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The Rise and Fall of Pittsburgh Steel
200 Years of Iron, Ambition, and the Forging of Modern America
Foreword by Joel A. Tarr
Published by Lyons Press
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
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Table of Contents
About the Book
“Hell with the lid taken off,” the “Steel Valley,” and the “Valley of the Giants” were phrases that, until the 1980s, rang proudly through Pittsburgh’s pulsing iron and steel economy. For more than two centuries, the Pittsburgh region was world-renowned for the scale and intensity of its manufacturing complex. Its myriad ovens and furnaces churned fire and soot into the dreary skies, causing the hills to glow with a fiery luminescence. At times, more than one-quarter of the world’s steel was made there as Pittsburgh’s men and women forged both the steel for a growing nation and a grimy, blue-collar personality for the region.
The Rise and Fall of Pittsburgh Steel traces the origins, explosive growth, stagnation, and ultimate collapse of this remarkable industrial complex. Starting as a rough-and-tumble frontier village in the 1790s, Pittsburgh had risen by the end of the American Civil War to stand as the center of the young nation’s metalworking industries. But this was just the beginning. By 1910, the Steel City’s population had grown another tenfold, from about 50,000 in 1860 to over 500,000. By then, it was the fifth largest city in the United States, producer of well over half the nation’s steel, and the site of over 3,000 manufacturing plants employing an astounding 250,000 workers. During World War II, the Pittsburgh region produced more steel than the Axis powers combined, and vast wartime expansion of the city’s productive system seemed a harbinger of continued dominance. Within decades, however, the tide had turned on Pittsburgh’s industrial preeminence and decline slipped into collapse by the 1980s.
Author David Jardini chronicles this astounding ascendance and breathtaking fall, tracing the underlying factors that drove first the emergence of Pittsburgh steel, then its decline and collapse. The book tells a tale of vast riches, exhilarating achievement, grinding hardship, and environmental degradation—and an industrial legacy now woven into the very DNA of a region.
The Rise and Fall of Pittsburgh Steel traces the origins, explosive growth, stagnation, and ultimate collapse of this remarkable industrial complex. Starting as a rough-and-tumble frontier village in the 1790s, Pittsburgh had risen by the end of the American Civil War to stand as the center of the young nation’s metalworking industries. But this was just the beginning. By 1910, the Steel City’s population had grown another tenfold, from about 50,000 in 1860 to over 500,000. By then, it was the fifth largest city in the United States, producer of well over half the nation’s steel, and the site of over 3,000 manufacturing plants employing an astounding 250,000 workers. During World War II, the Pittsburgh region produced more steel than the Axis powers combined, and vast wartime expansion of the city’s productive system seemed a harbinger of continued dominance. Within decades, however, the tide had turned on Pittsburgh’s industrial preeminence and decline slipped into collapse by the 1980s.
Author David Jardini chronicles this astounding ascendance and breathtaking fall, tracing the underlying factors that drove first the emergence of Pittsburgh steel, then its decline and collapse. The book tells a tale of vast riches, exhilarating achievement, grinding hardship, and environmental degradation—and an industrial legacy now woven into the very DNA of a region.
Product Details
- Publisher: Lyons Press (May 4, 2027)
- Length: 388 pages
- ISBN13: 9781493094059
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Raves and Reviews
“As a Pittsburgh native who has spent most of my professional career in and around the steel industry, I found the scope and depth of David Jardini’s book on the rise and fall of Pittsburgh steel to be quite extraordinary. In those areas where I have some personal knowledge, I found his work to be both technically accurate and easily understood. While focused primarily on developments occurring in and around the Pittsburgh region, this book will be an important resource for anyone wishing to understand the arc of history in this essential national industry.”
– John P. Surma, former chairman and CEO of U.S. Steel Corporation
"The Rise and Fall of Pittsburgh Steel is at once a broad survey of an industrial city and an intensely personal reflection of a steel family and community grappling with the memory and meaning of change. Jardini takes the reader on a fast-paced journey through time, beginning with eighteenth-century iron forges at the confluence of the Three Rivers. He traces the rise of urban workshops that established Pittsburgh as the Smoky City—"hell with the lid off”—and the evolution of the industrial behemoth that drove the Arsenal of Democracy and built twentieth-century America. The industry’s decline at the century’s end is a sobering tale with lessons for future generations. The Rise and Fall of Pittsburgh Steel is highly recommended for those with past ties to Pittsburgh as well as a new generation in search of the vanished world that shaped the Steel City."
– Andrew E. Masich, PhD, president & CEO of the Senator John Heinz History Center
“David Jardini's The Rise and Fall of Pittsburgh Steel masterfully tells the story of the forces that catapulted the Iron City into becoming the steel capital of America. More than that, his easily accessible narrative style brings the reader right into the heart of the matter, carrying them effortlessly through decades of discovery, triumph, struggle, and loss. His writing brings Pittsburgh's steel heyday to life and treats it with the historical respect it deserves as a vital piece of the industrial foundation upon which our modern age was long ago built. Through Jardini, steel comes alive as a lifeblood, and no reader will walk away from the book without a new appreciation for Pittsburgh's survival following the industry's devastating decline.”
– Virginia Montanez, historian and novelist
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