Bethlehem Steel Years
In 1922, Lackawanna Steel Co. was acquired by the Bethlehem Steel Company, ending the company's 62-year independence. Merger rumors had plagued the company for several years by then. Rumors of an impending merger among two or more of the "Little Steel" companies—the seven steel companies largest in size next to U.S. Steel—continued in November and December 1921 and into 1922. In late April 1922, the seven "Little Steel" firms began to openly discuss the merger of two or more of the companies as a means of challenging U.S. Steel. The chief executives and creditors of these firms visited one another's plants in order to appraise them and assess the financial viability of each company. Among those visited was the Lackawanna Steel Company plant in upstate New York.
On May 11, 1922, Lackawanna Steel announced it had agreed to be purchased by Bethlehem Steel in a merger which would create a billion-dollar company. Bethlehem Steel said it would spend $10 million improving the Lackawanna mills, which were described as "obsolete" due to a lack of investment. The combined company controlled about 10 percent of the steel output of the United States, while U.S. Steel controlled about 45 percent.
A lengthy antitrust investigation followed. The United States Senate asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department to investigate the merger the day after it was announced, which the FTC did on May 14. As the merger was approved by the two companies in mid-May, the Senate and FTC each conducted separate investigations. On June 5, 1922, the FTC issued a report concluding that the merger was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. However, United States Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty overruled the FTC on June 22. The merger finally took effect on October 10, 1922. Six decades later, financial analysts observed that Bethlehem Steel probably purchased Lackawanna Steel for less than half what the company was worth. Over the next decade, Bethlehem Steel spent more than $40 million modernizing the Lackawanna site.
Lackawanna continued to be a center for the manufacture of steel throughout most of the 20th century. In the 1940s, the Lackawanna steel mill employed over 20,000 people, and was the world’s largest steel factory.
Read more about this topic: Lackawanna Steel Company
Famous quotes containing the words bethlehem, steel and/or years:
“Now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts.
Possess them not with fear. Take from them now
The sense of reckoning, ere th’ opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Self-esteem evolves in kids primarily through the quality of our relationships with them. Because they can’t see themselves directly, children know themselves by reflection. For the first several years of their lives, you are their major influence. Later on, teachers and friends come into the picture. But especially at the beginning, you’re it with a capital I.”
—Stephanie Martson (20th century)