Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might

This is a great book! I ordered it thinking it was going to have a lot of photos and discuss in detail the steel making process. That information is in the book but also much more. The author examins the cultural, industrial, and economic history of the steel industry at Sparrows Point. Just when the reading starts to get a little boring, Mark Reutter changes direction by focusing on another aspect of the history of this facinating industrial operation.

The author has done a great job assembling facts and nuances of Bethlehem Steel and its purchase of the Sparrows Point (in Baltimore, MD) plant. Sparrows Point rode the crest of the consumer buying surge in the American economy that started after WW1. Sadly, Bethlehem Steel went out of business in April 2003, weighed down by massive legacy (pension and health care) costs.

Mark Reutter has done extensive research to create a very readable history of the rise and eventual fall of the American steel industry. The powerful, ultra-rich lifestyles of the moguls are contrasted with the rank and file laborers who toiled in the Bethlehem Steel company town of Sparrows Point, Maryland. The technical and industrial processes are well presented and the political and social contrasts emerge in a well-told story.

Reporter and business and law editor Mark Reutter presents Making Steel: Sparrows Point And The Rise And Ruin Of American Industrial Might, a historical chronicle of the rise and fall of American steel industry that especially focuses upon what was once the world's largest steel mill at Sparrows Point, Maryland. Scrutinizing the business of steel, its production, daily lives of the workers, and the fallout as corporate leaders elected to enhance their own security and wealth at the expense of employees, community, or innovative technology. A poignant true tale, brought back in a new edition featuring an author's preface, 26 pages of black-and-white photographs, and a telling chapter on Bethlehem Steel's bankruptcy titled "The Discarded American Worker", Making Steel is enthusiastically recommended to economics students and professionals, historians, and lay readers alike.