The Point of Pittsburgh: Production and Struggle at the Forks of the Ohio

by Charles McCollester

This book tells an epic story. The Point of Pittsburgh is about how one city was the key to the industrial development that made the United States a world power and how the struggle of the region’s people for democratic rights and a decent standard of living was central to the creation of the American middle-class.

Many books have been written about Carnegie, Mellon and Frick, their ambitions and contributions, and no history of Pittsburgh could be told without them. But most of this book tells a story that has not been told. It is about the Indians and the workers, not the generals or the titans of industry. It is about those who first stood at the Forks of the Ohio, those who dug the coal, tended the furnaces, wrested the iron, steel, glass and aluminum from raw material, who built the boats, the bridges, the rail equipment and the generators, the skyscrapers, the highways, built the homes and raised the families - about the unsung heroes and heroines whose lives burned with the light of genius, as well as those who built the organizations and communities that made life tolerable and fruitful.

Genres: Nonfiction

First published September 1, 2008

Reviews

[Thom DeLair]

So many Pittsburgh history books, funded by be institutions with names like Carnegie, Heinz, Frick, etc, so often focus on particular titans of industry as the center of the narrative of the city. While I found the title and cover art to this book lacking, I found the contents of this book to be by far the best book I've read that chronicles Pittsburgh's long labor movement (which makes sense because it was published by The Battle of Homestead Foundation). Even many other pro-labor history books fail to engage with the long struggle for organized labor, the infighting within those movements and the compromises unions have made with capital, The Point of Pittsburgh gives an robust narrative that is missing from so many American history books. So often the narrative goes, the Great Depression happened and FDR was elected with the author's entire focus on his leadership rather than the many people who helped organize and build the New Deal coalition. I was surprised to see how active the communist party was during the 1930s as well the social gospel, mostly expressed in liberal Catholics in Pittsburgh. The book does not describe these events as spontaneous (it's a very long struggle) or through rose tinted glasses, just like any power structure, there's room for corruption, especially when loyalty is paramount.

The book is not all class struggle. Aside from that as the central narrative it covers many other interesting topics running the gamut of the city and Southwestern Pennsylvania, some I was familiar with and others were new information to me. For example, I was familiar with the Railroad strike of 1877 and the Homestead Strike of 1892 but not the many other strikes and labor uprisings the book describes. If you're interested in a serious and in depth read on Pittsburgh's history, I would recommend this.

[Shaun]

Pittsburgh historian Charlie McCollester just got this new book off the presses last month, with a cover and illustrations by local artist Bill Yund. Very excited to crack this open...