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  • Iron Will: Cleveland-Cliffs and the Mining of Iron Ore, 1847–2006 by Terry S. Reynolds and Virginia R. Dawson
  • H. Roger Grant
Terry S. Reynolds and Virginia R. Dawson. Iron Will: Cleveland-Cliffs and the Mining of Iron Ore, 1847–2006. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2011. viii + 351 pp. ISBN 9780814335116, $44.95 (cloth).

Historians Terry Reynolds and Virginia Dawson have chronicled a durable Cleveland, Ohio-based business, Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company. This firm, which has had several corporate names over the past 160 years, consistently demonstrated an ability to respond to multiple challenges within the iron ore and iron and steel industries. The skills of Cleveland-Cliffs executives are integral in explaining the impressive corporate longevity. The company benefitted from a series of capable decision makers who nurtured a corporate culture that regularly embraced innovation and long-term planning. In more recent years, officials rejected conventional wisdom during periods of economic distress, acquiring mining properties at bargain-basement prices. The foremost example occurred in the formative years of this century when bankrupt domestic steel makers liquidated their mineral holdings and related assets, primarily in the rich iron ranges of northern Minnesota. These investments attest to the corporate philosophy of emphasizing iron mining, its historic core business. Then, there was another rewarding strategy. Cleveland-Cliffs, in part because of limited financial assets, historically has forged partnerships with other mining and metal-producing firms, allowing it to expand ore reserves, receive lucrative management fees, and bolster income. And the tradition continues, being reflected in more recent partnership investments in Australia and the Caribbean.

Reynolds and Dawson do more than provide an engaging and comprehensive business history of this iconic Cleveland company. Their work contains fascinating social history, mostly of miners and mining communities in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the heart of the firm’s historic operations. At the turn of the twentieth century, William G. Mather, son of the firm’s pioneer executive Samuel L. Mather, spear-headed imaginative and beneficial “paternalistic” programs for workers and their families, including visiting nurses, company-backed hospitals, and annual prizes for best-kept homes and best vegetable gardens. In what was surely an unusual aspect of mining properties, Mather hired Warren Manning, a respected landscape architect, to beautify company facilities. The model company town of Gwinn, Michigan, became one of his outstanding professional achievements. These actions helped to create a generally happy workforce and for decades produced labor peace. “It [was] difficult for labor organizers,” observed the authors, “to paint Cleveland-Cliffs as a completely heartless, explorative, and remote corporation” (104). [End Page 661]

Vital to the Cleveland-Cliffs story is how the company responded to changes in technology. Just as officials were long concerned about the welfare of employees, they consistently sought the best (and hence most profitable) ways to extract and process iron ore, ranging from the pioneer use of compressed-air drills to reinforced concrete shaft houses. The foremost breakthrough, though, involved development of iron taconite pellets as a method of responding to the problem of ore depletion. It would be taconite that revolutionized the ore business after the mid-twentieth century. The company invested heavily on how to make its Michigan ores competitive with those from other mines in North America and elsewhere.

With any book a reviewer might suggest additional commentary on one or more topics. Take transportation. While the authors consider lake and rail transport, these areas should have been more fully discussed, especially the company-owned Lake Superior & Ishpeming Railroad. This short line carrier, historically maintained to high standards, supports the thesis that Cleveland-Cliffs understood the need for a quality physical plant and efficient operations, underscoring the conclusion that the firm was one of the iron industry’s best managed companies.

Although sponsored by Cliffs Natural Resources, Inc., the present-day company, Reynolds and Dawson have provided a sensible and balanced account. When matters of controversy are involved, including labor relations and environmental concerns, they have been evenhanded in their narrative. Coverage is wide ranging and creative, making Iron Will a model business history. Moreover, this study fills a void in the literature of the history of American mining. The...

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