Download or read book An Alternative History of Pittsburgh written by Ed Simon and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[An] epic, atomic history of the Steel City . . . a work of literature, a series of linked creative nonfiction essays, an historical story cycle.” ―Phillip Maciak, Los Angeles Review of Books The land surrounding the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers has supported communities of humans for millennia. Over the past four centuries, however, it has been transformed countless times by the many people who call it home. In this brief, lyrical, and idiosyncratic collection, Ed Simon, a staff writer at The Millions, follows the story of Pittsburgh through a series of interconnected segments, covering all manner of beloved people, places, and things, including: • Paleolithic Pittsburgh • The Whiskey Rebellion • The attempted assassination of Henry Frick • The Harmonists • The Mystery, Pittsburgh’s radical, Black nationalist newspaper • The myth of Joe Magarac • Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington, Andy Warhol, and much, much more. Accessible and funny, An Alternative History of Pittsburgh is a must-read for anyone curious about this storied city, and for Pittsburghers who think they know it all too well already. “[A] rich and idiosyncratic history . . . Even Pittsburgh history buffs will learn something new.” —Publishers Weekly “Simon tells the story of the city and all the changes that made it what it is today in a way that's entirely new, by the hand of someone who is deeply familiar.” ―Juliana Rose Pignataro, Newsweek “A sparkling new take on everyone’s favorite Rust Belt metropolis.” ―Justin Velluci, Jewish Chronicle “A brilliant look at how geology and art, politics and religion, disaster and luck combine to build America’s great cities―one that will leave you wondering what secrets your own hometown might be hiding.” ―Anjali Sachdeva, author of All the Names They Used for God

Download or read book Directory of Pittsburgh and Allegheny written by and published by . This book was released on 1860 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book African Americans in Pittsburgh written by John M. Brewer, Jr. and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African Americans in Pittsburgh chronicles the distinct trends in this African American community. There was never one centralized neighborhood where a majority of the black population lived, and city schools were integrated until after desegregation laws were passed. Photographs captured by famed Pittsburgh photographer Charles "Teenie" Harris show the candid experiences of residents, including the achievements and celebrations of people struggling to put scraps of food on the table.

Download or read book German Pittsburgh written by Michael R. Shaughnessy and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2007-04-18 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, over one-quarter of Pittsburgh's residents claim German heritage, the largest ethnic group in the region. It might be surprising to know that German was an official language of Pittsburgh at one time, and a daily German newspaper was printed from the mid-1800s up through World War II, but Germans have been living in the area since the 1600s, and Pennsylvania saw a dramatic influx of German immigrants in the later part of the 19th century. Without those immigrants, Pittsburgh would be a very different place--German-speaking Pittsburghers include names like H. J. Heinz, Honus Wagner, and the Kaufmanns, and they produced beloved Pittsburgh beers such as Iron City and Penn Pilsner. Today, remnants of the German-speaking community can be found throughout the city, and over 300,000 residents can claim German ancestry. German Pittsburgh explores the multifaceted cultural history of German-speaking immigrants and residents in the Greater Pittsburgh area, and provides an overview of the contributions that this diverse ethnic community has made in the city.

Download or read book Speaking Pittsburghese written by Barbara Johnstone and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-12 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the history and development of Pittsburghese as a cultural product of talk, writing, and other forms of social practice.

Download or read book Pittsburgh written by and published by . This book was released on 2017-06-12 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes previously unpublished photographs of Pittsburgh by acclaimed photographer Elliot Erwitt taken between 1949 and 1950. These photographs, capturing the humanity and spirit of the architecture and people of the city of Pittsburgh, were thought lost until the negatives were recently located in the Pittsburgh Photographic Library.

Download or read book Pittsburgh written by Franklin Toker and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Toker examines Pittsburgh in its historical context, in its regional setting, and from the street level (leading the reader on a personal tour through every neighborhood). Based on his 1986 classic, Pittsburgh: An Urban Portrait, but with a completely revised text and lavishly illustrated with all new photos and maps, Pittsburgh: A New Portrait reveals the true colors of a great American city.

Download or read book Homestead written by Margaret Frances Byington and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Pittsburgh Surveyed written by Maurine Greenwald and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 1996-10-15 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the beginning of the century, Pittsburgh was the center of one of the nation's most powerful industries: iron and steel. It was also the site of an unprecedented effort to study the effects of industry on one American city. The Pittsburgh Survey (1909-1914) brought together statisticians, social workers, engineers, lawyers, physicians, economists, labor investigators, city planners, and photographers. They documented Pittsburgh's degraded environment, corrupt civic institutions, and exploited labor force and made a compelling case - in four books and two collections of articles - for reforming corporate capitolism.In its literary history and visual power, breadth, and depth, the Pittsburgh Survey remains an undisputed classis of social science research. Like the Lynds' Middletown studies of the 1920s, the Survey captured the nation's attention, and Pittsburgh came to symbolize the problems and way of life of industrial America as a whole.A landmark volume in its own right, this book of thirteen essays examines the accuracy and impact of the Pittsburgh Survey, both on social science as a discipline and on Pittsburgh itself. It also places the Survey firmly in the context of the social reform movement of the early twentieth century.

Download or read book Devastation and Renewal written by Joel A. Tarr and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2004-08-11 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every city has an environmental story, perhaps none so dramatic as Pittsburgh's. Founded in a river valley blessed with enormous resources-three strong waterways, abundant forests, rich seams of coal-the city experienced a century of exploitation and industrialization that degraded and obscured the natural environment to a horrific degree. Pittsburgh came to be known as "the Smoky City," or, as James Parton famously declared in 1866, "hell with the lid taken off."Then came the storied Renaissance in the years following World War II, when the city's public and private elites, abetted by technological advances, came together to improve the air and renew the built environment. Equally dramatic was the sweeping deindustrialization of Pittsburgh in the 1980s, when the collapse of the steel industry brought down the smokestacks, leaving vast tracks of brownfields and riverfront. Today Pittsburgh faces unprecedented opportunities to reverse the environmental degradation of its history. In Devastation and Renewal, scholars of the urban environment post questions that both complicate and enrich this story. Working from deep archival research, they ask not only what happened to Pittsburgh's environment, but why. What forces-economic, political, and cultural-were at work? In exploring the disturbing history of pollution in Pittsburgh, they consider not only the sooty skies, but also the poisoned rivers and creeks, the mined hills, and scarred land. Who profited and who paid for such "progress"? How did the environment Pittsburghers live in come to be, and how it can be managed for the future?In a provocative concluding essay, Samuel P. Hays explores Pittsburgh's "environmental culture," the attitudes and institutions that interpret a city's story and work to create change. Comparing Pittsburgh to other cities and regions, he exposes exaggerations of Pittsburgh's environmental achievement and challenges the community to make real progress for the future. A landmark contribution to the emerging field of urban environmental history, Devastation and Renewal will be important to all students of cities, of cultures, and of the natural world.

Download or read book Nickelodeon City written by Michael G. Aronson and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the 1905 opening of the wildly popular, eponymous Nickelodeon in the city's downtown to the outgrowth of nickel theaters in nearly all of its neighborhoods, Pittsburgh proved to be perfect for the movies. Nickelodeon City profiles the major promoters in Pittsburgh, as well as ordinary theater owners, suppliers, and patrons. Aronson examines early film promotion, distribution, and exhibition, and reveals the beginnings of state censorship and the lobbying and manipulation attempted by members of the movie trade.

Download or read book August Wilson written by Laurence A. Glasco and published by . This book was released on 2015-12-15 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: August Wilson is one of America's great playwrights. He lived in Pittsburgh from his birth in 1945 to 1978, when he moved to St. Paul, MN, and later to Seattle, WA. He died in 2005 and is buried in Pittsburgh.Wilson composed 10 plays chronicling the African American experience in each decade of the twentieth century--and he set nine of those plays in Pittsburgh's Hill District. He turned the history of a place into great theater. His plays, including Fences, The Piano Lesson, Two Trains Running, Jitney, Gem of the Ocean, and Radio Golf have become classics of the American stage.August Wilson: Pittsburgh Places in His Life and Plays guides visitors to key sites in the playwright's life and work in the Hill District and beyond. This guidebook enriches the understanding of those who have seen or read his plays, inspires others to do so, and educates all to the importance of respecting, caring for, and preserving the Pittsburgh places that shaped, challenged, and nurtured August Wilson's rich, creative legacy.

Download or read book Colorization written by Wil Haygood and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK OF THE YEAR • BOOKLISTS' EDITOR'S CHOICE • ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “At once a film book, a history book, and a civil rights book.… Without a doubt, not only the very best film book [but] also one of the best books of the year in any genre. An absolutely essential read.” —Shondaland This unprecedented history of Black cinema examines 100 years of Black movies—from Gone with the Wind to Blaxploitation films to Black Panther—using the struggles and triumphs of the artists, and the films themselves, as a prism to explore Black culture, civil rights, and racism in America. From the acclaimed author of The Butler and Showdown. Beginning in 1915 with D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation—which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and became Hollywood's first blockbuster—Wil Haygood gives us an incisive, fascinating, little-known history, spanning more than a century, of Black artists in the film business, on-screen and behind the scenes. He makes clear the effects of changing social realities and events on the business of making movies and on what was represented on the screen: from Jim Crow and segregation to white flight and interracial relationships, from the assassination of Malcolm X, to the O. J. Simpson trial, to the Black Lives Matter movement. He considers the films themselves—including Imitation of Life, Gone with the Wind, Porgy and Bess, the Blaxploitation films of the seventies, Do The Right Thing, 12 Years a Slave, and Black Panther. And he brings to new light the careers and significance of a wide range of historic and contemporary figures: Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier, Berry Gordy, Alex Haley, Spike Lee, Billy Dee Willliams, Richard Pryor, Halle Berry, Ava DuVernay, and Jordan Peele, among many others. An important, timely book, Colorization gives us both an unprecedented history of Black cinema and a groundbreaking perspective on racism in modern America.

Download or read book Downtown Pittsburgh written by Stuart P. Boehmig and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Resurrecting Allegheny City written by Lisa A. Miles and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1907, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania annexed a large land tract that already had an illustrious history as its own city-- the third largest and most prosperous in the state. What then on became known as the North Side of Pittsburgh was originally a place called Allegheny City, annexed against its will. Despite eventual acclimation and further prosperity, its identity, indelible, hangs as a mist over the storied land-- for historians, homeowners and visitors that today see all the modern spectacles set on the age-old stage, the lowland at the juncture of three majestic rivers. Resurrecting Allegheny City presents the cultural and social history of this lost society of Allegheny. It looks in-depth at the natives who put down footpath and, filled with significant maps, presents the long transformation of the land. Though now part of Pittsburgh for over one hundred years, the hills and valleys, woods and runs, burial ground, overlooks and sunken islands are all imprints of the catalysts that occurred here. This portrait of a place tells a tale from earliest time to present day-- showing a forward-moving society of the 1800s centered around a town square of the 1790s, presenting life in pre-twentieth century homes, and even addressing recent era where modern homesteaders have successfully battled challenges. It explains why, in 2007, many Pittsburgh Northsiders are sacredly tied to their neighborhood, their historic homes, and the very land upon which they find themselves rooted. They are defined, still, by Allegheny City.

Download or read book Italians of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania written by Nicholas P. Ciotola and published by Karger Publishers. This book was released on 2005 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1930, one out of every six Pittsburgh residents was an immigrant. More came from Italy than from any other country in the world. Drawn by chain migration and the prospect of work in coal mines, steel mills, railroads, and other local industries, Italian immigrants contributed greatly to the growth and development of western Pennsylvania and endowed the region with a rich and vibrant ethnic culture that has endured to the present day. In this unprecedented volume, nearly two hundred photographs collected from Italian American families still living in the Pittsburgh region illustrate aspects of the Italian immigrant experience in western Pennsylvania, including work, community, leisure, religion, and family life. Italians of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania tells the uplifting story of the work ethic that these pioneering immigrants brought to Pittsburgh and how they laid a solid foundation on which later generations could build and persevere.

Download or read book Making Industrial Pittsburgh Modern written by Edward K. Muller and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pittsburgh’s explosive industrial and population growth between the mid-nineteenth century and the Great Depression required constant attention to city-building. Private, profit-oriented firms, often with government involvement, provided necessary transportation, energy resources, and suitable industrial and residential sites. Meeting these requirements in the region’s challenging hilly topographical and riverine environment resulted in the dramatic reshaping of the natural landscape. At the same time, the Pittsburgh region’s free market, private enterprise emphasis created socio-economic imbalances and badly polluted the air, water, and land. Industrial stagnation, temporarily interrupted by wars, and then followed deindustrialization inspired the formation of powerful public-private partnerships to address the region’s mounting infrastructural, economic, and social problems. The sixteen essays in Making Industrial Pittsburgh Modern examine important aspects of the modernizing efforts to make Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania a successful metropolitan region. The city-building experiences continue to influence the region’s economic transformation, spatial structure, and life experience.