Books

The first biography of David L. Lawrence, the best of the city bosses, who became mayor of Pittsburgh, modern municipal manager, governor of Pennsylvania, and a power in national politics.

A veteran reporter on American labor, John P. Hoerr analyzes the spectacular and tragic collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s. And the Wolf Finally Came demonstrates how an obsolete and adversarial relationship between management and labor made it impossible for the industry to adapt to a rapidly changing global economy.

Pittsburgh author Marcia Davenport’s absorbing and complex chronicle of a family’s fortunes from the economic panic of 1873 through the dramatic rise of American industry and trade unionism, through waves of immigration, class conflict, natural disaster, World War I, to Pearl Harbor.

The Story of Louise McNeill’s Growing Years on Her Family Farm, Told through the Circadian Rhythms of Rural Life

Mike Sajna, outdoors columnist for Pittsburgh Magazine, explores the controversial subject of deer hunting. Taking the reader to a camp site in Warren County, he recounts the traditions, lore, and physical testing that make the hunting of white-tailed deer a unique experience.

The Classic, Lively Narrative of a Seminal Labor Dispute in Appalachian History

Drawing upon previously undiscovered resources, Steel Titan is the first biography ever written on the life of Charles M. Schwab, president of U.S. Steel and founder of Bethlehem Steel.

An overview of scholarly research, both published and previously unpublished, on the history of a city that has often served as a case study for measuring social change. It synthesizes the literature and assesses how that knowledge relates to our broader understanding of the processes of urbanization and urbanism.

A Personal Account of the Glorious Spectacle of Spring Coming to the Woods and Fields of Appalachia

This book created a sensation when it appeared in 1903 and remains a striking insider’s narrative of the American steel industry in the late nineteenth century. Bridge was a fisthand witness to the confrontations of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, the eventual sale of Carnegie Steel and the formation of U.S. Steel.

In The Battle for Homestead, Paul Krause calls upon the methods and insights of labor history, intellectual history, anthropology, and the history of technology to situate the events of the lockout and their significance in the broad context of America’s Guilded Age. Utilizing extensive archival material, much of it heretofore unknown, he reconstructs the social, intellectual, and political climate of the burgeoning post-Civil War steel industry.

A Richly Illustrated Account of a Crucial Moment in US Labor History

A Meditation on Fall’s Fiery Beauty in the Appalachian Mountains

Crisis in Bethlehem provides an insider’s look at Bethlehem Steel’s bonanza years, its collapse, how it coped (and did not cope) with crisis, and the human costs involved.

The new edition of this long unavailable classic features an extensive analytical introduction by the noted architectural historian Dell Upton. Containing 416 black-and-white photographs, 81 measured drawings and an extensive text, this volume presents a splendid array of the early dwellings, barns, and other outbuildings, churches, arsenals, banks, inns, commercial buildings, tollhouses, mills, and even tombstones of western Pennsylvania.