My project goals began with looking at the steel industry in Pittsburgh and the steelworkers, but I chose to expand my research to other major steel towns, to get a good comparison and to have enough data to build a acceptable dataset. I collected the data for the amount of steelworkers and ethnic background of…
Category: Workshops
Decline of steel, or something else? Why population declined in Pittsburgh.
As I discussed in my earlier post on the effect of deindustrialization in Pittsburgh, the city experienced dramatic population decline from the 1970s-1980s. This is clearly attributable to steel companies closing operations and offshoring jobs, with U.S Steel becoming more of an energy company by the mid 80s.1 But the wave of job loss only…
Homicide Workshop
Who were the workers of the City of Steel?
The growth of the iron and steel industry in Pittsburgh was portrayed and written about as a triumph of the “great man of history”, Andrew Carnegie, but no steel would have been made without the labor of the steel and ironworkers in Carnegie’s mills. My questions when analyzing the statistical data about the steel industry…
Still the City of Steel?: Pittsburg’s population decline in the 80s.
Why did Pittsburgh’s population decline sharply in the 1970s and 80s?Pittsburgh has a reputation as the city of steel, and steel-workers. This industry reached unprecedented heights in the city, and to fuel these mills and smelters, many workers were required.From 1810, until 1960, the population of Pittsburgh constantly increased from census to census.1 But a…
Why study Pittsburgh?
The reason that I chose to focus on the city of Pittsburgh for my website is because of the historical importance of industrial production, specifically of steel, to the city and how it grew. I am interested in labor history and given the prevalence of steel mills in Pittsburgh I am interested to learn how…