Posted on 12/20/2015 6:35:42 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion
I just read “Steel: from Mine to Mill, the Metal that Made America” (2015) by Brooke C. Stoddard. The engineer in me recommends it.The history buff in me recommends it as well. Copper, bronze, and brass are far simpler for primitive manufacture than is steel. Copper is an element, bronze and brass are alloys of copper and tin or zinc, respectively.
Steel is an alloy of iron and a low but nonzero amount of carbon. And also, importantly, no phosphorus, which some iron ores contain. Iron ore is iron oxide, and it must be reduced chemically by carbon while hot, so the production of iron from its ore tends to produce an alloy with too much carbon content to qualify as steel. Steel can be improved for some applications by the addition of manganese and some other metals. The properties of steel are also substantially dependent on how rapidly it is cooled, and whether and how it is subsequently annealed. And also on how the metal is worked.
Of course it is easy to bandy about terms like the elements whose names are familiar to us, the concept of an “element,” and so forth - and primitive people had a lot to learn about them. But in reality most modern people actually could not identify an ore of iron, copper, manganese, or anything else, any more than an ancient could.
So it is not hard to understand why it took until modern times for the production of high quality steel to rise to the levels it did. Nor why even successful workers in steel would be more superstitious than knowing in formulating explanations of the hows and whys of steel (for instance, the creation of a Japanese Samurai sword was basically a religious ceremony, complete with preparatory sexual abstinence). The renown of Damascus and Toledo, in fact, owed not only to the smiths there but on their importation of steel from India.
Before even small quantities of steel could be created successfully from ore, early bronze age people knew of steel found in small quantities in meteorites. Its qualities, and its rarity, made it much more valuable than gold. And that is a point which should not be forgotten when considering the impact Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Europeans had on the Stone Age peoples indigenous to areas colonized by French, British, and Portuguese. And even the bronze age people of some of the areas colonized by Spain. It was not merely gunpowder which gave the Europeans a decisive edge - and not sailing ship technology either. The Europeans had steel, and that was essentially unknown in the Americas before their arrival.
The book datesBy 1870 the Germans using steel cannon easily defeated the French who were still using brass cannon. After 1850 the production of steel increased geometrically, and the US came to dominate that production.
- the smelting of copper, thus the end of the Stone Age, to about 4000 BC.
- the alloying of copper with tin - the start of the Bronze Age - to about 3000 BC.
- discovery of iron in heated iron ore, albeit not in useful form, to about 2500 BC.
- manufacture of useful iron objects to about 1800 BC.
- manufacture of two-pound cakes of steel in India to about 400 BC.
- the use of coke instead of charcoal, first in England, to 1709.
- the casting of steel in small quantity in England to 1740
This started life as a FReepmail addressed to you, but it grew and I thought others could find it interesting as well.
The impact of steel on civilization is indeed quite profound. And it’s a fascinating story, at least for me. Sure, there was iron that was produced in various forms, eg; I-beams and channel and the like, but iron is a crappy metal compared to steel. And I don’t think the difference is much appreciated. We would have some of the things that machines have produced but not all, and I suspect the quality of goods available would be rather inferior.
Thanks very much for sharing this.
It is interesting then that the Franco-Prussian War still carried the faint echo of the arms race first mentioned in the Book of I Samuel (13:19), where the Iron Age Philistines imposed a strict arms control regimen regarding iron on the Hebrews.
Interesting film.
Thanks for the recommendation. I’m adding it to my list right away.
I’m reading a book you will really enjoy: “The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention.”
It was impossible to invent steam power without significant advances in iron and steel metallurgy. This book does a great job of tracing their development which enabled man to harness fire and ultimately create the modern world. It weaves together technological research and advancement, IP and patent law evolution, basic research at universities with brilliant inventors, growing market demands, entrepreneurship, and the structure of societies into a great story. It helps answer why the Industrial Revolution arose in Christian Europe, particularly England, and not in Africa, the Middle East, or the Orient.
From Amazon:
The Industrial Revolution inspires more academic theories than absorbing narratives. Rosen, however, crafts one from subplots that connect with primitive industrialism’s premier symbol: the steam engine. Ardent about historical technology, Rosen modulates his mechanical zeal with contexts underscoring that Thomas Newcomen and James Watt did not operate in a social vacuum. Fixing on patents as one prerequisite to their inventions, Rosen describes intellectual property’s English legal and philosophical origins as he segues to Newcomen’s and Watt’s backgrounds. A degree of social mobility in eighteenth-century Britain enabled their rise, but it was the specific economic situations in mining and textiles to which they responded that ensured it. These business matters provide Rosen with storytelling opportunities that feature capital investors, scientists studying heat, and over time, innovators who improved the steam engine from a stationary to a mobile power source: Rocket, the famous railroad engine built in 1829. — Gilbert Taylor
Shortly after the Civil War, steel production allowed the replacement of railroad rails of such superior quality that they lasted ten years before replacement, whereas the older rails lasted only six months and were prone to all-too-common catastrophic failure.
. . . which was cited in the source of this thread.
Here... I found this webpage that has a Table of Contents and digitized first chapter:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~tmisa/NOS/index.html
It might just suck you in to buy the book or at least check your local lending library. I really enjoyed the book... and I am not a big "reader".
Very interesting. Thanks for posting. (I worked my way through college on the midnight shift at Great Lakes Steel in Ecorse, Michigan.)
At some point they will have destroyed this American industry.
What a cool thread! Thanks for posting.
I spent quite a bit of time interviewing Bill Verity of AK Steel, one of the mist productive steel companies in the world, and also Ken Iverson, who created Nucor, which melts down scrap to make steel.
How many operating steel mills are left in the US of A? Back in the 70s when I worked in Non-Destructive Testing steel mills and foundries were all over the place.
Bfl
1982 - Remington Steele’s first season.
1987 - Remington Steele cancelled.
I couldn’t resist some Monday morning humor. Crazy and stressful weekend.
This is sad but true. The Sparrows Point mill in Baltimore MD was a first class facility but finished Japanese steel could be delivered there cheaper than the mill could make it. I think that we are still the best at specialty steel though.
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