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ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES • MARCH 2014 33
the latest developments in ordnance and armor
plate, he came into contact with the Bessemer steel-
making process. Bessemer had a pilot plant where
he was very busy in this period showing off his
process to interested parties. However, Holley real-
ized that the patent situation needed to be resolved
before the process could become commercialized in
the U.S. He accomplished this task and built the first
Bessemer steel plant in Troy, N.Y., in 1865.
In the meantime, the first successful steel made
by this process in the U.S. was cast at the little plant
in Wyandotte, Mich., at the Kelly Pneumatic Process
Company. An ASM historical marker pays tribute to
this event. Ingots from this heat were shipped to the
North Chicago Rolling Mill Company where they
were successfully rolled into the first steel rails made
in America.
Patent release paves way for steel industry
The release of the patent deadlock cleared the
way for the domestic steel industry and Holley was
the chief promoter and designer. He either con-
structed or consulted on nearly all 15 Bessemer
plants built by 1875. These included the very early
plant of the Pennsylvania Steel Company near Har-
risburg, with J. Edgar Thomson and Thomas Scott of
the Pennsylvania Railroad Company as principals;
the Cambria Steel Company where Kelly received
support fromMorrell to develop the process; the first
plant in Pittsburgh built for Andrew Carnegie and
named for his benefactor (J. Edgar Thomson, presi-
dent of the Pennsylvania Railroad); plants at North
Chicago and Joliet, Ill.; a plant for the Vulcan Works
at St. Louis, Mo.; and plants for Bethlehem Steel and
Scranton Steel in eastern Pa.
These early steel plants were small enterprises by
later comparisons. Bessemer converters had reached
only five tons by the early 1870s. Also, their supply
of molten metal typically came from remelting cast
iron in separate furnaces. At this stage in America’s
industrialization, mills simply were not equipped to
handle large quantities of molten metal.
For his contribution to the development of the
Kelly-Bessemer process, Alexander Holley has been
called the “Father of American Steelmaking.” He was
elected president of the American Institute of Mining
and Metallurgical Engineers as well as the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers, and named vice
president of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
After his death from peritonitis at age 49 in 1882,
these engineering societies commissioned a statue of
Holley that remains standing in Manhattan’s Wash-
ington Square Park. Engineers from all of the major
technical societies attended the dedication, includ-
ing members from France and Germany.
Future forward for U.S. steel
The U.S. was now positioned to experience an
even brighter future for iron and steel. During the last
30 years of the 19th century, production would in-
crease nearly tenfold for iron—from 1.7 million tons
in 1870 to 14 million tons in 1900—and for steel,
from 68,750 tons in 1870 to 10 million tons in 1900.
Throughout the 1890s, the U.S. produced one-third
of all the world’s steel, and half of that went into rail-
road rails.
Bessemer steel gradually became the material of
choice for rails and beams because it was stronger,
harder, and far more wear resistant for rails than
wrought iron. In the final analysis, however, it was
the much lower costs for manufacturing Bessemer
steel compared to wrought iron that tipped the scales
in its favor. In the 1890s, with competition high
among the mills, the price of steel for rails hit a low
of $11 per ton. Low-cost steel was the force behind
America’s modern industrial growth, and the major
force behind this growth was an immigrant Scotsman
named Andrew Carnegie.
For more
information:
Charles R. Simcoe
can be reached at
.
For more metallurgical
history,
visit
.
William Kelly was an American
metallurgist and inventor of a
process for refining pig iron, a
precursor of the Bessemer
converter.
Henry Bessemer—of Bessemer
process fame—was originally
working on a way to replace the
cast iron in cannons with steel.
The bust of Alexander Lyman
Holley stands in Manhattan’s
Washington Square Park.
J. Edgar Thomson, president of
the Pennsylvania Railroad.