This machine changed the world. It made steel faster and cheaper than anyone thought possible — and Pennsylvania had more of them than anywhere else on earth.
The Bessemer converter was the technology that made the modern industrial world possible, transforming raw pig iron into usable steel in under twenty minutes through a blast of air that burned off excess carbon in a spectacular shower of sparks. Andrew Carnegie built his fortune on Bessemer steel. The railroads that connected America were built with it. The skyscrapers of New York and Chicago rose on Pennsylvania Bessemer steel. The National Museum of Industrial History in Bethlehem preserves these machines and the story of the men who operated them — a story that is fundamental to understanding how the United States became a world power.
Have you ever visited the National Museum of Industrial History in Bethlehem?