Rebecca Lukens

Rebecca was the daughter of Quaker Isaac Pennock who founded the Federal Slitting Mill near Coatesville about 1793. She grew up in the business often accompanying her father in the mill. She went to boarding school first at Westtown School, a nearby Quaker Boarding school, and then at the Wilmington School for Girls in Wilmington, Delaware,{{Cite web|url=https://steelmuseum.org/RebeccaLukens/formativeyears.cfm|title = Rebecca's Formative Years}} where among other subjects, she studied chemistry. The slitting mill processed iron from other mills into barrel hoops and nails. It was called "Federal" in honor of the new constitution. By 1824, when Isaac died, the mill was known as the Brandywine Iron Works and Nail Factory, after Brandywine Creek which provided the water power for the mill.

File:Brandywine Mansion from East.JPG

She married Dr. Charles Lukens in 1813.{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of American Women In Business From Colonial Times To The Present: Volume One: A-L|last=Krismann|first=Carol|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=2005|pages=352}} He soon entered the iron business, and together the Lukens leased the mill from her father. Starting in 1816 they lived in "Brandywine Mansion," which is now located within the Lukens Historic District. Charles experimented with new products, such as rolled steel plate, in the early 1820s. The steel plate was used to construct the first metal hulled steamboat in America, the Codorus, and was later used as boilerplate in steam engines and locomotives. Charles died in 1825, leaving Rebecca in charge of a company near bankruptcy.{{cite news | last =Gustaitis | first =Joseph | title = Woman of Iron | work =American History | date = August 19, 1995 | url =http://www.historynet.com/woman-of-iron-apr-95-american-history-feature.htm | access-date = January 28, 2011 }} An inheritance dispute and the Panic of 1837 further complicated matters.

File:Terracina from NW.JPG

She ran the company until 1847,{{Cite news|url=https://www.investors.com/news/management/leaders-and-success/americas-first-female-industrialist-rebecca-lukens-was-the-original-iron-lady/|title=America's First Female Industrialist Rebecca Lukens Was The Original Iron Lady|last=Much|first=Marilyn|newspaper=Investor's Business Daily|date=31 August 2018}} making it into the country's premier manufacturer of boilerplate. During her retirement she wrote an autobiography for her grandchildren.[http://www.graystonesociety.org/rebecca.htm From the autobiography of Rebecca Webb Pennock Lukens], Grey Stone Society, accessed January 28, 2011. In 1848, she built Terracina as a wedding present for her daughter Isabella upon her marriage to Dr. Charles Huston.{{cite web| url = https://www.dot7.state.pa.us/ce/SelectWelcome.asp| title = National Historic Landmarks & National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania| publisher = CRGIS: Cultural Resources Geographic Information System| format = Searchable database}} Note: This includes {{cite web| url = https://www.dot7.state.pa.us/ce_imagery/phmc_scans/H001589_01H.pdf| title = National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: Terracina | access-date = 2012-11-14| author = Maureen L. Carlson | date= n.d.}}

She is buried in Ercildoun, south of Coatesville, in the Fallowfield Orthodox Friends Burying Ground.[http://www.lukensnhd.org/shustonrambles.htm From Rambles: Seven scenic driving tours in and around Chester County] by Stewart Huston, accessed January 28, 2011.

During World War II the Liberty ship {{SS|Rebecca Lukens}} was built in Panama City, Florida, and named in her honor.{{cite book

|last=Williams

|first=Greg H.

|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=A5oWBAAAQBAJ

|title= The Liberty Ships of World War II: A Record of the 2,710 Vessels and Their Builders, Operators and Namesakes, with a History of the Jeremiah O'Brien

|date= 25 July 2014

|publisher= McFarland

|isbn= 978-1476617541

|access-date= 7 December 2017

}}

On January 6, 1994, the 200th anniversary of Lukens' birth, the Pennsylvania Legislature and City of Coatesville declared her "America’s first woman industrialist."{{cite news | last =McCullough | first =Britain | title =A Pennsylvania Giant: Lukens Steel | work =Pennsylvania Center for the Book | date = Fall 2010 | url =http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/Lukens.html | access-date = June 26, 2014 }} The company remained independent until 1997, being ranked number 395 on the FORTUNE 500 industrial list in 1993. As of 1994 the mill was considered the oldest continuously operating steel mill in the U.S. The mill is operating today under Cleveland-Cliffs. In 2020, Lukens was one of eight women featured in "The Only One in the Room" display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.{{Cite web|date=2020-05-11|title=Rebecca Lukens|url=https://americanhistory.si.edu/american-enterprise/new-perspectives/only-one-room/rebecca-lukens|access-date=2020-07-25|website=National Museum of American History|language=en}}

In March 2015, a cache of at least ten letters were found in the walls of Brandywine Mansion.{{Cite web|url=https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-pa-coatesville-letters-found-20150314-story.html|title=200-year-old letters of steel industrialist found in mansion walls|last=Bond|first=Michaelle|website=mcall.com|date=14 March 2015 |access-date=2019-07-12}} The letters are awaiting study and after review will be displayed in Coatesville. They contain business correspondence from as far away as Albany, New York.{{cite news|last1=Crimmins|first1=Peter|title=Lost letters shed light on Lukens steel from Coatesville, Pa.|url=http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/arts-culture/79839-lost-letters-shed-light-on-lukens-steel-from-coatesville-pa|access-date=June 9, 2017|agency=Newsworks|publisher=WHYY-FM}}

• {{cite book |last1=Boyer |first1=Paul S. |last2=James |first2=Edward T. |last3=Wilson James |first3=Janet |title=Notable American women, 1607-1950; a biographical dictionary. |url=https://archive.org/details/notableamericanw02jame_0 |url-access=registration |date=2012 |publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Mass. |isbn=9780674627345}}
• {{cite book | last =Casson | first =Herbert Newton | author-link= Herbert Newton Casson |title = The romance of steel: the story of a thousand millionaires

| publisher =Barnes | year = 1907

| pages =[https://archive.org/details/romanceofsteelst00cassrich/page/377 377]

| url =https://archive.org/details/romanceofsteelst00cassrich

}}

• {{cite book | last =Jepson | first =Jill | title = Women's concerns: twelve women entrepreneurs of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

| year = 2009

| pages =227

| publisher =Peter Lang | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=qlKJ37tzRhMC

| isbn = 978-1-4331-0423-7 }}

• Smith, Richard P. (2010) [http://usa.arcelormittal.com/globalassets/arcelormittal-usa/our-operations/20102_coatesville_200-years.pdf Two hundred years of Rolling on the Brandywine], ArcelorMittal, Coatesville
• [http://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2014/04/rebecca-lukens.html History of American Women], Rebecca Lukens
• Lucas, Jana (2021). Die geheimen Pionierinnen der Wirtschaft – Außergewöhnliche Frauen, die unsere Wirtschaftswelt nachhaltig geprägt haben, Redline Verlag, München, pp. 109–122, ISBN 978-3-86881-849-9.

• Martha Pennock House
• Primitive Hall

{{Reflist}}

• [http://findingaids.hagley.org/xtf/view?docId=ead/1174.xml Charles Lukens Huston papers] at Hagley Museum and Library. The collection includes items from Rebecca Pennock Lukens.

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Category:1794 births

Category:1854 deaths

Category:American Quakers

Category:American women chief executives

Category:American steel industry businesspeople

Category:Businesspeople from Pennsylvania

Category:People from Coatesville, Pennsylvania

Category:Westtown School alumni

Category:19th-century American businesspeople

Category:19th-century American businesswomen