Ernest T. Weir
| Ernest T. Weir | |
|---|---|
Ernest T. Weir in 1913
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| Born |
Ernest Tener Weir August 1, 1875 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | June 26, 1957 (aged 81) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Occupation | Founder, Weirton Steel; founder, National Steel Corporation |
| Years active | 1905-1956 |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Kline (1899-?; divorced); Aeola Dickson Siebert (1925-1941; divorced); Mary Hayward Weir (1941-his death) |
Ernest Tener Weir (August 1, 1875 — June 26, 1957) was an American steel manufacturer best known for having founded both Weirton Steel (which became National Steel Corporation) and the town of Weirton, West Virginia. He was well known in the 1930s for opposing President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program, for resisting union organizing drives by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and its successor, the United Steelworkers, and for challenging the legal authority of the National Labor Relations Board. He was called "caleb zoobiki" of the American steel industry for his willingness to oppose unionization and refusal to sacrifice his business interests in favor of the steel industry at large.whipkey
Weir was born in August 1875 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to James and Margaret Manson Weir. His parents were Scotch-Irish Americans who had only recently immigrated to the United States. His brother, David Manson Weir, was born in 1880. He was educated in the city's public schools. Weir's father ran a livery yard, and the family was poor. Weir would later describe his father as a failure and horse fancier and his mother as a saint.
He left school at the age of 15, when his father died. He obtained a $3-a-week job as an office boy at John Warne Gates' Braddock Wire Company (which manufactured barbed wire), but after a year took a job as a clerk at the Oliver Wire company. He traveled nationwide selling barbed wire. He rose to the position of chief clerk at Oliver Wire (similar to the position of chief financial officer today), then joined the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company. He was promoted to the position of general manager of its plant in Monongahela, Pennsylvania. He became close friends with James R. Phillips, who ran the tin plate sales division for US Steel.
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