REBECCA LUKENS’S IRON MILL

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V24 2021 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 24, Number 11, March 14, 2021, Article 30

Crystal M. Moten is curator of African American history in the Division of Work and History at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. In the museum's O Say Can You See? blog for March 9, 2021, she illustrates an obsolete banknote from the National Numismatic Collection with a connection to Women's History in American business. Here's an excerpt. -Editor

The inside of Rebecca Lukens’s mill is featured on this $10 Bank of Chester Valley note

A sudden tragedy thrust Rebecca Lukens into the family business and into history, making her the nation’s first woman industrialist and the only woman to run and eventually own an iron mill in the United States during the 1800s.

In 1825, at the age of 31 and expecting her sixth child, Rebecca Lukens endured a heart-wrenching loss. Her husband, Charles Lukens, died unexpectedly from illness. On his death bed Charles made Rebecca promise she would take over Brandywine Iron Works and Nail Factory, the family business which he had been running prior to his untimely death. Rebecca’s father, Isaac Pennock, was the original owner of the mill. He had died in 1824, and while he did not leave the business to Rebecca and Charles directly, he had made Rebecca a verbal promise that it belonged to her.

Rebecca had learned the business, first from her father, and then from her husband, who consulted her as he advanced and expanded the company. Though it was nearly bankrupt at the time of Charles’ death, Rebecca revived the mill and made it profitable, but this came at tremendous personal and financial cost.

Brandywine Iron Works specialized in the production of small iron products such as nails, wheels, barrel hoops, and blacksmith rods.

By 1818, the mill had become the first to roll iron boilerplate. In March of 1825, a foundry and machine shop in Pennsylvania commissioned Brandywine Iron Works to provide the material for the nation’s first ironclad steamship, the Codorus. Charles accepted the order, but he died in the summer before the completion of the ship. In November of that year, as the Codorus set sail on the nearby Susquehanna River, Rebecca took over the management of Brandywine Iron Works.

By the 1840s, Rebecca’s mark on the mill was undeniable. She had completely renovated it and made it profitable. By 1844, she was worth $60,000 (about $1.7 million in 2020). Rebecca died on December 10, 1854, but the company continued and remained in the family until Bethlehem Steel bought it in 1998.