Item #7983 [Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]. Altwater, photographers Bro.
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]
[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]

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Altwater & Bro., photographers.

[Album of sixty-one photographs documenting the operations of the American Steel Company.]

Ellwood, Pennsylvania: American Steel Company, [ca. 1925.]. Oblong 8vo (9” x 10.75”), pebbled brown leather, “American Steel Company” stamped in gold on the front cover. 61 silver prints (7.5” x 9.5”, plus margins) mounted on linen, some photos with stamp of Altwater & Bro.’s Photographers on verso. CONDITION: Very good, light wear to covers, some mottling to the final image.

A striking promotional photo album extensively documenting the operations of the American Steel Company, including many interesting labor scenes.

This album consists of both exterior and interior views of the American Steel Company's factory and operations, embracing the manufacturing of steel products, the packaging process, and the scrap process. Documenting the range of jobs involved in steel production, the photos show laborers shoveling coal into burners; seated in front of Canton Rolls machines producing sheets of steel; working together feeding sheets of steel through machines; fixing rollers; sorting steel sheets and placing them into a range of machines; holding spools of steel outdoors; creating spools of wire; encasing spools in plastic wrappings, and so forth. Workers range from young adults (some of them looking younger than eighteen) to older men, and at least five African American workers appear in these images as well as a number of female employees. 

Several images show how steel products are boxed and packaged, and a few outdoor scenes feature railroads in the background and the box-cars of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which apparently transported the company’s steel. Many shots show the company’s end products: rooms full of stacked barrels containing steel; spools of steel wire; crates of steel plates (ready for shipping); large piles of spools stored outdoors under a roof, and so forth. Piles of steel scrap are visible in the background of many images. The album is rounded out by images of an engine room, furnaces, basins or tubs in which the steel was made, and the complex pulley systems that were used to create spools of wire. 

Founded in 1905 in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania (some forty miles northwest of Pittsburgh), the American Steel Company, which survives today, is a manufacturer and distributor of steel wire and other industrial products. Steel played an essential role in the expansion of American urban infrastructure, including bridges, railroads, factories, cars, and household appliances. Pennsylvania’s reputation as the “steel making capital of the world” hinged on several successive waves of steelmaking technologies. While Pennsylvania’s iron and steel industry is much reduced from its heyday, it remains an important part of the state’s economy and remains concentrated in the west and southeast. 

Altwater & Bro. photographers of Pittsburgh are known to have operated from at least the 1920s to the 1950s. 

REFERENCES: “History” at American Steel Company online; “Making Steel” at Explore Pennsylvania History online.

Item #7983

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Price: $2,250.00

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