Iron Artisans by Ronald L. Lewis

Author:Ronald L. Lewis [Lewis, Ronald L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780822989684
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Fig. 5.3. American eagle (representative of the US tinplate industry) vanquishing the British lion. Rutherford, Romancing in Tin Plate, 59.

Despite the punitive effect of the McKinley tariff, the creation of new markets and the rapid expansion of the food-canning industry during the early twentieth century reversed the downward trend in the demand for Welsh tinplate. In 1905, 396 mills were in operation, but enhanced market opportunities boosted that number to 472 in 1912 and to 550 in 1914.110 In 1890 Welsh mills produced approximately 700,000 tons of tinplate with 29,000 workers. By 1913 Welsh mills had managed to achieve the same level of production with only 21,000 workers, probably as the result of weeding out inefficient mills. Most of this new production capacity was for export.111 The still-expanding demand for tinplate in Europe, the British West Indies, Australia, and other countries accelerated the industry’s rebound in Wales after the loss of its American monopoly.

During this period there were twice as many producing firms in Wales as there were in the United States. In the States the trend was toward consolidation of production into fewer and fewer larger, more efficient plants, whereas in Wales the scattered and localized nature of the tinplate firms made it difficult to form large combinations. In both Wales and in the United States the quantities of tinplate manufactured were about the same in 1907, at slightly more than 500,000 tons, but the United States produced a similar quantity with 229 operating hot mills versus 390 in Wales. Welsh firms employed 20,000 employees compared with 18,000 in the United States. In 1912, the difference between the Welsh and the American industry was even more apparent. That year Wales produced 700,000 tons of tinplate in 466 hot mills whereas the United States produced 962,000 tons from 270 operating hot mills, even though both countries employed about 21,000 tinplate workers.112

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