ABSTRACT
It is quite obvious that the persistent changes in the location, organization, and technology of the iron and steel industry between 1893 and 1913 had diminished The Thomas Iron Company’s economic advantages and reduced the firm to the rank of a marginal firm. No longer were the company’s furnaces, once reputed to be outstanding works, efficient enough to permit the earning of large profits. Doggedly persisting in clinging to the old processes and course of business, the management found that the firm’s furnaces were maintained on an inadequate base of raw materials and most of the furnaces lacked the advantages of modern labor-saving mechanisms as well as the advanced furnace design then being employed by the rising steel firms. The lack of labor-saving skip hoists, the use of low grade ores, and the employment of inefficient furnaces and hot-blast stoves tended to keep the average costs of production high. Thus, whenever the price of pig iron dipped, the firm’s profits were reduced considerably and sometimes disappeared.
