ABSTRACT
Introduction The experience of the steel industry in the 1930s reflected the wretched state of the economy during the Great Depression. Between 1929 and 1932, real gross domestic product (GDP, in 2007 dollars) dropped 25.6 percent from $950.9 billion to $707.4 billion. This resulted in over a 75 percent drop of steel production. After 1932, both the economy and the steel sector recovered but only slowly, and with some setbacks.
