How Big Steel in the U.S. fell

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Steel manufacturing was at one point the most important industry in the United States. It was one of the biggest employers, a driver of economic growth, and it shaped our national security. Cars, weapons, skyscrapers... all needed steel.

But in the second half of the 20th century, the industry's power started to decline. Foreign steel companies gained more market power and the established steel industry in the U.S. was hesitant to change and invest in newer technologies. But then, a smaller company took a chance and changed the industry.

On today's episode: What can the fall of a once-great industry teach us about innovation and technology? And why you should never underestimate an underdog.

This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Mary Childs. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Jess Jiang. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Our executive producer is Alex Goldmark.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from NPR sponsor HubSpot.
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0:19.0	Keith Busy has had a front row seat to the rise and fall of a great American industry.
0:28.0	That industry?
0:31.0	Steel?
0:32.0	But back in the early 60s he was just out of college and working an
0:35.8	accounting job in northern Indiana. He was far from home, didn't know a lot of
0:39.7	people. On the weekends he'd go for drives.
0:43.0	I used to go up to the sand dunes north of Valparaiso, Indiana.
0:47.0	This beautiful stretch of land along the sandy shores of Lake Michigan.
0:52.0	And they were constructing a brand new steel mill at the time
0:55.9	called Bethlehem Steel Burns Harbor. Oh, like the big, big old school Bethlehem Steel.
1:01.9	Okay. Yes, that one. Back then, Bethlehem Steel was
1:06.0	huge, the second biggest steel company in the United States. And the site they
1:10.6	were constructing. Dozens of buildings, many stories high.
1:14.1	It had its own train system,
1:16.2	smokestacks reaching up into the sky.
1:19.5	This is what steel mills looked like
1:21.3	for most of the last century.
1:22.8	And I remember sitting on the sand dunes just watching the erection process from the beach
	...

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