Mastering iron : the struggle to modernize an American industry, 1800-1868 / Anne Kelly Knowles ; cartography by Chester Harvey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Knowles, Anne Kelly.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Iron industry and trade--United States--History.

Iron industry and trade.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (343 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Veins of iron run deep in the history of America. Iron making began almost as soon as European settlement, with the establishment of the first ironworks in colonial Massachusetts. Yet it was Great Britain that became the Atlantic world's dominant low-cost, high-volume producer of iron, a position it retained throughout the nineteenth century. It was not until after the Civil War that American iron producers began to match the scale and efficiency of the British iron industry. In Mastering Iron, Anne Kelly Knowles argues that the prolonged development of the US iron industry was largely due to geographical problems the British did not face. Pairing exhaustive manuscript research with analysis of a detailed geospatial database that she built of the industry, Knowles reconstructs the American iron industry in unprecedented depth, from locating hundreds of iron companies in their social and environmental contexts to explaining workplace culture and social relations between workers and managers. She demonstrates how ironworks in Alabama, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia struggled to replicate British technologies but, in the attempt, brought about changes in the American industry that set the stage for the subsequent age of steel. Richly illustrated with dozens of original maps and period art work, all in full color, Mastering Iron sheds new light on American ambitions and highlights the challenges a young nation faced as it grappled with its geographic conditions.

Contents:

Iron in America

Mapping the iron industry

The worlds of ironworkers

High hopes and failure

The elements of success

Iron for the Civil War

Conclusion: American iron.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9781299104747

1299104746

9780226448619

0226448614

OCLC:

823170175