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ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES •
OCTOBER 2014
T
he Pittsburgh Reduction Co. signed the first
industrial contract to take electricity from
hydropower at Niagara Falls, N.Y., in 1893.
A new aluminum processing plant was built there,
which became operational in 1895. A second plant
was constructed at the Falls in 1896, followed by a
third plant—with its own electric power facility—
in 1906. With steadily increasing production ca-
pacity and decreasing costs, the Pittsburgh
Reduction Co. expanded rapidly throughout the
1890s. Production reached five million pounds in
1900, while the price decreased from 78 cents/lb
for ingots in 1893 to 33 cents/lb in 1900.
The need for sheet, plate, wire, and other prod-
uct forms meant installing equipment and hiring
specialists to fabricate these products at the plant
in New Kensington, Pa. When all the alu-
minum chemical reduction operations were
moved to Niagara Falls under Charles Martin
Hall, Arthur Vining Davis was put in charge
of working aluminum into other products.
This first decade of operations saw small an-
nual losses in the early years and very modest
profits at the end of the decade when pretax
earnings reached $322,000.
At this critical time in the aluminumbusi-
ness, the Pittsburgh Reduction Co. lost its dy-
namic leader, Alfred E. Hunt. With his
enthusiasm for the military, he led a company
of men into the Spanish AmericanWar. He was
posted to Puerto Rico where he contracted a
tropical illness that took his life shortly after his
return to the United States. RichardMellon was ap-
pointed president to succeed Hunt, but day-to-day
management tasks fell to Davis. The company con-
tinued to be controlled by Hall, Davis, the Mellons,
and a small group of original investors. Hunt’s fam-
ily inherited his shares in the company and his son
Roy joined the company upon college graduation.
Roy became a key manager under Davis and played
a significant role in the company’s fortunes.
Early aluminum applications
Aluminum production increased from five mil-
lion pounds in 1900 to 35 million in 1909. A major
application during this era was kitchenware, for
which aluminum was best known by the American
public. The Pittsburgh Reduction Co. acquired a
kitchenware producer in 1901 when it went bank-
rupt due to owing a substantial bill for aluminum.
This acquisition brought the company a pair of col-
lege students who had been selling pots and pans
door-to-door with great success. A new company
was organized to improve the quality and expand
this effort. The resulting kitchenware became well
known under the WearEver Cookware brand and
continues to be widely sold today.
One of aluminum’s early industrial uses was for
cable to transmit high-voltage electric current over
long distances. However, aluminum was not strong
enough to carry its weight from tower to tower. The
Pittsburgh Reduction Co. resolved this by adding a
steel wire to the center of the cable. After 1910, a
growing demand for aluminum came from the
newly developing automobile industry. It was easier
to manufacture customized bodies from ductile alu-
minum than steel. Yet this application, as with so
many others, turned out to be short-lived because
mass production required the lowest-cost material,
steel. The market for aluminum cast parts was a
substantial component of the early automobile in-
dustry, and a new casting process was developed in
which molten aluminum was poured into water-
cooled steel molds rather than into sand molds.
Raw materials
Expanded aluminum production after 1900 re-
quired the Pittsburgh Reduction Co. to seek both
Metallurgy Lane,
authored by
ASM life member
Charles R. Simcoe
,
is a yearlong series
dedicated to the early
history of the U.S. metals
and materials industries
along with key
milestones and
developments.
Aluminum: The Light Metal—Part II
The cost of electric power is the biggest expense involved in aluminum production.
Proximity to economical power sources determined the location of major aluminum
reduction plants.
Liberty L-12 aircraft engine. Cast aluminum was used
for its light weight. Courtesy of Stahlkocher/Wikimedia
Commons.
British WWI military
recruiting poster
features a Zeppelin
above London at night.
German Zeppelins
represent the first major
use of the precipitation
hardening alloy
Duralumin. Public
domain image.