About the Author

Gerald G. Eggert is Professor Emeritus of History at Penn State University. His publications include Harrisburg Industrializes: The Coming of Factories to an American Community (Penn State, 1992) and the pamphlet "The Iron Industry in Pennsylvania," published by the Pennsylvania Historical Association.

Reviews

“Eggert relates a classic tale of proprietary achievement, local prominence, and ultimate stagnation within a family firm. . . .“Eggert ably shows that examining life and labor far from the big cities and their relentless innovations enriches our understanding of the history most Americans experienced and made. We are once again in his debt.”—Philip Scranton Labor History

“Most histories of early American iron making have been studies of the industry rather than of individual firms, owing perhaps to the generally valid assumption that there is more to learn from the rule than from the exceptions to it. A study of one firm can all too readily become an exercise in antiquarianism, unless its author is able to place the firm in its larger industrial and social context. Fortunately for readers of Making Iron on the Bald Eagle, its author, Gerald G. Eggert, has done just that.”—Paul F. Paskoff Business History Review

“[The] aim of Pennsylvania State University Press's Keystone Books is to shed light on Pennsylvania's local history, surely a laudable cause and a niche that this book fills admirably.”—Dr. Francie Robb, independent scholar Technology and Culture

“Eggert's book offers readers of Isis an example of an industry that throve without benefit of natural science in a rural setting for nearly a hundred years. Eggert presents a compelling description of life on an iron plantation and of the vicissitudes of running a family enterprise. The survival of Curtin Village and its furnace as a heritage site in Pennsylvania adds interest to his story.”—Robert B. Gordon Isis

“Professor Eggert has made another solid contribution to the history of the iron industry in nineteenth-century Pennsylvania. This chronicle of iron barons and industrial workers in Curtin Village adds a central Pennsylvania accent to already existing narratives of iron barons in Hopewell Village, the efforts of Rebecca Lukens in Coatesville, or those of David and Samuel Reeves in Phoenixville. . . . This study raises some very serious questions concerning Roland Curtin's business priorities. It also serves to remind readers of the subjective nature of credit and finance.”—Thomas R. Winpenny Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography