HOGAN STEEL ARCHIVE
During
the past year, the Department of Archives and Special Collections and the
Industrial Economics Research Institute have been collaborating to preserve
the remarkable steel legacy compiled by Father William T. Hogan, S.J., who
passed away on January 12, 2002. During a distinguished 52-year career here
at Fordham, Father Hogan earned a well-deserved reputation as a true innovator
in economic education and came to be known the world over as the "Steel Priest."
What is envisioned as the "Hogan Steel Archive" is to be created in his honor
as a permanent, online educational, historical, and information resource,
accessible to students, researchers, scholars, and to all those seeking knowledge
on the domestic and world steel industries.
Fordham's Steel Priest
Born in the South Bronx in 1919, William Thomas Hogan was a product of the
Bronx public schools, P.S. 72 and James Monroe High. During the Depression,
he delivered The Bronx Home News to help support his family and then
pay his tuition at Fordham, where he would graduate college cum laude and
eventually earn an M.A. in economics and, after becoming a Jesuit priest,
a Ph. D.
In the late 1940's, his doctoral work would take him to Pittsburgh, then
the nation's and the world's steel capital, where he lived at Duquesne University
and worked at United States Steel Corporation in researching his dissertation
on steel productivity. It was the first detailed study on the subject ever
made, and his methods of productivity measurement were adopted by the U.S.
Department of Labor and were detailed in his first book, Productivity in
the Blast-Furnace and Open-Hearth Segments of the Steel Industry. Published
in 1950, the book would forever identify Father Hogan with steel.
It was also in 1950 that Father founded Fordham's Industrial Economics Research
Institute and initiated an interrelated research and teaching program in Industrial
Economics. The innovative curriculum he developed served as a model that in
time was integrated into the economics courses of 112 colleges and universities
throughout 30 states and the District of Columbia. In 1954, his lectures were
published in his second book, The Development of American Heavy Industry
in the Twentieth Century.
Father Hogan's innovative teaching approach employed concrete examples drawn
from everyday events in business and industry not only to demonstrate industrial
interdependence, but also to give the student an appreciation of the size
and complexity of basic heavy industry and of the labor and capital inputs
needed to sustain its operation. The educational value of this approach was
that in his words: "It provides a supplement to courses in economic theory,
and thus gives students more opportunity to check theoretical principles against
real-world business practices."
Over the years, both at Fordham and as a visiting professor at Penn State
and Purdue, Father Hogan taught about the interdependence of the steel, automobile,
railroad, petroleum, and utility industries and kept his course content current
by means of research conducted by the Industrial Economics Research Institute,
often with the participation of student interns, who were able to learn first
hand just how basic heavy industry functions. Much of the Institute's research
demonstrated the pivotal role of the steel industry as a catalyst for economic
development, and throughout his career, Father used his knowledge and worked
tirelessly to foster international cooperation and understanding in the steel
business, earning his worldwide reputation as the "Steel Priest."
During the 1960's, Father devoted considerable time and effort to studying
the economic impact of the depreciation-tax laws on steel and other industries
that rely on long-lived equipment, emphasizing the need for reforms to spur
capital investment. He was instrumental in passage of the investment-tax credit
and other reforms proposed by President Kennedy, testifying on the subject
on numerous occasions before legislative committees of the U.S. Senate and
House of Representatives. In 1967, his third book, Depreciation Policies
and Resultant Problems was published.
In the late 1960's, he served as a member of President Nixon's Task Force
on Business Taxation and was a consultant to the Council of Economic Advisors
to the President. In all, he counseled five U.S. presidents on tax and steel
matters and served as an advisor to many agencies of federal, state and local
government.
In 1971, Father Hogan's landmark, five-volume work was published. Having
been in preparation for more than 15 years, his Economic History of the
Iron and Steel Industry in the United States examines industry developments
from 1860 to 1971. Father periodically updated his five volumes with a series
of companion books as follows: The 1970's: Critical Years for Steel, 1972;
World Steel in the 1980's: A Case of Survival, 1982; Steel in the United States:
Restructuring to Compete, 1984; Minimills and Integrated Mills: A Comparison
of Steelmaking in the United States, 1987; Global Steel in the 1990's: Growth
or Decline, 1990; Capital Investment in Steel: A World Plan for the 1990's,
1992; and Steel in the 21st Century: Competition Forges a New World Order,
1994.
Father's last two books were The Steel Industry of China: Its Present
Status and Future Potential, published in 1999, and The POSCO Strategy:
A Blueprint for World Steel's Future, published in 2001 within months
of his passing. His final book reflects how greatly he admired the success
of the Korean people in starting from virtually nothing to build the world's
leading steel company. He traveled to Korea often and watched as his lifetime
of teaching about steel's key role in economic development was so effectively
put into practice.
Over the years, Father visited most of the world's steel-producing facilities,
delivered papers at steel conferences, and advised many steel managements.
He had the distinction of having attended every annual meeting in the 34-year
history of the International Iron and Steel Institute, which named him one
of only two honorary members.
In 1985, the American Iron and Steel Institute awarded him the Gary Memorial
Medal, the industry's highest honor, otherwise given only to top steel executives.
The medal was presented in recognition of "uniquely distinguished contributions
to knowledge that have advanced understanding of the iron and steel industry."
In 1987, he was made a Distinguished Life Member of the American Society
of Metals, and in 1990, the William T. Hogan Annual Lecture Series was established
by the Association of Iron and Steel Engineers. In 1992, Korea's President
Roh Tae-woo presented him with the prestigious Gold Tower of the Order of
Industrial Merit, the highest business award the Korean government bestows.
Finally, in 1996, Father received his most recent degree, an honorary Doctor
of Laws from his beloved alma mater, Fordham.
In profiling Father Hogan for Company magazine, Father George McCauley,
one of his fellow Jesuits wrote as follows: "The New York Times got
it wrong when it called him, 'The Boswell of the steel industry.' He was its
Johnson not its Boswell. He had a vast, direct knowledge of the industry's
intricate workings, from the smelter crews, ironmakers and sheet rollers he'd
meet on the mill floor to executives who welcomed him into their lofty offices.
"He had shrewd insight into the directions available to the industry in the
shifting circumstances of supply and demand and in times of fierce international
competition. Miraculously, he had the trust of both steel producers and steel
importers. Government officials, too, knew they were getting the real goods
whenever Father Hogan came before them.
"For all that, the Steel Priest lived up to both sides of that facile sobriquet.
His black suit and Roman collar seemed welded to his skin, probably turning
a few heads in some circles he traveled." But knowing the power of steel,
he " saw his work as a way of getting people out of their hopelessness - building
lives, putting a little security and dignity within their reach."
The Hogan Steel Archive
Starting in February, 2002, the Industrial Economics Research Institute packed
and shipped 60 library boxes from its Dealy Hall offices and Father Hogan's
residence to the Department of Archives and Special Collections in the Walsh
Library. The boxes contain tens of thousands of steel-related documents, hundreds
of steel books and references, and personal papers and correspondence relating
to the domestic and world steel industries. They also contain an extensive
series of files on the depreciation-tax laws and the research projects performed
by Fordham's Institute for Urban Studies in which Father Hogan was an active
participant. In recent months, we have been working to categorize, assemble
and prepare these materials for archiving.
The Hogan Steel Archive will contain Father's extensive collection of books
on steel, including his own, his articles, speeches and congressional testimony,
his awards and memorabilia, together with data and documentation on a comprehensive
list of steel subjects and on the steel industries in some 40 countries. This
information encompasses economic, technical, historical, and photographic
references dating back to the second half of the 19th century, many of which
are not available anywhere else.
To be included in the Archive, for example, is a collection of Annual
Reports from every major steel-producing company in the United States
from 1900 to the present, every Annual Statistical Report published
by the American Iron and Steel Institute from 1916 to the present, and every
AISI Iron and Steel Works Directory dating back to 1890.
The Archive will also contain an extensive collection of other reference
works from such organizations as the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical
Engineers, the Association of Iron and Steel Engineers, the International
Iron and Steel Institute, the British Iron and Steel Federation, Wirtschaftsvereinigung
Stahl, the Japan iron and Steel Federation, the Korea Iron and Steel Association,
Instituto Latinoamericano del Fierro y el Acero (ILAFA), Instituto Brasileiro
de Siderurgia (IBS), the American Iron Ore Association, the United Nations,
the American Metal Market, and Metal Bulletin.
These and other steel references and documents were collected by Father Hogan
and the Industrial Economics Research Institute starting in the late 1940's
for use in publishing more than 25 books, authored both by Father and other
Institute researchers, in preparing numerous articles and speeches, and in
conducting more than 150 studies on various aspects of the steel industry
and interrelated industries.
Some of these studies were initiated by the Institute, and others were conducted
for various federal, state, and local government agencies in the United States,
for such organizations as the United Nations, World Bank, Interamerican Development
Bank, and for companies in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela,
the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Ireland, Austria, Luxembourg, Italy, Greece,
Sweden, South Africa, Turkey, Taiwan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Korea, Japan,
the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, India, and China.
While working during the early 1960's to disseminate knowledge of the steel
industry among developing countries, the Institute collaborated with the United
Nations Industrial Development Organization to prepare a Manual on the
Modern Iron and Steel Industry, and some 20 years later joined with the
United Nations Environment Programme in conducting a technical review of the
direct-reduction method of ironmaking, which was being employed principally
in developing countries.
In addition to the aforementioned document files on the steel industries
in some 40 countries, the Archive will contain files on past and existing
U.S. steel companies and on such steel subjects as capacity and production,
energy use, environmental control, labor, minimills, markets, productivity,
raw materials, scrap, service centers, stainless steel, technology and facilities,
and trade.
The document files on the markets for steel contain information on automobiles,
appliances, capital goods, construction, containers, oil and gas, the railroads,
and other end uses, and the files on technology and facilities encompass the
blast furnace and smelting alternatives, BOF steelmaking, coke and cokemaking,
continuous casting, direct reduction, electric-furnace steelmaking, electrification,
open-hearth steelmaning, refractories, rolling mills and processing equipment,
and tinplate manufacturing.
Within the next few months, once the documents, references, books and other
items on hand have been presorted, they will be catalogued and computer-keyed
for ready identification and accessibility as the Hogan Steel Archive moves
closer to becoming a reality. Achieving this goal will insure that Father
Hogan and his extraordinary life's work are memorialized in a manner that
continues to advance knowledge of the industry he loved so much and about
which he taught here at Fordham from 1950 through the fall semester of 2001.
