ABSTRACT
In the 1880's The Thomas Iron Company, through the influence of its continual success and by reason of its predominance in production, being outranked only by the Edgar Thomson and Cambria iron works, became the "price leader" for the eastern foundry iron producers. The Thomas Iron Company's average annual profits differed only by $28,915 between the first and second phases of the corporation's history; however, a considerable difference in the application of those funds between the two periods. The change seems to have arisen more from the relatively rapid expansion in the production and use of Bessemer steel rather than the further growth of southern competition. Attempts by northern producers to disparage the southern iron proved a valueless defense against the competition. Once the company's sales had equaled 3 percent of all the pig iron consumed in the United States; by 1892 the proportion of the firm's sales to the nation's total consumption had been pared to 1.4 percent.
