| Aluminum was discovered early in the 1800s and by | | | | again. A direct electric current was passed through |
| the middle of that century, crude methods were | | | | the molten cryolite-alumina solution for several hours. |
| available for extracting it. Aluminum, a silvery-white | | | | After months of work, Hall and his sister broke open |
| metallic element, was discovered in 1825 by Danish | | | | their graphite crucible on February 23, 1886, to find |
| chemist Hans Christian Orsted. It is the most | | | | tiny globules of a silvery metal—aluminum. Hall |
| abundant metal found in Earth's crust, comprising 8.3 | | | | rushed to show them to Jewett, who confirmed his |
| percent of the crust's total weight. Its content in | | | | discovery. It was February 23, 1886. Hall was just 22 |
| seawater, however, is as low as 0.01 gram per | | | | years old. The globules from this discovery are |
| metric ton (0.01 part per million). The key isotope of | | | | referred to as Alcoa's "crown jewels" and these |
| aluminum is Al-27 with a natural abundance of 100 | | | | same samples are preserved by Alcoa as the |
| percent, but seven other isotopes are known, one of | | | | company's "crown jewels." |
| which is used as a radioactive tracer (Al-26). | | | | Hall's next move in his quest to "bless humanity and |
| Aluminum is not found in its metallic state in nature; it | | | | make a fortune for himself" was to make aluminum |
| is usually found as silicate, oxide, or hydrated oxide | | | | production commercially feasible and here began |
| (bauxite). Its extraction from ore is difficult and | | | | Alcoa's story with Charles Martin Hall. Hall knew that if |
| expensive; aluminum is therefore commonly recycled, | | | | he could discover this process, he could turn it into an |
| the energy of recycling being a mere 5 percent of | | | | industry. In fact Charles was interested in finding a |
| the energy needed to extract the metal. | | | | way to make aluminum throughout his college days. |
| Aluminum is lightweight, ductile, and easily machined. It | | | | Charles' sister Julia Brainerd Hall became his close |
| is protected by an oxide film from reacting with air | | | | associate and advisor. Some have said that Julia may |
| and water, and is therefore rust-resistant. It is one of | | | | have had more of hand in the invention than the |
| the lightest metals but is quite tough and most helpful | | | | record reveals. It is certain that she served as his |
| in metallurgy, transportation (e.g., aircraft, | | | | assistant and was an excellent sounding board since |
| automobiles, railroad cars, and boats), and | | | | she had also studied chemistry at Oberlin, which was |
| architecture (e.g., window frames and decorative | | | | quite unusual for a woman those days. Her biggest |
| ornaments). It is also used in the manufacture of | | | | contribution may have been that she was responsible |
| cooking gear because it is a good conductor of heat. | | | | for the meticulous records of Hall's experiments. |
| Aluminum foils as thin as 0.18 millimeter are a | | | | These records were later used to prove the priority |
| household convenience, protecting food from spoiling | | | | of Hall's invention, and without them, there would |
| and providing insulation. Aluminum-made beverage | | | | have been no patent, and no Alcoa. |
| cans are widely manufactured. The average human | | | | Charles started seeking financial backing to |
| body contains about 35 milligrams aluminum, but no | | | | commercialize his process. His older brother George, |
| known biological role has been established for it; it is, | | | | who lived in New England, suggested that he come |
| however, suspected to be a factor in the | | | | to Boston. Nothing developed there. His precious |
| development of Alzheimer's disease. | | | | globules were looked upon as laboratory curiosities. |
| Although aluminum is now widely used as a structural | | | | After returning to Oberlin, Charles sought assistance |
| material, this was not always the case. Though | | | | from Alfred and Eugene Cowles, of Cowles Electric |
| common in Earth's crust, aluminum is difficult to | | | | Smelting & Aluminum Company, which made |
| extract from its ore because it is a very reactive | | | | alloys. They were already running a successful |
| metal. Before 1886, aluminum was a semiprecious | | | | business having done much to develop the electric |
| metal comparable in price to silver. Although the | | | | furnace. The Cowles brothers made an offer where |
| element had been discovered in 1825 and had been | | | | Charles would work on the process for them for 90 |
| investigated by many European scientists, the only | | | | days, with an option to buy the process and patents |
| way to prepare the metal was by the complex and | | | | and make Charles a partner. They weren't interested, |
| difficult process that culminated in reacting metallic | | | | so the Cowles brothers did not exercise their option, |
| sodium with aluminum chloride. The rarity and | | | | and at the end of six months, Charles was back |
| importance of aluminium is realized from the fact that | | | | where he started. |
| in 1852, at $545 a pound, it was a precious metal | | | | Through his association with the Cowles brothers, Hall |
| that only the truly wealthy could afford. Napoleon III | | | | met Romaine C. Cole, a young businessman who |
| had a baby rattle and other small objects made of | | | | recognized the value of Hall's invention and |
| aluminum. The metal was so rare and unique that in | | | | recommended contacting Capt. Alfred E. Hunt, one of |
| 1855 small bars of aluminum were exhibited at the | | | | the foremost metallurgists in the steel industry, |
| Paris Exhibition alongside the crown jewels of France. | | | | located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Cole knew Hunt |
| During the construction of the Washington | | | | through some experimental work on aluminum that |
| Monument; aluminum was cast into a nine inch high | | | | Cole had done for Hunt & Clapp's materials |
| pyramid which was to be placed atop the obelisk as | | | | testing business. Hunt was so impressed with Hall's |
| an ornament and lightening rod. Made before Alcoa, | | | | process that he called a preliminary meeting of five |
| without the Hall process, this aluminum cap cost $225, | | | | of his associates on July 31, 1888. The meeting was |
| which would be roughly $4,000 today. It weighed 100 | | | | held at Hunt's Pittsburgh home and the first order of |
| ounces, which works out to $640 a pound. When the | | | | business was to select a name for the new |
| Washington Monument was completed in 1884, the | | | | company. The first name selected for the business |
| pyramid of this costly aluminum was placed as an | | | | was Pittsburgh Aluminium Company. |
| ornament at the very top. Before its installation the | | | | Hunt was originally from Boston and was only 33 |
| cap was on display on the floor at Tiffany's in New | | | | years old at the time. The others Hunt gathered |
| York City, where customers were invited to "step | | | | were also relatively young, all under 35 years old and |
| over the top of the Washington Monument."It also | | | | all connected with the steel industry. In addition to |
| served as the tip of the lightning rod system, a | | | | Hunt's partner George H. Clapp, the others were |
| practical application of the high electrical conductivity | | | | Howard Lash, head of the Carbon Steel Company. |
| and corrosion resistance of this remarkable metal. | | | | Millard Hunsiker, sales manager for Carbon Steel. |
| However, economical methods were needed to | | | | Robert Scott, superintendent of the 33rd Street Mill |
| wrest aluminum from its abundant minerals. | | | | of Carnegie Steel, and W. S. Sample, chief chemist |
| Interestingly two men, Frank Jewett and Charles Hall, | | | | for Hunt and Clapp's Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory. |
| with a common interest in aluminum metal met on | | | | On August 8, 1888 they agreed to put up $20,000, |
| the campus of Oberlin College near Cleveland, Ohio, in | | | | $5,000 at a time, on call, to build a pilot plant which |
| 1880. Frank Jewett was a world traveler and as well | | | | was constructed on Smallman Street. From then on |
| educated in chemical science as any American | | | | Hunt left the materials testing business in the hands |
| academic of his day. Charles Hall was a local youth, | | | | of his partner Clapp and spent the remainder of his |
| self-educated in science, who hoped to become a | | | | career with Alcoa. |
| successful inventor and entrepreneur. Their | | | | On October 1, 1888, the enterprise was incorporated |
| association over the next five-and-one-half years led | | | | as The Pittsburgh Reduction Company. The name |
| to the discovery of a practical process for making | | | | proved to be an unhappy choice, as it was often |
| aluminum from its ore by an electric current. Within | | | | confused with another, similarly titled garbage disposal |
| three more years, Hall was producing pure aluminum | | | | concern. In 1907 the name was changed to Aluminum |
| metal on an industrial scale. Aluminum, the curiosity, | | | | Company of America, which it remained until 1999, |
| became a widely used material, and the younger man | | | | when it was officially shortened to Alcoa. The first |
| achieved his goal of a financially successful career in | | | | employee of the new Alcoa joined the band of |
| technology and industry. | | | | entrepreneurs as a young man and devoted most of |
| Frank Fanning Jewett received his undergraduate | | | | the rest of his life to the company. Arthur Vining |
| education and did some graduate work in chemistry | | | | Davis came to Pittsburgh in 1888 from Hyde Park, |
| and mineralogy at Yale University. From 1873 to 1875, | | | | MA. He was fresh out of Amherst College and only |
| he continued his chemistry studies at the University | | | | 21 years old. His father, a church pastor, asked his |
| of Gottingen in Germany. There he became well | | | | former parishioner Capt. Hunt for help in finding young |
| acquainted with current European science and | | | | Arthur a suitable position. Hunt took on Davis at his |
| became interested in the promise of aluminum. He | | | | Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory, but shortly thereafter, |
| met Professor Friedrich Wöhler, who had isolated | | | | Hunt and Clapp decided that Davis was the perfect |
| aluminum as a metal in 1827 following H. C. Oersted's | | | | fellow to team up with Hall. |
| lead in 1825. Before Jewett returned to America in | | | | Hall's relationship with Romaine Cole proved fruitful. |
| 1875 to become Oliver Wolcott Gibbs's private | | | | Cole, who was the much savvier businessman, had |
| assistant at Harvard University, he obtained a sample | | | | negotiated the agreement with Hunt and the other |
| of aluminum metal. In 1876, he was nominated by the | | | | start-up investors which granted them 47% of the |
| president of Yale to teach science at the Imperial | | | | common stock of the start-up company. Upon |
| University in Tokyo, where he was one of a small | | | | receiving the financial backing of local industrialists, Hall |
| group of Westerners. In 1880 at the age of 36, | | | | and his employee Arthur Vining Davis produced the |
| Jewett became the professor of chemistry and | | | | first commercial aluminum on Thanksgiving Day, 1888. |
| mineralogy at Oberlin College. | | | | There still remained complicated patent infringement |
| Charles Martin Hall was born in 1863 as the third son | | | | cases to argue, but eventually Hall was victorious. A |
| and sixth child of a Congregational minister. He was a | | | | more serious challenge came from the independent |
| studious child who first learned chemistry as a | | | | co-discoverer of the process, Paul Héroult, a |
| serious-minded youth in the town of Oberlin by | | | | French chemist the same age as Hall performing basic |
| reading a 1840s textbook, he found on the shelves | | | | research on aluminum-containing compounds. |
| of his minister father's study table. He also carried on | | | | Héroult filed for a patent about the same time |
| experiments at home, the beginning of a lifelong | | | | that Hall did, but again, Hall won the dispute over |
| enthusiasm for experimental work. An avid reader in | | | | patent rights. Nevertheless, the electrolytic reduction |
| many fields, he eagerly followed the popular invention | | | | of aluminum is rightly named the Hall-Héroult |
| literature in Scientific American. | | | | process, honoring both of its discoverers. |
| Hall was already intrigued by the romance of | | | | Once again, a chemical idea had turned industrial, as |
| aluminum when, as a 16-year-old freshman at Oberlin | | | | the price per pound of aluminum dropped from $4.86 |
| College in the fall of 1880, he went to the chemistry | | | | in 1888 to $0.78 in 1893. In 1907 the company was |
| laboratory to obtain some items for his home | | | | reorganized as the Aluminum Company of America |
| laboratory. There he met Professor Jewett from | | | | (Alcoa), of which Hall was made a vice-president. But |
| whom Hall happened to have a class in which Frank | | | | Hall and Cole did not work well together. Davis took |
| Fanning Jewett showed a sample of the precious | | | | over when Cole left and stayed for the next 69 |
| metal to the students. After a stirring lecture on the | | | | years. In the beginning, Davis and Hall were each |
| topic, he finished with, "Fame and fortune awaited | | | | taking 12 hour shifts and soon the plant was making |
| the man who would find an inexpensive way to | | | | between 30 and 50 pounds of aluminum per day. |
| separate the metal from bauxite ore. Any person | | | | These were selling at $8.00 a pound and were kept |
| who discovers a process by which aluminum can be | | | | in an office safe, although someone remarked that |
| made on a commercial scale will not only bless | | | | there was no need to keep them in the safe, since |
| humanity but also will make a fortune for himself." | | | | they were having trouble selling the new metal and it |
| Inspired by such a win-win challenge, Hall reportedly | | | | was unlikely anyone would want to steal it. |
| said, "I'm going for that metal." | | | | As the business progressed, Hall stayed in the |
| After graduating from Oberlin in June 1885, Hall | | | | background doing research and Davis moved into the |
| continued his work in a woodshed behind his family | | | | leadership role. It would be up to Davis to make a |
| home. The woodshed was really a summer kitchen | | | | market for the metal that no one knew or wanted. |
| attached to the back of the Hall home. There, | | | | In 1890, Davis borrowed some molds from the |
| starting with a blacksmith's forge and galvanic cells | | | | Griswold Company of Erie, PA, a manufacturer of |
| constructed from fruit jars, he began to investigate | | | | cast iron cookware, and had some aluminum |
| mixtures of aluminum and fluorine-containing minerals. | | | | teakettles made. Mr. Griswold was impressed and |
| Hall thought that if he could find a water free liquid | | | | placed an order for 2000 kettles from Davis, who |
| which would dissolve aluminum oxide, he might be | | | | tried to explain that he only wanted to sell Griswold |
| able to separate the metal by electrolysis. On | | | | the aluminum. Griswold would have none of it, and so |
| February 10, 1886 he discovered that cryolite (a | | | | Alcoa was forced into the fabricating business to |
| sodium aluminum fluoride) in its molten state would | | | | prove that there was a market for this metal. |
| dissolve aluminum oxide. On February 16 he passed | | | | Amazingly when Hall was awarded the Perkin Medal in |
| an electric current through the crucible, yet no | | | | 1911 for his process, Héroult graciously traveled |
| aluminum was found. Hall reasoned that the problem | | | | across the Atlantic to congratulate him at the |
| was with the clay crucible, not with his process. Along | | | | ceremony. By the time of Hall's untimely death on |
| with help from his sister (an Oberlin student) and | | | | December 27, 1914 at the age of 51, his estate was |
| continued guidance from Jewett, Hall discovered that | | | | worth nearly 30 million dollars. Before his death Hall |
| alumina (Al2O3) and the mineral cryolite (Na3AlF6) | | | | donated one-third of his fortune to a grateful Oberlin |
| fuse well and do so at a relatively low temperature | | | | College, where today stands a life-sized statue of its |
| (near 1,000°C [1,832°F]), compared to pure | | | | benefactor, constructed entirely of aluminum. |
| alumina. He lined the crucible with carbon and tried | | | | |