BETHLEHEM STEEL COMPANY - TOOL CHECK -  TOKEN -  EXCELLENT CONDITION. USPS Insured delivery in the US.

A scrip (or chit in India) is any substitute for legal tender. It is often a form of credit. Scrips have been created and used for a variety of reasons, including exploitative payment of employees under truck systems; or for use in local commerce at times when regular currency was unavailable, for example in remote coal towns, military bases, ships on long voyages, or occupied countries in wartime. Besides company scrip, other forms of scrip include land scrip, vouchers, token coins such as subway tokens, IOUs, arcade tokens and tickets, and points on some credit cards.


Scrips have gained historical importance and become a subject of study in numismatics and exonumia due to their wide variety and recurring use. Scrip behaves similarly to a currency, and as such can be used to study monetary economics.


History

A variety of forms of scrip were used at various times in the 19th and 20th centuries.


Company scrip

Company scrip is a substitute for currency to pay a company's employees.


In United States mining or logging camps where everything was owned and operated by a single company, scrip provided the workers with credit when their wages had been depleted. These remote locations were cash poor. Workers had very little choice but to purchase food and other goods at a company store. In this way, the company could charge enormous markups on goods, making workers completely dependent on the company, thus enforcing a form of loyalty to the company. Additionally, while employees could exchange scrip for cash, this could rarely be done at face value. This kind of scrip was valid only within the settlement where it was issued. While store owners in neighboring communities could accept the scrip as money, they rarely did so at face value, as it was worth less.[citation needed]


When U.S. President Andrew Jackson issued his Specie Circular of 1836 due to credit shortages, Virginia Scrip was accepted as payment for federal lands.


In the 19th century, the federal government in Western Canada offered money scrip (valued at $160 or $240) or land scrip, valued at 160 acres (65 ha) or 240 acres (97 ha), to Métis people in exchange for their Aboriginal rights.[1]


During the Great Depression, at the height of the crisis, many local governments paid employees in scrip. Vermilion, Alberta was just one example.[2]


In the U.S., payment of wages in scrip became illegal under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.[3]


The expression scrip is also used in the stock market where companies can sometimes pay dividends in the form of additional shares/stock rather than in money.[4] It is also a written document that acknowledges debt.


After World War I and World War II, scrip was used as notgeld ("emergency money") in Germany and Austria.


Scrip was used extensively in prisoner-of-war camps during World War II, at least in countries that complied with the Third Geneva Convention. Under the Geneva Conventions, enlisted prisoners of war could be made to work and had to be paid for their labor, but not necessarily in cash. Since ordinary money could be used in escape attempts, they were given scrip that could only be used with the approval of camp authorities, usually only within the camps.


Poker chips, also referred to as casino tokens, are commonly used as money with which to gamble. The use of chips as company money in the early 19th century in Devon, England, in the Wheal Friendship[5] copper mine gave its name to a local village of Chipshop.


Stamp scrip

Stamp scrip was a type of local money designed to be circulated and not to be hoarded.


One type of this worked this way. Each scrip certificate had printed boxes; every month a stamp costing a certain amount (in a typical case, 1% of the face value) had to be purchased and recorded in a box, otherwise the scrip lost all its value. This provided a great incentive to spend the scrip quickly. The scheme was used successfully in Germany and Austria in the early 1930s, after national currencies collapsed. National governments considered themselves threatened by the success of stamp scrip projects, and shut them down; similar misgivings discouraged their later use elsewhere.[6]


The Alberta Social Credit Party government in 1937 issued prosperity certificates, a form of provincial currency, in an effort to encourage spending. This scrip had boxes in which a stamp equal to 2% of the value had to be affixed each week. Thus, the value of the certificate was covered by the cost of the stamps at the year's end when it matured.


Modern usage

Scrip survives in modern times in various forms.


Community-issued scrip


This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (August 2020)

The use of locally issued scrip accepted by multiple businesses within a community increased during the late-2000s recession. Community-wide scrip usage has begun or is on the rise in Ithaca, New York; Detroit; The Berkshires; Pittsboro, North Carolina; Traverse City, Michigan; Lamar, Colorado; Calgary, Canada; Bristol, UK; and Hagen, Germany.[7][8][9][10]


Breadcoin scrip was created in Washington DC in 2016 to address food insecurity.[11]


Thailand's township Amphoe Kut Chum once issued its own local scrip called Bia Kut Chum: Bia is Thai for cowry shell, which was once used as small change, and still so used in metaphorical expressions. To side-step implications that the community intended their scrip as an unlawful substitute for currency, it now issues exchange coupons called Boon Kut Chum.[12]


Company-issued customer scrip

Some companies still issue scrip notes and token coin, good for use at company points of sale. Among these are the Canadian Tire money for the Canadian Tire stores and gasbars in Canada, and Disney Dollars (no longer printed, but still accepted), in circulation at The Magic Kingdoms and at other establishments owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company.


Scrip gift cards and gift certificates


A scrip card from a babysitting group

In the retail and fundraising industries, scrip is now issued in the form of gift cards, eCards, or less commonly paper gift certificates. Physical gift cards often have a magnetic strip or optically readable bar code to facilitate redemption at the point of sale.


In the late 1980s, the term scrip evolved to include a fundraising method popular with non-profit organizations like schools, bands and athletic groups.[13] With scrip fundraising, retailers offer the gift certificates and gift cards to non-profit organizations at a discount. The non-profit organizations sell the gift cards to member's families at full face value. The families redeem the gift cards at full face value, and the discount or rebate is retained by the non-profit organization as revenue.[14]


Commercial gift cards

Main article: Gift card

Visa, Mastercard and American Express gift cards are initially funded by a credit card or bank account, after which the funding account and gift card are not connected to one another. Once the predetermined funds are consumed, the card number expires. A gift of a gift card, maybe in an attractive wrapper, may be seen as more socially acceptable than a gift of cash. It also prevents the gift being spent on something the giver views as undesirable (or used as savings).


However, unless the gift card is obtained at a discount (paying less than the actual value of the card), buying scrip with ordinary money is arguably pointless, as it then ties up the money until it is used, and usually it may only be used at one store. Furthermore, not all gift cards issued are redeemed. In 2006, the value of unredeemed gift cards was estimated at almost US$8 billion.[15]


Another disadvantage of gift cards is that some issuers charge "maintenance fees" on the cards, particularly if they are not used after a certain period of time; or the card will expire after a given period of time.[16] Some provinces and states in North America (e.g. California, Ontario, Massachusetts, Ohio, Washington) have enacted laws to eliminate non-use fees or expirations,[17] but because the laws often only apply to single-merchant cards[18] buyers have to review the gift card conditions prior to purchase to determine exact restrictions and fees.[19] Additionally, if a retailer goes bankrupt, gift cards can suddenly become worthless. Even if stores do not close immediately, the company may stop accepting the cards.[20] This became a significant issue during the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, prompting the Consumers Union to call upon the Federal Trade Commission to regulate the issue.[21]


Land scrip (United States)

Land scrip was a right to purchase federal public domain land in the United States, a common form of investment in the 19th century. As a type of federal aid to local governments or private corporations, Congress would grant land in lieu of cash. Most of the time the grantee did not seek to acquire any actual land but rather would sell the right to claim the land to private investors in the form of scrip. Often the land title was finalized only after the scrip was resold several times utilizing land agents also called warrant brokers.[22] These grants came in the form of railroad land grants, university land grants, and grants to veterans for war service.[23][24]


Land scrip (Canada)

In 19th-century Western Canada, the federal government devised a system of land grants. Notes in the form of money scrip (valued at $160 or $240) or land scrip, valued at 160 acres (65 ha) or 240 acres (97 ha), were offered to Métis people in exchange for their Aboriginal rights.[25] Scrip was also issued to white settlers and members of the North-West Mounted Police.[26] Land was claimed at a Dominion Lands Act office,[27] often being far from where the Métis lived. The available land was located in northern Saskatchewan, Alberta,[28] and Manitoba[26] as opposed to the Métis' more southern homeland.[29] Monetary scrip was also issued.[30] Many Métis sold their scrip to land speculators at prices far below their actual worth,[31] with estimates placing the amount of scrip sold as high as 12,560 (out of 14,849).[32][33]


From the 17th to the early 19th century in the British Isles (and also elsewhere in the British Empire) and North America, tokens were commonly issued by merchants in times of acute shortage of coins of the state. These tokens were in effect a pledge redeemable in goods, but not necessarily for currency.

In numismatics, token coins or trade tokens are coin-like objects used instead of coins. The field of token coins is part of exonumia and token coins are token money. Their denomination is shown or implied by size, color or shape. They are often made of cheaper metals like copper, pewter, aluminum, brass and tin, or non-metals like bakelite, leather and porcelain.[1]

A legal tender coin is issued by a governmental authority and is freely exchangeable for goods. A token coin has a narrower utility and is issued by a private entity. In many instances, token coins have become obsolete due to the use of cash, payment cards, stored value cards or other electronic transactions.

Trade
Coin-like objects from the Roman Empire called spintriae have been interpreted as an early form of token. Their functions are not documented, but they appear to have been brothel tokens or possibly gaming tokens.[2]

Medieval English monasteries issued tokens to pay for services from outsiders. These tokens circulated in nearby villages, where they were called "Abbot's money". Also, counters called jetons were used as small change without official blessing.[3]

From the 17th to the early 19th century in the British Isles (and also elsewhere in the British Empire) and North America, tokens were commonly issued by merchants in times of acute shortage of coins of the state. These tokens were in effect a pledge redeemable in goods, but not necessarily for currency. These tokens never received official sanction from government but were accepted and circulated quite widely.

In England, the production of copper farthings was permitted by royal licence in the first few decades of the 17th century, but production ceased during the English Civil War and a great shortage of small change resulted. This shortage was felt more keenly because of the rapid growth of trade in the towns and cities, and this in turn prompted both local authorities and merchants to issue tokens.

These tokens were most commonly made of copper or brass, but pewter, lead and occasionally leather tokens are also found. Most were not given a specific denomination and were intended to substitute for farthings, but there are also a large number of halfpenny and sometimes penny tokens. Halfpenny and penny tokens usually, but not always, bear the denomination on their face.


Brass trade token from Fort Laramie, Dakota Territory
Most such tokens show the issuer's full name or initials. Where initials were shown, it was common practice to show three initials: the first names of husband and wife and their surname. Tokens would also normally indicate the merchant establishment, either by name or by picture. Most were round, but they are also found in square, heart or octagonal shapes.

Thousands of towns and merchants issued these tokens from 1648 until 1672, when official production of farthings resumed, and private production was suppressed.

There were again coin shortages in the late 18th century, when the British Royal Mint almost ceased production. Merchants once again produced tokens, but they were now machine made and typically larger than their 17th century predecessors, with values of a halfpenny or more. While many were used in trade, they were also produced for advertising and political purposes, and some series were produced for the primary purpose of sale to collectors. These tokens are usually known as Conder tokens, after the writer of the first reference book on them.


Show World Center token, New York City, c. 1990
These were issued by merchants in payment for goods with the agreement that they would be redeemed in goods to an equivalent value at the merchants' own outlets. The tokens play a role of convenience, allowing the seller to receive his goods at a rate and time convenient to himself, and the merchant to tie the holder of the token coin to his shop.

Tokens, coinlike objects that have a stated or implied value in trade, originated in the Ancient World, were used in Colonial America and are sometimes still used today in arcades, slot machines, car washes and video games. On the Western frontier, where minted coins were scarce and drawing customers was often highly competitive, tokens were especially popular.

For early pioneers and settlers, dealing with the shortage of coins was a challenge, which they met with their usual ingenious methods. One practice was to cut silver dollars or similar denomination foreign coins into pie-shaped pieces for making change. Since the currency was usually cut into eighths, one bit was worth 12 ½ cents. Two bits were worth 25 cents, four bits 50 cents and six bits 75 cents. Because there was no one-bit coin in circulation, a 10-cent piece (dime) was sometimes called a short bit.

In saloons, two bits were good for two drinks, a good cigar or a “smile” (a 2 ½-ounce bottle of whiskey). A cheap cigar or beer was 5 cents and a game of pool was usually 2 ½ cents. When a customer ordered a 12 ½-cent drink and paid with a quarter, he had the choice of receiving a dime in change or a token for another drink at 12 ½ cents. He would rarely pass on that second drink. Since the token was only good in that particular establishment, he hung around and spent his token, and probably a few more quarters as well. If a token wasn’t redeemed, the proprietor made even more money, as it only cost him 2 to 4 cents to have one made.

Tokens were also used for advertising. After the Civil War, when Texas Longhorns were driven to the railheads in Kansas for shipment east and saloons flourished in the various cow towns, saloon owners sent drummers along the trails to distribute tokens. When the cowboys reached the end of the trail, they had tokens in their pockets as well as cash. They would use their tokens to get free drinks and, hopefully for the proprietors, buy many more drinks in the same establishments.

Saloons weren’t the only Western businesses that regularly took advantage of tokens. Groceries, bakeries and ice companies all provided tokens. There were tokens for a ride on a streetcar, a meal, a shave and a bath. In fact, the earliest tokens in the West were issued by the traders connected to the military posts and date as early as 1860.

The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Until its closure in 2003, it was one of the world's largest steel-producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its success and productivity, the company was a symbol of American manufacturing leadership in the world, and its decline and ultimate liquidation in the late 20th century is similarly cited as an example of America's diminished manufacturing leadership. From its founding in 1857 through its 2003 dissolution, Bethlehem Steel's headquarters and primary steel mill manufacturing facilities were based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the United States.

The company's steel was used in the construction of many of America's largest and most famed structures. Among major buildings, Bethlehem produced steel for 28 Liberty Street, the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden, Rockefeller Center, and the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City and Merchandise Mart in Chicago. Among major bridges, Bethlehem steel was used in constructing the George Washington Bridge and Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in New York City, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and the Peace Bridge between Buffalo and Fort Erie, Ontario.

Bethlehem Steel played an instrumental role in manufacturing the U.S. warships and other military weapons used in World War I and later by the Allied forces in ultimately winning World War II. Over 1,100 Bethlehem Steel-manufactured warships were built for use in defeating Nazi Germany and the Axis powers in World War II. Historians cite Bethlehem Steel's ability to quickly manufacture warships and other military equipment as decisive factors in American victories in both world wars.[1]

Bethlehem Steel's roots trace to an iron-making company organized in 1857 in Bethlehem, which was later named the Bethlehem Iron Company. In 1899, the owners of the iron company founded Bethlehem Steel Company and, five years later, Bethlehem Steel Corporation was created to be the steelmaking company's corporate parent.

Bethlehem Steel survived the earliest declines in the American steel industry beginning in the 1970s. In 1982, however, the company suspended most of its steelmaking operations after posting a loss of $1.5 billion, attributable to increased foreign competition, rising labor and pensions costs, and other factors. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and final dissolution in 2003 when its remaining assets were sold to International Steel Group.

History

A February 1880 illustration of the land tract issued to Bethlehem Steel by present-day Lower Saucon Township, South Bethlehem, and Northampton County, which included eleven acres and 52 perches

Bethlehem Steel Works, an 1881 watercolor by Joseph Pennell of the Bethlehem Iron Company

The Bethlehem Steel plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, photographed by William H. Rau, 1896
19th century
In 1857, what ultimately became Bethlehem Steel was launched as the Saucona Iron Company in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania by Augustus Wolle.[2] That same year, the Panic of 1857, a national financial crisis, halted the company's further organization. But the organization subsequently restarted, its site was moved elsewhere to South Bethlehem, and the company's name was changed to the Bethlehem Rolling Mill and Iron Company.[2] On June 14, 1860, the board of directors of the fledgling company elected Alfred Hunt president.[2]

On May 1, 1861, the company's title was changed again, this time to the Bethlehem Iron Company.[2] Construction of the first blast furnace began on July 1, 1861, and was operationalized on January 4, 1863. The first rolling mill was built between the spring of 1861 and the summer of 1863 with the first railroad rails being rolled on September 26, 1863. A machine shop, in 1865, and another blast furnace, in 1867, were completed. During its early years, the company produced rails for the rapidly expanding railroads and armor plating used by the U.S. Navy.

The company continued to prosper during the early 1880s, but its share of the rail market began to decline in the face of competition from growing Pittsburgh and Scranton-based firms, such as the Carnegie Steel Company and Lackawanna Steel. The nation's decision to rebuild the Navy with steam-driven, steel-hulled warships reshaped Bethlehem Iron Company's destiny.

Following the American Civil War, the U.S. Navy quickly downsized after the end of hostilities as national energies were redirected toward settling the West and rebuilding the war-ravaged South. Almost no new ordnance was produced, and new technology was neglected. By 1881, international incidents highlighted the poor condition of the U.S. fleet and the need to rebuild it to protect U.S. military capabilities, trade, and prestige.

In 1883, U.S. Secretary of the Navy William E. Chandler and U.S. Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln appointed Lt. William Jaques to the Gun Foundry Board and Jaques was sent on several fact-finding tours of European armament makers. On one of these trips, he formed business ties with the firm of Joseph Whitworth of Manchester, England. He returned to the United States as Whitworth's agent and, in 1885, was granted an extended furlough to pursue this personal interest.

Jaques was aware that the U.S. Navy would soon solicit bids for the production of heavy guns and other products such as armor that would be needed to further expand the fleet. Jaques contacted the Bethlehem Iron Company with a proposal to serve as an intermediary between it and the Whitworth Company, so Bethlehem Iron could erect a heavy-forging plant to produce ordnance.

In 1885, John F. Fritz, sometimes referred to as the father of the U.S. Steel Industry, accompanied Bethlehem Iron directors Robert H. Sayre, Elisha Packer Wilbur, president of Lehigh Valley Railroad, William Thurston, and Joseph Wharton, founder of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, to meet with Jaques in Philadelphia. In early 1886, Bethlehem Iron and the Whitworth Company executed a contract.

In the spring 1886, Congress passed a naval appropriations bill that authorized the construction of two armored second-class battleships, one protected cruiser, one first-class torpedo boat, and the complete rebuilding and modernization of two Civil War-era monitors. The two second-class battleships, the USS Texas and the USS Maine, both had large-caliber guns with 12-inch and 10-inch, respectively, and heavy armor plating. Bethlehem secured both the forging and armor contracts on June 28, 1887.

Between 1888 and 1892, the Bethlehem Iron Company completed the first U.S. heavy-forging plant. It was designed by John Fritz with the assistance of Russell Davenport, who joined Bethlehem Iron in 1888. By fall 1890, Bethlehem Iron was delivering gun forging to the U.S. Navy and was completing facilities to provide armor plating.[3]

During the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, Bethlehem Steel provided the iron used in the creation of a 140-foot steel axle to support the world's first Ferris wheel, a 264-foot (80 m) structure. The iron was manufactured in Bethlehem Steel's blast furnaces and represented the largest single steel forging ever constructed at the time.[4]

In 1898, Frederick Winslow Taylor joined Bethlehem Steel as a management consultant in order to solve an expensive machine shop capacity problem. Taylor and Maunsel White, with a team of assistants, applied a series of management principles established by Taylor, which would later come to be known as scientific management and was used in increasing mass production.

The Bethlehem Iron Company was very successful and profitable, and the corporate management of the Bethlehem Iron Company believed that it could be even more profitable. To accomplish that goal, the corporate ownership of the Bethlehem Iron Company switched to steel production, and the company's name was formally changed to Bethlehem Steel Company.

Bethlehem Steel Company
In 1899, Bethlehem Steel Company was established. This was the first company to carry the name Bethlehem Steel. Bethlehem Steel Company, also then known as Bethlehem Steel Works, was incorporated to take over all liabilities of the Bethlehem Iron Company.[5][6][7] The Bethlehem Iron Company and the Bethlehem Steel Company were separate companies under the same ownership. The Bethlehem Steel Company leased the properties that were owned by the Bethlehem Iron Company.

20th century

A preferred share of Bethlehem Steel Corporation, issued July 6, 1911

Naval guns being assembled at Bethlehem Steel, c. 1918

Great Depression-era photographer Walker Evans' famous November 1935 photograph, Bethlehem Graveyard and Steel Mill, captures St. Michael's Cemetery in Bethlehem in the foreground and the smokestacks of Bethlehem Steel in the background

1942 photo of USS Massachusetts, built at Bethlehem Steel's Fore River Shipyard during World War II

Bethlehem Steel constructing two World War II warships, HMS Calder (on left) and USS Foss (on right), in 1943

A Bethlehem Steel plant at Lake Erie in Buffalo, New York, 1973

The BETHCON trademark, which was used on Bethlehem Steel's HVAC ducting, January 2017

Bethlehem Steel in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was one of the world's leading steel manufacturers for most of the 20th century. In 1982, it discontinued most of its operations, declared bankruptcy in 2001, and was dissolved in 2003.
In 1901, Charles M. Schwab (no relation to the stockbroker Charles R. Schwab), purchased the Bethlehem Steel Company and made Samuel Broadbent its vice president.[8][7] During this time, the company's lease with the Bethlehem Iron Company came to an end as the Bethlehem Steel Company gained control of all properties from the Bethlehem Iron Company and the Bethlehem Iron Company ceased operations.[7]

Schwab transferred his ownership of the Bethlehem Steel Company to the U.S. Steel Corporation, the company of which he was president. This period was brief; Schwab repurchased Bethlehem Steel Company, then sold it to the United States Shipbuilding Company. The United States Shipbuilding Company owned Bethlehem Steel Company only a brief time. The United States Shipbuilding Company was in turmoil; its subsidiaries, including the Bethlehem Steel Company, contributed to the United States Shipbuilding Company's problems. Schwab again became involved with Bethlehem Steel Company through the parent company, the United States Shipbuilding Company.[8][7]

The United States Shipbuilding Company planned in 1903 to reorganize as the Bethlehem Steel and Shipbuilding Company, which would be the second company to use the name Bethlehem Steel. However, the United States Shipbuilding Company was not reorganized as the Bethlehem Steel and Shipbuilding Company; instead, a plan was drawn up for a new company to be formed to replace the United States Shipbuilding Company. The new company was initially to be named Bethlehem Steel and Shipbuilding Company. In 1904, it instead assumed the name Bethlehem Steel Corporation.[8]

The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was formed by Schwab, who had recently resigned from U.S. Steel, and by Joseph Wharton, who founded the Wharton School in Philadelphia. Schwab became the first president and first chairman of the board of directors.

After its formation, the Bethlehem Steel Corporation purchased the Bethlehem Steel Company and its remaining subsidiaries from the United States Shipbuilding Company.[8][7] The Bethlehem Steel Company became a subsidiary of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, though the Bethlehem Steel Company also had subsidiaries of its own. Bethlehem Steel Corporation became the second largest steel provider in the United States. Both the Bethlehem Steel Company and the Bethlehem Steel Corporation existed simultaneously after 1904 until the 1960s, when the two companies were merged into the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

Bethlehem Steel Corporation installed the Gray rolling mill and produced the first wide-flange structural shapes to be made in the United States. These shapes were partly responsible for ushering in the age of the skyscraper and establishing Bethlehem Steel as the leading supplier of steel to the construction industry.

In the early 1900s, Samuel Broadbent led an initiative to diversify the company. The corporation branched out from steel, with iron mines in Cuba and shipyards around the country. In 1913, under Broadbent, Bethlehem Steel acquired the Fore River Shipbuilding Company of Quincy, Massachusetts, assuming the role of one of the world's major shipbuilders. In 1917, it incorporated its shipbuilding division as Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation Ltd. In 1922, Bethlehem Steel purchased the Lackawanna Steel Company, which included the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and extensive coal holdings.[9]

During World War I and World War II, Bethlehem Steel was a major supplier of armor plate and ordnance to the U.S. armed forces, including armor plate and large-caliber guns for the U.S. Navy, and was influential to U.S. victories in both wars. Bethlehem Steel "was the most important to America's national defense of any company in the past century. We wouldn't have won World War I and World War II without it", historian Lance Metz told The Washington Post in 2003.[1]

In the 1930s, the company also manufactured the steel sections and parts for the Golden Gate Bridge and built for Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF), a new oil refinery in La Plata, Argentina, which was the tenth-largest in the world. During World War II, as much as 70 percent of airplane cylinder forgings, one-quarter of the armor plate for warships, and one-third of the big cannon forgings for the U.S armed forces were turned out by Bethlehem Steel.

World War II
Bethlehem Steel ranked seventh among U.S. corporations in the value of wartime production contracts.[10] Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation's 15 shipyards produced a total of 1,121 ships, more than any other builder during the war and nearly one-fifth of the U.S. Navy's two-ocean fleet. Its shipbuilding operations employed as many as 180,000 persons, the lion's share of the company's total employment of 300,000.

Eugene Grace was president of Bethlehem Steel from 1916 to 1945, and chairman of the board from 1945 until his retirement in 1957. Grace orchestrated Bethlehem Steel's World War II wartime efforts. In 1943, Grace promised U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt that Bethlehem Steel would manufacture one ship per day, and he ultimately exceeded that commitment by 15 ships.[11]

World War II, however, drained Bethlehem Steel of much of its male workforce. The company hired female employees to guard and work on the factory floor and in the company offices. After the war, female workers were promptly fired in favor of male counterparts.[12]

On Liberty Fleet Day, September 27, 1941, then U.S. President Roosevelt was present at the launching of the first Liberty ship SS Patrick Henry'x at Bethlehem Steel's Bethlehem Fairfield Shipyard in Baltimore. Also launched the same day were the Liberty SS James McKay at Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard in Sparrows Point, Maryland, and the emergency vessel SS Sinclair Superflame at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts.

In 1946, Bethlehem Steel signed a contract with mining company LKAB to contribute to the recovery of the post-World War II recovery of the iron ore industry in northern Sweden.[13]

Following end of World War II, the Bethlehem Steel plant continued to supply a wide variety of structural shapes for the construction trades. Galvanized sheet steel under the name BETHCON was widely produced for use as duct work or spiral conduit.[14]

The company also produced forged products for defense, power generation, and steel-producing companies.[15]

From 1949 to 1952, Bethlehem Steel had a contract with the U.S. federal government to roll uranium fuel rods for nuclear reactors in Bethlehem Steel's Lackawanna, New York plant. Workers were not aware of the dangers of the hazardous substance and were not given protective equipment. Some workers have since attempted to receive compensation under a year 2000 radiation-exposure law. The law required the U.S. Labor Department to compensate workers up to $150,000 if they developed cancer later in life, provided their work history involved enough radiation exposure to significantly increase their cancer risk. Bethlehem Steel workers have not been awarded this compensation because the radiation dose involved in processing fresh uranium fuel is low and produces a small risk relative to the baseline risk.[16][17] The larger danger in processing uranium is chemical poisoning from the heavy metal, which does not produce cancer.[18]

The steel industry in the U.S. prospered during and after World War II, while the steel industries in Germany and Japan lay devastated by allied bombardments. Bethlehem Steel's success pinnacled in the 1950s as the company began manufacturing 23 million tons of steel annually. In 1958, the company's president, Arthur B. Homer, was the highest-paid U.S. business executive, and the firm built its largest plant between 1962 and 1964 in Burns Harbor, Indiana.

In 1967, the company lost its bid to provide the steel for the original World Trade Center. The contracts, a single one of which was for 50,000 tons of steel, went to competitors in Seattle, St. Louis, New York and Illinois.[19]

U.S. global leadership in steel manufacturing lasted about two decades during which the U.S. steel industry operated with little foreign competition. Eventually however, foreign firms were rebuilt with modern techniques such as continuous casting, while profitable U.S. companies resisted modernization. Bethlehem experimented with continuous casting but never fully adopted the practice.

Meanwhile, the age of Bethlehem Steel workers were increasing, and the ratio of retirees to workers was rising, meaning that the value created by each worker had to cover a greater portion of pension costs than before. Former top manager Eugene Grace had failed to adequately invest in the company's pension plans during the 1950s. When the company was at its peak, pension contributions that should have been made were not. As a result, the company encountered difficulty when it faced rising pension costs combined with diminishing profits and increased global competition.[20]

By the 1970s, imported foreign steel was proving cheaper than domestically produced steel,[21] and Bethlehem Steel faced growing competition from mini-mills and smaller-scale operations that could sell steel at lower prices.

In 1982, Bethlehem Steel reported a loss of US$1.5 billion and shut down much of its operations. The company's profitability returned briefly in 1988, but restructuring and shutdowns continued through the 1990s.[12] In the mid-1980s, demand for the plant's structural products began to diminish and new competition entered the marketplace. Lighter construction styles, due in part to lower-height construction styles, such as low-rise buildings, did not require the heavy structural grades produced at the Bethlehem plant.

In 1991, Bethlehem Steel Corporation discontinued coal mining it had been conducting under the name BethEnergy and the company exited the railroad car business two years later, in 1993. In 1992, the Johnstown plants of the Bethlehem Steel, which had been founded in 1852 by The Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown and were purchased by Bethlehem Steel in 1923, were forced into closure.

By the end of 1995, Bethlehem Steel closed steel-making at its main Bethlehem plant. After roughly 140 years of metal production at in Bethlehem, Bethlehem Steel ceased its Bethlehem operations. Two years later, in 1997, Bethlehem Steel Corporation ceased shipbuilding activities in an attempt to preserve its steel-making operations. In 2001, however, Bethlehem Steel filed for bankruptcy and, in 2003, the company dissolved.

In 1998, after denied pension benefits, a lawsuit was filed in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. The case, Lawrence Hollyfield, Fiduciary to the Estate of Collins Hollyfield v. Pension Plan of Bethlehem Steel Corporation and Subsidiary Companies, was settled in favor of Hollyfield in 2001. It led to a class action lawsuit filed by Bethlehem Steel's workers union soon thereafter. This settlement led to PBGC assuming all Bethlehem Steel pension obligations, representing the largest such pension liability assumption in U.S. history.[22]

21st century
In 2001, Bethlehem Steel filed for bankruptcy, becoming the 25th American steelmaking company in the span of four years between 1998 and 2001 to file for bankruptcy protection.[23] In 2003, the company was dissolved with its remaining assets, including six plants, acquired by the International Steel Group. International Steel Group, in turn, was acquired by Mittal Steel in 2005, which then merged with Arcelor to become ArcelorMittal in 2006.

Despite closing its local operations, Bethlehem Steel tried to reduce the significant economic and social impact on Bethlehem and the Lehigh Valley area, announcing plans to revitalize the south side of Bethlehem where its headquarters and primary plant had existed since the mid-19th century. The company hired consultants to develop conceptual plans on the reuse of the massive property, and a consensus emerged to rename the 163 acres (66 ha) site Bethlehem Works and to use the land for cultural, recreational, educational, entertainment, and retail development. The National Museum of Industrial History, in association with the Smithsonian Institution and the Bethlehem Commerce Center, consisting of 1,600 acres (650 ha) of prime industrial property in Bethlehem would be erected on the site along with a casino and a large retail and entertainment complex.

In 2007, the Bethlehem Steel property was sold to Sands BethWorks, which planned to build a casino where the plant once stood. Construction began in fall 2007, and the casino was completed in 2009. Due to a global steel shortage at the time, the casino had difficulty finding the 16,000 tons of structural steel needed for construction of the $600 million casino complex.[24]

The site of the company's original plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is home to SteelStacks, an arts and entertainment district. The plant's rusted five blast furnaces were left standing and serve as a backdrop for the new campus. SteelStacks currently features the ArtsQuest Center, a contemporary performing arts center, the Wind Creek Bethlehem casino resort, formerly Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, a gambling emporium, and new studios for WLVT-TV, the Lehigh Valley's PBS affiliate.[25] The area includes three outdoor music venues: Levitt Pavilion is a free music venue featuring lawn seating for up to 2,500 people, Air Products Town Square at Steelstacks, and PNC Plaza, which hosts outdoor concerts.[26] Levitt Pavilion and the casino resort are connected via the Hoover-Mason Trestle linear park.

On November 9, 2016, a warehouse being used as a recycling facility that was part of the Bethlehem Steel complex in Lackawanna, New York caught fire and burned down.[27]

On May 19, 2019, Martin Tower, Bethlehem Steel's former corporate headquarters building in West Bethlehem, was demolished.[28]

Bethlehem Steel's corporate records are housed at the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware, and at the National Museum of Industrial History in Bethlehem.[29]