Archibald Johnston (1865-1948) graduated from Lehigh in 1889 in Mechanical Engineering. Upon graduation he went to work for the Bethlehem Iron Company where he was put in charge of building and operating the first gun forging plant and armor plate department in a steel manufacturing plant in the United States. In 1899, when the company became the Bethlehem Steel Company under the directorship of Charles M. Schwab, he became assistant general superintendent. Later, Schwab appointed him a president of the steel company. In 1906, Schwab incorporated Bethlehem Steel. Johnston was made first vice president of the Corporation. Under the forceful nature of Schwab in the name of patriotism and the anticipation of the war (World War I), the boroughs of Bethlehem and South Bethlehem were consolidated in 1917with Johnston leading the effort. Johnston was elected the City of Bethlehem’s first mayor in 1918 and served until 1922. During his term as mayor he improved the relationship between the Company and the community. He was a company man. He retired from Bethlehem Steel Corporation in 1927. Johnston married Estelle Borhek in 1891. She was a daughter of the prominent Bethlehem timber merchant family Brown-Borhek. She accompanied him on many trips to South America and on some occasions their children also came along according to some of the correspondence.

The correspondence in this collection gives an interesting and exciting view of the rise of Bethlehem Steel to a world power in steel manufacturing under the flamboyant direction of Charles M. Schwab, as Chairman of the Board and Eugene G. Grace, as President. Schwab’s intention was to make Bethlehem Steel a prize steel manufacturing company of armament, guns, battleships and equipment. Based on the telegrams and letters in this collection it is apparent that Bethlehem Steel had high-powered representatives such as Archibald Johnston stationed around the world. The Bethlehem Steel executives in 1912 had direct access to senators, generals and admirals both in the United States and worldwide. Archibald Johnston’s arena appears to have been primarily Argentina, Brazil and Chile when those South American countries were very affluent and interested in establishing their own navies and coastal defenses. Chile also had fine quality iron ore mines which Bethlehem Steel owned as well as iron mines in Cuba. Along with a number of other Bethlehem Steel executives who covered Europe as well as South America, the daily telegrams back and forth to each other and the home office in South Bethlehem indicate a broad spectrum of business with England, France, Germany, Greece, Japan and Turkey as well as South America. The business messages have an interesting code system based on German terminology (e.g. “Bleiplatte, Koolhaus, Kopfmuskel, Kornjahres, Musikhaus, Stubenbett”). Possibility is that Schwab designated this usage since he had German parents who immigrated to Pennsylvania. It is during this time of the Johnston correspondence that Bethlehem Steel developed the “H” beam (later modified to an “I” beam). The correspondence in this collection, however, mostly deals with orders for armament and battleships, the main products produced at the South Bethlehem plant at the time.