Midvale Steel

An outstanding example of an industry no longer operating in Nicetown was Midvale Steel, founded in 1867 as the Butcher Steel Works and named for William Butcher, a recent immigrant steelmaker from Sheffield, Great Britain. Butcher enlisted the aide of importer Philip Justice and banker Edward Clark and shortly thereafter, began steel production in direct competition with the Pencoyd Iron Works in Manayunk and Henry Disston’s crucible steel plant in the Northern Liberties. Butcher died three years later and the company was subsequently taken over by William Sellers, a local machine tool builder.

The company's name was changed to Midvale Steel in 1872 and three years later, it landed its first contract with the U.S. Navy. Later contracts for steel were soon had with Baldwin Locomotive, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and John Roebling’s Sons (builders of the Brooklyn Bridge); by 1912 the site covered over fifty acres and employed over 3,500 workers.

Midvale’s huge success is attributed, in part, to the fact that it was organized and managed by a consortium of financial interests as well as people trained in the making of steel. (Most other Philadelphia industries were owned and operated simply by people trained in their specific fields.)

In 1915, Midvale merged with the Cambria Steel Company of Johnstown, Pennsylvania and two other steel companies near Philadelphia to become the Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company. This merger, according to Scranton and Licht, was motivated by the efforts of “a syndicate of steelmakers trained by Carnegie and Wall Street bankers;” the timing of the merger enabled the company to capitalize on enormous war-related contracts for the Army and the Navy during World War I.

By 1919, Midvale’s payroll swelled to 7,300. After the war, in the 1920s, the company’s productivity declined dramatically and Bethlehem Steel gained control of Cambria and several other portions of the company. Midvale itself reorganized as the Midvale Company and set out to diversify its production and tighten its workforce.

By 1928, the number of employees on the payroll had dropped to 1,800. During that time, it also became one of the nation’s largest producers of armor plate steel for ships and tanks. It also produced large forgings, propellers and shafts for ships, chemical vessels, and marine engines.

Midvale Steel was the home of one of America’s foremost innovators in labor efficiency—Frederick Winslow Taylor. Taylor grew up in Germantown, the child of a wealthy family. He attended good schools, but instead of pursuing college, he apprenticed in a Philadelphia machine shop.

In 1878, he came to work at Midvale as a day laborer, rose to clerk, then to machinist, then to gang boss, and finally to Chief Engineer prior to his leaving the company in 1890.

During his tenure, Taylor became intensely interested in the efficient management of work-related time. Using methods introduced by Charles Brinley, Taylor systematically developed techniques to raise the efficiency of production throughout the entire plant to an exceptionally high level.

Taylor believed that each workman should be given, as far as possible, the highest grade of work for which his ability and physique were fitted, that each workman should be called upon to turn out the maximum amount of work that a first-rate man of his class should do, and thrive, and that each workman, when working at the best pace of a first-class man, should be paid from 30 to 100% beyond the average of his class, according to the nature of the work he was doing.

Taylor introduced an elaborate system of time studies to determine precisely how much time should be allowed for each operation, first into the machine shop and later into other departments. He then developed a “differential” piece rate system (in accordance with Brinley’s methods) under which an employee’s pay rate was based upon his output and efficiency.

Taylor’s ideas stemmed from the concept that workers operate at a much lower level of productivity than their actual capability. If their capabilities were scientifically determined, and if workers received proper pay incentives for producing at their capacity, then productivity, wages, and profits would all be substantially improved. Taylor’s ideas were opposite to those of the “welfare work” movement which was based on the idea that improving a worker’s welfare (his place, lot, etc.) would inspire the worker to seek self-betterment, loyalty to the company and cooperation.

Taylor left Midvale in 1890 and soon began establishing similar work studies at the Manufacturing Investment Company (a paper manufacturer), and eventually at Bethlehem Steel.

Midvale’s slowdown after World War I led to experimentation and innovation in new products by the company. One of the products, a nickel and chrome alloy steel (originally developed for military uses) found an effective use in the auto industry. However, in spite of these developments, the Depression hurt Midvale seriously and by 1933, only 800 workers were on the site.

The demands of the recovery in the late 1930s, and the threats of war brought activity back to Midvale, in staggering proportions. By 1940, the site had grown to 80 acres.

Wartime production caused employment to swell as the company produced steel for the Army and the Navy. After the War, Midvale’s production began to drop off, and during the 1960s, its life slowly started to come to an end.

In 1970, the newly reorganized Midvale-Heppenstal Corporation began the systematic shutdown of the Nicetown plant; its eulogy was written by Scranton and Licht.

The last to close of our four nineteenth-century Philadelphia plants, Midvale is soon to be demolished. For the moment, its massive forge hammers are still in place, but they will never again shake the earth with their power. Their silence leaves a bitter emptiness after a century of steel and sweat.

Information Taken http://www.workshopoftheworld.com/introduction/introduction.html