Bessemer
Bessemer names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Bessemer SIR HENRY, an Eng-order to produce steel
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
SIR HENRY, an Eng-order to produce steel. By this process, lish inventor, born in Charlton, Hertfordshire, Jan. 19, 1813; began modeling and designing patterns when 18 years old; chose engineering as a profession, and, after long and costly experiments, announced, in 1856, his discovery of a SIR HENRY BESSEMER means of rapidly and cheaply converting pig iron into steel, by blowing a blast of air through the iron when in a state of fusion (see BESSEMER STEEL). For this discovery discovery the Institution of Civil Engineers awarded him the Gold Telford Medal, and several foreign governments honored him with valuable tokens. In the United States appreciation of his great discovery took the form of creating industrial cities and towns under his name. He was elected President of the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain in 1871; knighted by the Queen in 1879, and received the freedom of the city of London in 1880. He died in London, March 15, 1898.
Bessemer a town in Jefferson co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a town in Jefferson co., Ala.; on several trunk railroads; 11 miles S. W. of Birmingham, the county-seat. It was founded in 1887 as a manufacturing place because of the valuable iron and coal mines in its immediate vicinity. number of blast furnaces, machine shops, planing mills, iron pipe works, fire brick works and other works connected with the iron and steel industry. The city has a savings bank, several daily and weekly newspapers, library, hospital and other public buildings. Pop. (1910) 10,- 864; (1920) 18,674.
Bessemer city and county-seat of Gogebic co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
city and county-seat of Gogebic co., Mich., on the Chicago and Northwestern and several other railroads; 40 miles E. of Ashland, Wis. It is in an important iron mining region; was founded in 1884, and has become important by reason of its mining and manufacturing and its trade relations with the surrounding territory. It has a notably fine high school building, courthouse, a National bank, and weekly newspapers. Pop. (1910) 4,583; (1920) 5,482,
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's wrote in 1921 that Sir Henry Bessemer's 1856 converter had made steel cheap, and it had — but the process it describes is now a museum piece. Open-hearth furnaces overtook it, and after the basic oxygen process was developed in Austria in the 1950s the Bessemer converter went out of commercial use altogether; the last American ones were blown out in the 1960s. The two namesake towns diverged sharply: Bessemer, Alabama, with its "number of blast furnaces" and "iron pipe works," lost most of its heavy industry as Birmingham's steel trade contracted, and now holds roughly 26,000 people, its best-known employer a vast Amazon warehouse whose 2021 unionization vote drew national attention. Bessemer, Michigan, whose "important iron mining region" on the Gogebic range shut down after mid-century, has shrunk from the 5,482 of 1920 to under 2,000, though it remains the seat of Gogebic County.
Written for this edition, 2026.