Sheffield Steel and America: A Century of Commercial and Technological Interdependence 1830-1930

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Cambridge University Press, 1987 - Business & Economics - 296 pages
The book provides an important contribution to the technological and commercial history of crucible and electric steelmaking by thoroughly examining its development in Sheffield and American centres such as Pittsburgh. It also discusses cutlery, saw and file manufacturing, where the Americans quickly shed Sheffield's traditional technologies and, with the help of superior marketing, established a word lead by 1900. It is also shown, however, that this did not free the US from its dependence on Sheffield steel. Sheffield's innovation in special steelmaking, which began with the Hunstman crucible process in 1742, continued with a series of brilliant 'firsts', which gave the world tool, manganese, silicon, vanadium and stainless steel alloys. Thus the US continued to draw from Sheffield know-how, even in the twentieth century - a transfer of technology that was facilitated by the foundation of Sheffield's own subsidiary firms in America, the history of which is recounted here.

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Contents

Sheffield and the genesis of the American
1
The birth of the American crucible steel industry
13
Sheffield and American crucible steel
31
electric steelmaking
46
The rise of alloy steels
57
The evolution of highspeed steel
66
the discovery of stainless steel
75
the crucible steelmakers
87
steel casting enterprises
112
ΙΟ Quality pays? Sheffield and American cutlery
128
the evidence of the sawmaking
144
aspects of
165
a century of commercial and technological
184
Notes
190
Bibliography
263
Index
289

The rise and decline of Sheffields highspeed steel trade with
100

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