Other inventors claimed a part in the invention of the Bessemer process of making steel. Here, the contemporary discussion in the technical press is re-examined to throw light on the relations of these various claimants to the iron and steel industry of their time, as having a possible connection with the antagonism shown by the ironmasters toward Bessemer's ideas. The Author : Philip W. Bishop is curator of arts and manufactures, Museum of History and Technology, in the Smithsonian Institution'