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A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 5
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METALLURGY LANE
Metallurgy Lane, authored by ASM life member Charles R. Simcoe, is a continuing series dedicated to the early history of the U.S.
metals and materials industries along with key milestones and developments.
PIONEERS IN METALS RESEARCH—PART I
STEEL PIONEER HENRY MARION HOWE WAS AN INDUSTRIALIST, SCIENTIST, TEACHER, WRITER,
AND LIFELONG RESEARCHER.
W
hile Henry Marion Howe wrote
his first textbook in 1893 about
every aspect of steel known
at the time, he is perhaps best known
for teaching metallography to many of
the students who would go on to devel-
op modern physical metallurgy. He first
taught at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology after a brief career in indus-
trial metallurgy. He later accepted a pro-
fessorship at Columbia University as the
first professor of metallurgy in the School
of Mining Engineering in 1897.
Howe was born in 1848 to par-
ents who were well known in Boston’s
intellectual circles. His father, Samuel
Howe, was a physician who became the
first director of the Perkins School for
the Blind. His mother, Julia Ward Howe,
was a poet and an ardent supporter of
civic causes, in high demand as a lectur-
er in the women’s suffrage movement.
She was also famous as the author of
the Civil War song, “The Battle Hymn
of the Republic.” Henry Marion Howe
brought his intellectual passion to the
field of metallurgy.
His father had many connections
after serving in the Greek army during
the war with the Turks, so Henry re-
ceived his early education from Europe-
an tutors who taught him both French
andGerman. He attendedhigh school at
the famous Latin School in Boston and
enrolled at Harvard, where he graduat-
ed in 1869. Much to his family’s dismay,
he then studied mining engineering at
the recently founded MIT, graduating
in 1872. As part of his student training,
he worked for a year at the Albany and
Rensselaer Iron and Steel Co. in Troy,
N.Y., on the Bessemer steel process.
Here he came in contact with Alexander
Holley, who was building a steel indus-
try with this new process.
Upon graduation from MIT, Howe
accepted a job as superintendent of
the new Bessemer plant of the Joliet
Iron and Steel Co. in Illinois. He stayed
only one year and then accepted a job
in Pittsburgh at the Blair Iron and Steel
Co. After one year in this position, he
returned to Boston to spend time writ-
ing. In 1877, Howe entered an entirely
new field when he went to Chile to over-
see the copper mining operations of a
wealthy Boston family. Returning to
the U.S. in 1879, he supervised the con-
struction of copper smelters in Canada
and New Jersey. He then became man-
ager of a copper smelting company in
Pima, Arizona. After one year he again
returned to Boston, ending his career as
an industrial metallurgist. Howe set up
a consulting practice and began teach-
ing at MIT.
THE MAKING OF STEEL
Over the next several years, Howe
worked on his first major book,
The
Making of Steel,
published in 1893.
This book established his reputation
Henry Marion Howe.
Samuel Howe, Henry’s father.
Julia Ward Howe, Henry’s mother.
throughout the industrial world as a
leading metals engineer. Howe sur-
veyed all of the published literature on
steel from the U.S., England, France,
Germany, and Russia. He covered steel-
making processes in the bulk of the text
and included very little on what is now
called physical metallurgy. He also cov-
ered the known information on alloys,
including chromium, manganese, nick-
el, and tungsten. Much of it was about