The Steel Business
Andrew Carnegie made his fortune in steel, turning the industrial world on its ear in the process. He was possessed by technology and efficiency in a way no businessman before him had ever been. His relentless efforts to drive down costs and undersell the competition made his steel mills the most modern in the world, the models for the entire industry.
By 1851 the need for increased the production of steel forced society to develop a simple method effective and with high production at the same time. It arises the birth of the Bessemer Process employee for the Steel Lines production. The process involves the steel in bulions good quality. The converter is a rotatory kiln retort shaped, wide mouth. It is performed the process. This device is Palastro and is lined inside with refractory bricks. These bricks for acid up the drive, made of quartzite, clay, and a fireclay good quantity, and if mixtures are subject to calcination.
First, the McClure's Magazine was an American ilustrated monthly periodical popular at the turn of the 20th Century. McClure's Magazine reported of the Homestead mill in 1894. "On every side tumultuous action seemed to make every inch of ground dangerous. Savage little engines went rattling about among the piles of great beams. Dimly on my left were huge engines, moving with thunderous pounding." thats make sense a rejection and critique of business and wealth belonging to the richest man around the world at this time. Indeed, flames, noise, and danger ruled the Carnegie mills. "Protective gear" consisted only of two layers of wool long-johns; horrible injuries were common. Wives and children came to dread the sound of factory whistles that meant an accident had occurred.
For Carnegie, efficiency, not safety, was paramount. His vast steel mills at Braddock, Duquesne, and Homestead boasted the latest equipment. As technology improved, Carnegie ordered existing equipment to be torn out and replaced. He quickly made back these investments through reduced labor costs, and his mills remained always the most productive in the world.
Carnegie was not those ambitious to money, that possessed the best and most sophisticated machines of the time not for a man of evil, but if generated envy in society, as in the case of the criticism he received in McCullen 's Magazine and other media.
Steel Mills
McClure's Magazine
Steel Process
Bassemer Process
