Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH

PITTSBURGH. Once described by the writer Lincoln Steffens as "hell with the lid off," Pittsburgh has transformed from an acrid industrial and manufacturing city into a nationally renowned center for health care, high technology, robotics, and education. The "smoky city," historically known for its steel production, has been beautified and revitalized, with few remnants remaining from its dark past. Pittsburgh sits at the intersection of the Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio Rivers. The first inhabitants were Native American tribes, later joined by

European settlers pushing westward. The French and British fought to control the waterway. The French ousted a British garrison in 1754 and built Fort Duquesne, which in turn was taken by the British in 1758 and renamed Fort Pitt.

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As a port city, Pittsburgh grew rapidly in the 1800s and the discovery of coal guaranteed its place as an industrial hotbed. The Civil War solidified Pittsburgh's reputation as the "Iron City" since it supplied most of the iron for the Union army. Spurred on by a steady flow of immigrant labor, other industries also developed, including oil, glass, and other metals. Important business leaders built their empires in Pittsburgh, such as Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, Henry J. Heinz, and Andrew W. Mellon. Years of relying on heavy industry gave Pittsburgh a bad reputation in the twentieth century. Downtown, the streetlights often burned all day to offset the heavy smoke from the plants. After World War II, however, foreign competitors decimated the city's industrial base, and Pittsburgh came to symbolize the nation's Rustbelt.

A revitalization effort that began after World War II was implemented with renewed vigor. Civic leaders supported the rebirth of the city through a series of "Renaissance" programs. In 1977, Mayor Richard Caliguiri began the Renaissance II program, which resulted in the building of several distinctive skyscrapers in the downtown Golden Triangle and a neighborhood revitalization effort citywide. Later, several important cultural institutions were built to resurrect the downtown cultural life. In 2001, Heinz Field debuted, a new football stadium for the Steelers, while Pirates baseball was played at the new PNC Park. Pittsburgh's three rivers remain the largest inland port in the nation, while the Pittsburgh International Airport serves more than 20 million passengers annually. The Pittsburgh metropolitan area in 2002 encompassed a six-county region of western Pennsylvania that covered over 4,500 square miles and included a population of about 2.5 million.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hays, Samuel P., ed. City at the Point: Essays on the Social History of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991.

Lubove, Roy. Twentieth-Century Pittsburgh : The Post-Steel Era. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996.

Bob Batchelor

See also Duquesne, Fort ; Iron and Steel Industry ; Pennsylvania .