Tradition, Innovation, and Expertise: Writing the Steel Code for the National Recovery Administration

TL;DRAbstract

In the winter of 1932-33, as the United States economy hit bottom in the Great Depression, the iron and steel industry was its poster child. Steel was in desperate circumstances. When the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) became law in June 1933, steel was among the earliesto act, and it established a powerful code dominated by and operated in the interest of the steel frans. Its swiftnessurprised both contemporaries and later analysts, for industries characterized by large, bureaucratic, and professionally managed firms were thoughto have more stable patterns of competition with better control of price and production and stronger profit margins. Why then did steel join such highly competitive industries as clothing and textiles in a pellmell tush to have its code accepted by the National Recovery Administration The prevailing literaturemphasizes a history in which large, powerful firms simultaneously took advantage of thei • smaller, weaker competitors, of an inexperienced, poor

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