"Mr. Schwab is a genius. I have never met his equal." So stated renowned industrialist Andrew Carnegie about Charles M. Schwab, successively the president of Carnegie Steel, U.S. Steel, and Bethlehem Steel. Though an inveterate gambler and womanizer, Schwab held a smile and charisma that got him in and out of multiple adventures. This biography presents the complex legacy of the man Thomas Edison once called the "master hustler," from his start as a stake-driver in the engineering corps to his ascendancy to American steel magnate.

A set of books on the Industrial Revolution, these comprehensive volumes cover the history of steam shipping, iron and steel production, and railroads-three interrelated enterprises that helped shift the Industrial Revolution into overdrive.

An impressive set of books on the Industrial Revolution, these comprehensive volumes cover the history of steam shipping, iron and steel production, and railroads—three interrelated enterprises that helped shift the Industrial Revolution into overdrive. The first set of volumes in ABC-CLIO's breakthrough Industrial Revolution in America series features separate histories of three closely related industries whose maturation fueled the Industrial Revolution in the United States during the late 19th and 20th centuries, fundamentally changing the way Americans lived their lives. With this set, students will learn how the steamship—the first great American contribution to the world's technology—helped turn the nation's waterways into a forerunner of our superhighways; how the Andrew Carnegie–led American steel industry surpassed its British rivals, marking a momentous power shift among industrialized nations; and how the railroads, spurred by some of the United States's most dynamic entrepreneurs (Cornelius Vanderbilt, John Pierpont Morgan, Jay Gould), moved from a single transcontinental link to become the most influential and far-reaching technological innovation of the Industrial Age, extending into virtually every facet of American culture and commerce.

In Yellow Steel, the first overarching history of the earthmoving equipment industry, William Haycraft examines the tremendous increase in the scope of mining and construction projects, from the Suez Canal through the interstate highway system, made possible by innovations in earthmoving machinery. Led by Cyrus McCormick's invention in 1831 of a practical mechanical reaper, many of the builders of today's massive earthmoving machines began as makers of reapers, plows, threshers, and combines. Haycraft traces the efforts of manufacturers such as Caterpillar, Allis-Chalmers, International Harvester, J. I. Case, Deere, and Massey-Ferguson to diversify from farm equipment to specialized earthmoving equipment and the important contributions of LeTourneau, Euclid, and others in meeting the needs of the construction and mining industries. He shows how postwar economic and political events, especially the creation of the interstate highway system, spurred the development of more powerful and more agile machines. He also relates the precipitous fall of several major American earthmoving machine companies and the rise of Japanese competitors in the early 1980s. Extensively illustrated and packed with detailed information on both manufacturers and machines, Yellow Steel knits together the diverse stories of the many companies that created the earthmoving equipment industry--how they began, expanded, retooled, merged, succeeded, and sometimes failed. Their history, a step-by-step linking of need and invention, provides the foundation for virtually all modern transportation, construction, commerce, and industry.

This book provides a basic outline of the history of the American steel industry, a sector of the economy that has been an important part of the industrial system. The book starts with the 1830's, when the American iron and steel industry resembled the traditional iron producing sector that had existed in the old world for centuries, and it ends in 2001. The product of this industry, steel, is an alloy of iron and carbon that has become the most used metal in the world. The very size of the steel industry and its position in the modern economy give it an unusual relevance to the economic, social, and political system.