Archibald Johnston

Archibald Johnston was born on May 30, 1864 in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, one of ten children. His family moved from Phoenixville to Bethlehem between 1869 and 1872. From June 1877 to 1880, he worked in the Bethlehem Iron Company’s No. 1 Machine Shop. He graduated from Lehigh University in the Class of 1889 with a Mechanical Engineering degree. 

Archibald married Estelle Borhek of Bethlehem in 1891. They had three children. After graduating from Lehigh, he started work in the physical laboratory at the Bethlehem Iron Company. He quickly showed his skills, especially with production of armor plates, and was appointed to represent Bethlehem Steel internationally. In February of 1894, he was sent to St. Petersburg, Russia to supervise the measurements for armor plates on the battleship Petropavlovsk. 

In January 1900, Archibald was appointed Assistant General Superintendent of the Bethlehem Steel Company, and in August 1901 he was named General Superintendent. In 1906 Archibald Johnston was appointed president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation by Charles Schwab, Chairman of the Board. Eugene G. Grace, Lehigh Class of 1899, took Johnston’s place as General Superintendent. In June 1908, Schwab moved from New York to South Bethlehem and took over the Presidency of the Corporation until 1912 when Johnston was named first vice-president of the Corporation. In 1912 Johnston was sent to represent Bethlehem Steel Corporation in Europe and South America to negotiate for coastal defense armament and ships with the governments of Chile, Argentina and Brazil. 

In 1918 the two Bethlehem boroughs were consolidated into City status and Archibald Johnston became the first mayor of the City of Bethlehem. He served one term as mayor from 1918 to 1922 but always maintained an interest in Bethlehem and the Hill-to-Hill Bridge. Feeling that his work with the bridge was one of his most significant contributions, Johnston often mentioned it during keynote addresses and speeches. He was one of the members of a committee for a new bridge, as early as, in 1892. Johnston retired from the Bethlehem Steel in 1925 and died on February 1, 1948. Many of the items displayed here are from the Archibald Johnston Papers in the Libraries Special Collections.