Metals

Abstract

History: Commercial production of aluminum began in 1845 and the metal sold for $100 per pound. By 1886 the price per pound had dropped to $8. In that year Charles Hall discovered a method of producing aluminum from a molten bath of cryolite using electrolysis. Using the Hall process, the price dropped to $2 per pound by 1893 and continued to drop. The average from 1943-1947 was 15 cents per pound. This was the magic of the free enterprise system at its best. It changed the price from 20 times as high as silver to one-thirtieth of the price of silver, and by so doing created a mass market for the metal, now an indispensible part of our economy, second only to iron and steel in tons consumed.