Charles M. Schwab
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Charles Michael Schwab (February 18, 1862 in Williamsburg, Pennsylvania - October 18, 1939 in London, England) was an American industrialist who became a multimillionaire in the steel industry but died bankrupt.
He started as a stake driver in Andrew Carnegie's steelworks and in 1897 rose to become president of the Carnegie Steel Company. In 1901, he negotiated the secret buyout of Carnegie Steel by a group of New York-based financiers led by J.P. Morgan. After the buyout, Schwab became the first president of the U.S. Steel Corporation, the company formed out of Carnegie's former holdings. In 1903 he resigned to run the Bethlehem Steel Company, which under his direction became the largest independent steel producer in the field.
Part of Bethlehem Steel's success was the development of the H-beam, a precursor of today's ubiquitous I-beam. Charlie Schwab was interested in producing such a wideflange steel beam, a risky venture that required capitalization and new plant construction to make an unproven product.
"I've thought the whole thing over," Schwab told his secretary, "and if we are going bust, we will go bust big." It is his most famous remark.
In 1908, Bethlehem Steel began producing the beam, which revolutionized building construction and made possible the age of the skyscraper. Its success helped make Bethlehem Steel the second-largest steel company in the world. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania was incorporated, virtually as a company town, by uniting four previous villages.
In 1910, Schwab broke the Bethlehem Steel strike by calling out the newly-formed Pennsylvania State Police. Schwab kept labor unions out of Bethlehem Steel, which was not organized until after his death, in 1941.
Schwab eventually moved to New York City, specifically the Upper West Side, which at the time was considered the "wrong" side of Central Park, and where he built "Riverside", the most ambitious private house ever built in New York. The house combined details from three French chateaux on a full city block. After Schwab's death, New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia turned down a proposal to make the mansion the official mayoral residence, considering it to be too grandiose. It was eventually torn down and replaced by a drab apartment block.
Schwab was considered to be a risk taker. He went broke in the stock market crash of 1929, and died comparatively penniless ten years later. He was no relation to Charles R. Schwab, founder of the Charles Schwab Corporation.
External link
- Schwab biography at the Bethlehem website (http://www.bethlehempaonline.com/schwab_bio.html)
Further reading
- Hessen, Robert, Steel titan: the life of Charles M. Schwab, Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press (1990).
- James H. Bridge, The Inside History of the Carnegie Steel Company (1903)
- Ida M. Tarbell, The Life of Elbert H. Gary (1925)
- Arundel Cotter, The Story of Bethlehem Steel (1916) and United States Steel: A Corporation with a Soul (1921)
- Burton J. Hendrick, The Life of Andrew Carnegie (2 vols., 1932; new introduction, 1969)
- Stewart H. Holbrook, Age of the Moguls (1953)
- Joseph Frazier Wall, Andrew Carnegie (1970) and Louis M. Hacker, The World of Andrew Carnegie (1968).
- Burton W. Folsom, Jr., The Myth of the Robber Barons, Young America.