Jean Bonilla’s Reviews > Steel: From Mine to Mill, the Metal that Made America > Status Update

I always thought it was because people stood in front of some massive open kind of fireplace, poking at the steel with an implement of some sort! That’s what the pictures look like!

I never knew why they were called “open hearth furnaces!” Apparently, liquid pig iron poured into the furnace rises no more than 3 feet from the lowest level of the floor and is exposed to 70 foot horizontal flames alternately roaring out of nozzles from either end wall - hence the name “open (exposed to flame) hearth furnace.”

Back on page 153 is an odd description of the L Blast Furnace: Larger than central downtown Baltimore itself, it rises 300 feet and peaks in a wave of pipes, gantries, ducts, blow off valves, and pressure lines that from a distance resemble a bride with flowers in her hair and a tumble of lace falling about her head.

When I went to Sparrow’s Point, I remember it being dark and depressing. Men stood around waiting for something to do, i.e., they could undertake their own task until the previous worker finished his. I have always described it as a classic example of workplace inefficiency.

Really interesting account of creating taconite pellets in Minnesota and shipping them to Cleveland. I knew that the Lakes were tricky for shipping, but didn’t realize how dangerous they are.

Post steel-making days, Carnegie went on to give away 90% of his wealth in the form of libraries, concert halls, church organs, foundations, and pension funds - even pensions for the strikers of 1892.

Carnegie called his rival, John D. Rockefeller, “Reck-a-fellow.”