The historiography of ferrous metallurgy is almost three hundred years old. The issues of historiography devoted to this topic, which is quite extensive, are considered. Serious scientific research was carried out, revealing both general aspects of the history of the development of the metallurgical industry in Russia, and private ones, concerning the history of individual metallurgical centers, enterprises, analysis of factors affecting domestic production. It is shown that most of the literature is devoted to the Ural metallurgy. The authors dwell on the fact that the problems were generalized in a number of works published in the last decades of the 21st century. One of the first reviews of the historiography of metallurgy is the work of prof. V.V. Zaparia, contained in his monograph on the 300th Ural metallurgy and a number of his articles. In the future, it was presented in a more substantiated manner in the work of Academician V.V. Alekseev and prof. D.V. Garilov, where there are several sections concerning the historiography of the issue. The authors of the article review the largest historical, historical and technical works of the beginning of this century, concerning the second half of the 19th century. However, they only consider those that are relevant to the formation of industrial policy in the field of metallurgy. When reviewing works, they place emphasis on regional publications.