ABSTRACT
Pittsburgh in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the epicenter of global steel production. It housed US Steel, the world's first billion dollar company. Seventy-five years later, the American steel industry was in a deep crisis. Nearly 46 million tons (mt) of steel capacity during the 1978-88 period was phased out, a third of which was in the Pittsburgh region alone. In 1988 Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh received a million dollars from the Pohang Iron and Steel Company (POSCO) - the state-owned South Korean firm - for metallurgical research. Technical staff from newly formed nations in the 1950s and 1960s were sent to Carnegie Mellon for training in the art and science of steelmaking. At the time Korea was too poor and politically disorganized to even contemplate constructing a steel mill. Today POSCO is the world's second largest steel firm with an annual revenue of over $10 billion. Thus the endowment to Carnegie Mellon was more than a gift; it was a mark of commercial clout and industrial success. Its financial and technical collaboration with US Steel was another sign of shifting industrial power. The industry had come full circle with US Steel's preeminent global position now reduced to number six.
