page_title: Alcoa
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Alcoa / History
caption_attribution_description: This tablet marks the birthplace of the aluminum industry in the United States. On the site of this building the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, now Aluminum Company of America, late in November, 1888, produced the first commercial run of aluminum by the Hall Electrolytic Process. Erected by the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania November, 1938. 3220. See also: secure.flickr.com/photos/sjoberg_sara/2562492323/
context_page_description: Alcoa Corporation is an American industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth largest producer of aluminum, with corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum, and alumina combined, through its active and growing participation in all major aspects of the industry: technology, mining, refining, smelting, fabricating, and recycling.
  In May 2007 Alcoa Inc. made a US$27 billion hostile takeover bid for Alcan in an attempt to form the world's largest aluminum producer. The bid was withdrawn when Alcan announced a friendly takeover by Rio Tinto in July 2007.
  On November 1, 2016, Alcoa Inc. split into two new entities: Alcoa Corporation, which is engaged in the mining and manufacture of raw aluminium, and Arconic, which processes aluminum and other metals.
  Alcoa moved its headquarters back to Pittsburgh effective September 1, 2017. In October 2018, Alcoa announced plans to move from Pittsburgh's North Shore to a more downtown Pittsburgh location.
context_section_description: In 1886, Charles Martin Hall, a graduate of Oberlin College, discovered the process of smelting aluminium, almost simultaneously with Paul Héroult in France. He realized that by passing an electric current through a bath of cryolite and aluminium oxide, the then semi-rare metal aluminium remained as a byproduct. This discovery, now called the Hall–Héroult process, is still the only process used to make aluminium (however, see also Bayer process).
  Probably fewer than ten sites in the United States and Europe produced any aluminium at the time. In 1887, Hall made an agreement to try his process at the Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company plant in Lockport, New York, but it was not used and Hall left after one year. On Thanksgiving Day 1888, with the help of Alfred E. Hunt, he started the Pittsburgh Reduction Company with an experimental smelting plant on Smallman Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1891, the company went into production in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. In 1895, a third site opened at Niagara Falls. By about 1903, after a settlement with Hall's former employer, and while its patents were in force, the company was the only legal supplier of aluminium in the United States.
  By 1902 New Kensington consisted of 173,000 sq. feet on 15 acres with 276 employees and the company operated hydropower and reduction plants in Niagara Falls, NY (1895), Shawinigan Falls, Quebec (1900), mining operations in Bauxite, AR (1901) and reduction facilities in East St. Louis, IL (1902). "The Aluminum Company of America" became the firm's new name on January 1, 1907. The acronym "Alcoa" was coined in 1910, given as a name to two of the locales where major corporate facilities were located (although one of these has since been changed), and in 1999 was adopted as the official corporate name.
  From 1902 until 1915 additional plants in Massena, NY (1903), Alcoa, TN (1911), Edgewater, NJ (1915), Badin, NC (1915) came online while New Kensington had 31 buildings in the complex housing six departments (tubes, sheets, rods, bar and wire, extrusion, jobbing, foil) and two subsidiaries (Aluminum Cooking Utensil Company and Aluminum Seal Company).  In 1907 it created the "company town" of Pine Grove, New York, for workers outside Massena. In Baden, Alcoa, Maryville and elsewhere the company funded the construction of schools, parks, playgrounds and medical facilities.
  By the end of World War I Alcoa's New Kensington facility accounted for 3,292 workers—a fifth of the local population—and covered over 1 million square feet of manufacturing space on 75 acres.
  In 1938, the Justice Department charged Alcoa with illegal monopolization, and demanded that the company be dissolved. The case of United States v. Alcoa was settled six years later.
  In 1963, John D. Harper, a Tennessee native who had started with the company in 1925, then was hired, in 1933, as an electrical engineer, following his graduation from the University of Tennessee, and who had subsequently served as vice president and director; was named president of Alcoa, then CEO, in 1965, then chairman, in 1970, serving until his retirement from Alcoa, in 1975. Harper was also a director of Mellon Bank N.A., Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company and Procter & Gamble, and a trustee of Carnegie-Mellon University. An advocate of close associations between business and government; in 1972, Harper, with General Electric CEO Fred J. Borch was instrumental in co-founding the Business Roundtable, and served as its chairman for three years.
  In 1998, Alcoa acquired Alumax in a cash and share deal for $2.8 billion. Alcoa paid $50 a share in cash for half of the shares and 0.6975 Alcoa share for each of the remaining Alumax shares. Alcoa also assumed $1 billion in debt. Alumax's assets included the Eastalco aluminum smelter in Adamstown Maryland, the Intalco aluminum smelter in Ferndale Washington, and the Kawneer brand of building construction products.
  In 2000, Alcoa acquired Reynolds Metals Co. in an all-share deal for $4.5 billion. To clear anti-competition regulatory hurdles, Alcoa was required to
caption: A tablet marking where in November 1888, the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, now Aluminum Company of America, produced the first commercial run of aluminium by the Hall Electrolytic Process. Tablet installed by Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania in 1938.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3076", "Image ImageLength": "4088", "Image BitsPerSample": "8", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image ImageDescription": "Birthplace of the Aluminum Industry (Pittsburgh, PA)", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "E-620", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "RawTherapee", "Image DateTime": "2011:07:02 11:09:25", "Image Artist": "takomabibelot", "Image Copyright": "Creative Commons Attribution.", "Image ExifOffset": "442", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[40, 27, 81690/1901]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[79, 58, 14469/1250]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "394465/1761", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[15, 9, 25]", "GPS GPSMapDatum": "WGS-84", "GPS GPSDate": "2011:07:02", "Image GPSInfo": "812", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF Tag 0x882A": "-4", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:07:02 11:09:25", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:07:02 11:09:25", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-3/10", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "925/256", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "8", "EXIF FocalLength": "36", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal"}