gary in Dickson's autobiography.

73 Iron Age, February 25, 1909, 648.

74 Congressional Record, 64th Cong., 1st sess., LIII, Part I, 287 (Washington, 1916)Google Scholar; Senate Document #521, 61st Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, 1910), Appendix E, 126.

75 Bethlehem Steel Corporation, Annual Report, 1910, 9.

76 Henry Grey, letter, Iron Age, January 14, 1909, 160–61.

77 New York News Bureau, March 1, 1907; Wall Street Journal, April 17, 1907.

78 Bethlehem Steel Corporation, Annual Report, 1916, 14.