The United States Steel Hour is an anthology series which brought hour-long dramas to television from 1953 to 1963.  The television series and the radio program that preceded it were both sponsored by the United States Steel Corporation.  The series originated on radio in the 1940s as Theatre Guild on the Air.

The television version aired from 1953 to 1955 on ABC, and from 1955 to 1963 on CBS.  Like its radio predecessor, it was a live dramatic anthology series.  During its first season on television, the program alternated bi-weekly with The Motorola Television Hour.  By 1963, the year it went off the air, it was the last surviving live anthology series from the Golden Age of Television.  It was still on the air during President John F. Kennedy’s famous April 11th, 1962 confrontation with steel companies over the hefty raising of their prices.  The show featured a range of television acting talent, as its episodes explored a wide variety of contemporary social issues, from the mundane to the controversial.
Notable guest actors included Martin Balsam, Tallulah Bankhead, James Dean, Keir Dullea, Andy Griffith, Rex Harrison, Celeste Holm, Sally Ann Howes, Jack Klugman, Peter Lorre, Walter Matthau, Paul Newman, George Peppard, Suzanne Storrs, Albert Salmi, and Johnny Washbrook.  Washbrook played Johnny Sullivan in The Roads Home in his first-ever screen role.

Griffith made his onscreen debut in the show’s production of No Time For Sergeants, and would reprise the lead role in the 1958 big screen adaptation. Child actor Darryl Richard, later of The Donna Reed Show, also made his acting debut on the Steel Hour as Tony in the episode “The Bogey Man,” which aired January 18th, 1955.  In 1960 Johnny Carson starred with Anne Francis in the presentation Queen of the Orange Bowl.

Episodes were contributed by many notable writers, including Ira Levin, Richard Maibaum and Rod Serling.  The program also telecast one-hour musical versions of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  The United States Steel Hour telecast The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on November 20th, 1957 with a cast starring Jimmy Boyd, Earle Hyman, Basil Rathbone, Jack Carson and Florence Henderson.  Boyd had previously played Huckleberry in the earlier telecast of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.