Portsmouth Steel Company

The Portsmouth Steel Company, formerly Portsmouth Iron & Steel, AKA Portsmouth Steel Corporation, was a steel manufacturing company based in Portsmouth, Scioto County, Ohio.[1]

Portsmouth Steel Company
FormerlyPortsmouth Iron & Steel
FoundedMid-18th Century
Defunct1950
HeadquartersPortsmouth, Ohio
Production output
Steel

History

The town of Portsmouth lies where the Scioto and Ohio rivers in meet. Thanks to iron ore in the foothills of southern Ohio, nearby forests, and the two rivers, made the town an ideal home for blast furnaces. An early site was the Portsmouth Iron Works, operated by Glover, Noel & Company (1831), purchased by Thomas G. Gaylord (1834), who sold to Benjamin B. Gaylord, John P. Gould, and Abram Morrell but still under management by Thomas G. Gaylord & Company. In 1869, Gaylord leased the site to the Portsmouth Iron & Steel Company through 1878. In 1881, the lease resumed to Portsmouth Iron & Steel, which became the Portsmouth Steel Company.[2]

In 1915, the Whitaker-Glessner Company of Wheeling, West Virginia, bought the property of Portsmouth Steel (a former subsidiary) at Portsmouth.[3]

In 1936, Lee Pressman, chief legal counsel of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), visited Portsmouth to help local union members in dispute over the murder of two strikebreakers during a strike.[4]

In 1946, Cyrus Eaton hired 32-year-old Harold J. Ruttenberg (1914–1998), who left the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) as vice president in charge of labor relations because he wanted to "make a lot of money."[5][6] In 1948, Ruttenberg set off an investigation into former CIO and SWOC colleague Lee Pressman. On May 19, 1948, SEC official Anthon H. Lund accused Pressman of interfering in a lawsuit filed against the Kaiser-Frazer car manufacturing company in a Federal District Court in New York City. He specified that between February 3 and 9, 1948, Ruttenberg of Portsmouth Steel Corporation had contacted Pressman for advice on "how to go about filing a stockholder's suite against Kaiser-Frazer."[7] Later in May, during testimony before an SEC board of inquiry, Pressman declared he had "absolutely nothing to do with" the suit. "I have not been requested by anyone to suggest the name of a lawyer who would file a lawsuit against the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation." He stated, "I demand that I be given the opportunity to examine Mr. Lund under oath on the stand to determine who gave him that inaccurate information." The trial's examiner Milton P. Kroll informed Pressman, "You have been given the opportunity to state your position on the record. Your request is denied."[8]

In 1949, Portsmouth Steel settled a labor dispute with the CIO.[9]

In 1950, the Detroit Steel Corporation bought Portsmouth Steel.[2]

References
  1. "Portsmouth Steel Company (Local History Digital Collection)". Portsmouth Public Library. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  2. "New Boston Coke". Abandoned Online. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  3. "Absorbs Affiliated Concern". Steel and Iron. American Manufacuturer. 49: 248. 22 February 1915. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  4. Gall, Gilbert J. (1999). Pursuing Justice: Lee Pressman, the New Deal, and the CIO. SUNY Press. p. 56. ISBN 9780791441039. Retrieved 31 July 2017.
  5. "Ruttenberg". Kiplinger's Personal Finance. American Manufacuturer: 14. April 1947. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  6. Clark, Paul F.; Gottlieb, Peter; Kennedy, Donald (2018). Forging a Union of Steel: Philip Murray, SWOC, and the United Steelworkers. Cornell University Press. p. 124. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  7. Cloke, H. Walton (27 May 1948). "Steel Man Levels 'Vilification' Cry: Portsmouth Phone Calls Data Given by SEC 'Misinformer' in Kaiser Case, He Avers: Stirs Uproar in Hearing". New York Times. p. 37. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
  8. Cloke, H. Walton (27 May 1948). "Pressman Denies Kaiser Suit Link: Contradicts Testimony of SEC Aide That He Was Consulted as to Lawyer for Action". New York Times. p. 37. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
  9. "Small Steel Starts to Sign Up". BusinessWeek. October 1949. p. 94. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
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