On this day in 1901, the United States Steel Corporation was founded. It was a merger of Carnegie Steel, Federal Steel and National Steel, orchestrated by J. P. Morgan of New York City. Charles M. Schwab, who had suggested the merger to J. P. Morgan, was named U.S. Steel's first president. The sale of Carnegie Steel made Andrew Carnegie one of the richest men throughout all of American history (when one accounts for inflation).
After this merger, U.S. Steel was responsible for two-thirds of the nation's considerable steel production. The company was gargantuan—and significantly fueled the explosion of America's Industrial Revolution. In 1943, during World War II, U.S. Steel's staffing ledger hit its highpoint with 340,000 employees.
In 2025, U.S. Steel was purchased by the Nippon Steel of Japan—with the assistance of the sitting U.S. President. The company continues to produce steel, however, at a much reduced capacity to the glory days of a century before.
The steel paper clips, shown above, were made in the last decades of the Nineteenth Century. They are cast with Aesthetic Movement graphics and have a little hole on the "pinch tab" with which it can be hung on a nail on the wall. Click on the photo above to learn more about it.
Though our Greenwich Village store is now permanently closed, LEO Design is still alive and well! Please visit our on-line store where we continue to sell Handsome Gifts (www.LEOdesignNYC.com).
To arrange a visit our Pittsburgh showroom (by private appointment only), please call 917-446-4248.