News Summary

• The same article said peak steel output came in 1953, when the company produced 35.8 million tons of steel while steelmakers in Europe and Japan were still struggling to recover from the war.
• Bradford said all along the way, US Steel and other US integrated steelmaking rivals with storied names such as Bethlehem Steel, Inland Steel and LTV Steel underestimated the competitive challenge that they faced from overseas and mini-mills at home.
• Those “integrated” steelmakers soon lagged so-called “mini-mills,” nonunion competitors that use electric arc furnaces to turn old steel scrap from discarded cars and other products into new steel products using more efficient electric arc furnaces.
• In the early part of the last century, the company produced the steel that helped the United States become a global economic superpower, providing steel not just for skyscrapers, bridges and dams, but also for autos, appliances and other products craved by American consumers.
• But, in recent years, US Steel’s fallen far below other American steel companies in steel output and stock market value.
• The Pittsburgh-based company formed in 1901 as a merger of the nation’s leading steel companies — including Carnegie Steel Corp. — and was engineered by financier J.P. Morgan.