metallurgist, b. Milwaukee. Although he spent a brief term at the Univ. of Wisconsin, financial difficulties made his early schooling largely a matter of self-instruction. In 1876 while a telegrapher for the Milwaukee Iron Co., he was encouraged to study abroad and spent the next four years in Berlin. In 1881 he supervised the open-hearth steel department of the Otis Steel Co. in Cleveland, and in 1882 took charge of the new mechanical puddling technique, to which he made important contributions. He was a pioneer in the application of gas analysis to making steel, and the first to use the basic process successfully in America. In 1890 he returned to Milwaukee where he established a complete metallurgical laboratory and acted as a consulting engineer for some of the most important mining and metal industries in the world. Dict. Amer. Biog.; Milwaukee Journal, fan. 16, 1897, Sept. 24, 1931.

The Wisconsin Historical Society has manuscripts related to this topic. See the catalog description of the George W. Goetz Papers for details.

View newspaper clippings at Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]