USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The Bessemer process allowed steel to be produced without fuel, using the impurities of the iron to create the necessary heat. This drastically reduced the costs of steel production, but raw materials with the required characteristics could be difficult to find.

Detailed explanation-2: -In 1898, the magazine Scientific American published an article that analysed precisely the important economic effects of the increase in the supply of cheap steel. In the end, the Bessemer process decreased its cost of production from 40 to six or seven pounds sterling per ton.

Detailed explanation-3: -The open-hearth process, which was developed in the 1860s, did not suffer from this difficulty, and it eventually outstripped the Bessemer process to become the dominant steelmaking process until the mid-20th century.

Detailed explanation-4: -The Bessemer Process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron prior to the open hearth furnace. The key principle is the removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation by blowing air through the molten iron.