O desenvolvimento do setor siderúrgico brasileiro entre 1900 e 1940: Criação de empresas e evolução da capacidade produtiva[The development of the Brazilian steel-making sector between 1900 and 1940: Firm creation and evolution of productive capacity]

Despite the existence of several attempts to produce iron locally not only along the colonial period but also along the Empire, for different reasons these endeavors failed, each in its own time, and the Brazilian steel-making entered the 20th century with very little practical expression. However, when the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN, National Steel Company) was created, in 1941, as an answer to the national steel problem, the domestic steel industry had already a much more significant expression. By the end of the 1930s, it had already 26 firms with a reasonably diversified production which supplied a relevant share of the internal demand. Thus, between 1900 and 1940, and especially in the 1920s and 1930s, the Brazilian steel-making sector was capable of conducing an important development process. The reconstruction of this process of evolution experienced by the steel-making sector, focused on the creation of firms and on the expansion of productive capacity, is the object of this paper.