presteel en · ADJ
Etymology
From pre- + steel.
Meanings
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(not-comparable) Before steel.
He made his fortune during the presteel era of Pittsburgh's development — the period before Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick — beginning in the 1820s and 1830s with a start in pharmaceuticals and white lead.
2001, William Alan Blair, William Pencak, Making and Remaking Pennsylvania's Civil War, page 107: