Descriptive Summary
Access
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Acquisition Information
Biography/Administrative History
Scope and Content of Collection
Indexing Terms
Additional collection guides
Descriptive Summary
Title: Charles and Alta Nash Papers on Direct Steel Process Company
Dates: 1920-1925
Collection Number: 2023-9
Creator/Collector:
Nash, Charles H.
Nash, Alta
Direct Steel Process Company
Extent: .25 linear feet
Repository:
History San Jose Research Library
San Jose, California 95112
Abstract: Small collection of correspondence and corporate records related to Charles H. Nash and wife Alta (Louden) Nash's involvement
with Herbert Lang and the Direct Steel Process Company between 1920 and 1925.
Language of Material: English
Access
Open to the public by appointment with the Research Library & Archives.
Publication Rights
Materials may be reproduced and used with appropriate credit.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item]. Charles and Alta Nash Papers on Direct Steel Process Company. Collection Number: 2023-9. History
San Jose Research Library
Acquisition Information
Donated to History San Jose in 2023 by a great-granddaughter of Charles and Alta Nash.
Biography/Administrative History
According to an article in the San Jose Evening News (August 20, 1897), Charles Nash was a director of an earlier mining venture,
Rodman-Morrell Mining and Milling Company, incorporated in San Jose that month, in which he invested an initial $5100.
Herbert Lang was the author of Metallurgy, Volume I (1911), and is described by references in an article, "Direct Steel Process
Maneuvers Exposed" (Santa Cruz newspaper, April 12, 1921) as "a skillful metallurgist and an honorable man. I have had the
pleasure of publishing many valuable technical articles written by him." (T. A. Rickard, president and editor of the Mining
and Scientific Press of San Francisco). Another reference writes, "We consider Herbert Lang a metallurgist of the highest
caliber." Lang and his wife were living in Oakland and Berkeley during the time of his involvement with the Nashes; they appear
from letters to have originally stayed at the Nash home before moving to a hotel in Oakland, and then moving to a rental in
Berkeley. It is not clear whether he is the same person as Herbert O. Lang or Herbert V. Lang. What became of him after the
correspondence stops in 1922 is not known.
Scope and Content of Collection
Small collection of correspondence and corporate records related to Charles H. Nash and wife Alta (Louden) Nash's involvement
with Herbert Lang and the Direct Steel Process Company between 1920 and 1925.
The Nash couple were residents of San Jose and part owners of The San Jose Transport Company when Charles Nash became a director
and shareholder of the Direct Steel Process Company, created to profit from a new method of smelting steel from black sand
invented by metallurgist Herbert Lang.
The letters between Charles and Alta Nash, Lang, and other investors Howard and Maude Bardue, document the establishment of
the company, efforts to conduct a demonstration for investors in Santa Cruz, a potential royalty scheme with a developer in
Montana and Utah, and the eventual demise of the company.
Indexing Terms
Smelting
Steel forging industry
Business enterprises
Inventors
Metallurgy
Nineteen twenties
Bardue, Maude
Bardue, Howard
Lang, H. (Herbert)
Santa Cruz (Calif.)
San Jose (Calif.)
Oakland (Calif.)
San Francisco (Calif.)
correspondence
letterheads
license applications
contracts
Additional collection guides