Smokestacks are standing in for candles this week to note the 216th birthday of the co-founder and first president of the Brown-Bonnell Iron Company of Youngstown, Ohio, shown here in a ca. 1892 photograph.
Joseph Henry Brown (1810-1886) was born on July 24, 1810 in Wales. Around 1820, his family emigrated to Franklin County, Pennsylvania, where they established one of the region's early ironworks. As an adult, Joseph Henry Brown's efforts to establish himself in the family business led him first to an appointment as foreman of an iron plant in Franklin County, then to work in the mercantile iron trade in New Castle, Pennsylvania. In 1855, Brown moved to Youngstown, Ohio, where he partnered with William Bonnell to establish small guide mill, which grew into a nail and nail plate mill factory with a puddling department.
The company continued to expand, adding a rolling mill with multiple blast furnaces and a staff of around five hundred. In 1876, Joseph Henry Brown sold the company and moved to Chicago, where he founded the Joseph H. Brown Iron & Steel Company.
This photograph of Brown's industrial legacy is from Hagley Library's World's Columbian Exposition, Pennsylvania Railroad exhibit photographs (Accession 2022.226) collection, which contains a selection of photographs that were once featured in the Pennsylvania Railroad Company pavilion at the World's Columbian Exposition. This specific photograph shows the grounds of the Brown-Bonnell Iron Company of Youngstown, Ohio
The World's Columbian Exposition, named in celebration of the 400th anniversary Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, was a World's Fair held in Chicago from May 5 to October 31, 1893. The Fair covered 690 acres, and featured cultural, industrial, horticultural, architectural, and scientific exhibitions from across the United States as well as forty-five other nations.
One of those exhibitors was the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (PRR). Founded in 1846, the PRR was a leading industrial and transportation force throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At its peak in 1882, the company boasted the largest railroad (by traffic and revenue), the largest transportation enterprise, and the largest corporation in the world.
The Pennsylvania Railroad Company's exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition was housed in a dedicated pavilion located near the fairground's 64th Street entrance, immediately northeast of the fairground's station for passengers arriving by rail. The exhibition housed within the pavilion building and on the surrounding grounds offered visitors access to physical artifacts, historic rolling stock, model stations and equipment, maps, memorabilia, and photographic views related to the company's history and services.
This collection of photographs contains a selection of images that were once exhibited alongside similar photographs throughout the eastern half of the exhibition pavilion. These photographs document industries located along Pennsylvania Railroad Company and subsidiary rail lines, as well as views of wharves, docks, and stations used by Pennsylvania Railroad Company. To view this collection online now, just click here!