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An address delivered at the Thirteenth General Meeting of The American Iron and Steel Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, October 26, 1917 together with additional data concerning the early use of iron and steel and also a brief historical reference to the formation and organization of the United States Steel Corporation, embellished with portraits of men who have been and are now most distinguished in the development of American Iron and Steel Industries, and interesting reproductions and illustrations depicting the earlier conditions in these industries. Published in 1918.

Introduction by John A. Penton

"To have lived during a period of over sixty years of the world's greatest accomplishments and to have been an eye-witness especially of the great development in this country's iron and steel industry, should be almost glory enough.

To have been, during this period, an active factor in this constructive work, at all times taking a leading part in all of the industry's activities, makes the author of this paper a unique figure among the American men of affairs - man who have done things.  To have been an eye-witness of iron and steel development from the conversion of the first barrel of Lake Superior ore to a period when over sixty million tons come down the Lakes and other millions are smelted in the Upper Lake region, is something few have experienced.

To have been connected with the pig iron industry when only six hundred thousand tons were made a year and be still connected with it when nearly forty million tons have been produced in this same period, is an honor the probably no one else can claim.

And to have been in the industry contemporaneous with Sir Henry Bessemer, Andrew Carnegie, John Fritz, Edgar Thompson, and other great pioneers, and active long before the days of James M. Swank, E. H. Gary, Charles M. Schwab, James A. Farrell, Samuel Mather, W. L. Brown and other leaders of the present, and to be interested still in the steel production in a year when over forty-two million tons have been made, is something to talk about.

But to be able also to look cheerfully and optimistically into the future and expect to be on the job helping to make a hundred million tons of steel a year and to tell about it in a way to charm and hold the reader as these pages do - why what's the use - there is only one "Uncle Joe" in the steel industry."

November 2006