Bernard Lauth (August 23, 1820 in

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

– June 25, 1894) he founded the American Iron Works in 1850, and formed a partnership with B.F. Jones in 1851. In 1854, Lauth retired from the steel firm, selling his partnership to

James H. Laughlin James Laughlin (March 1, 1806 – December 18, 1882) was an Irish-American banker and capitalist, a pioneer of the iron and steel industry in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was born near Portaferry in County Down, Ireland, the son of James Laughl ...

, who led the company to be renamed

Jones and Laughlin Steel Company The Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation began as the American Iron Company, founded in 1852 by Bernard Lauth and Benjamin Franklin Jones, a few miles (c 4 km) south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River. Lauth's interest was bought in ...

. He invented and patented the process for cold rolling of iron in 1859.Patent
/ref> In 1871, he purchased the iron furnace at

Howard, Pennsylvania Howard is a borough in Centre County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the State College, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 720 at the 2010 census. Geography Howard is located at (41.013857, -77.654809). A ...

, where he built a rolling mill in 1882.

References

1820 births 1894 deaths People from Bas-Rhin French emigrants to the United States American steel industry businesspeople Businesspeople from Pennsylvania People from Centre County, Pennsylvania Engineers from Pennsylvania 19th-century French inventors 19th-century American businesspeople {{US-inventor-stub