City Of Steel

Demonstrating the power religious language, ideas, and institutions had in shaping progressive reform in Pittsburgh, this cross-disciplinary study addresses significant debates in the fields of Progressive-Era political history and American religious history, while telling the story of an industrial city in a crucial era of change.

Steel City is the story of the 1890s golden age of Pittsburgh when its technological innovations and wealth creation made it the Silicon Valley of its day. Pittsburgh was first in steel, food processing, and electricity, and the leaders of those industries—Carnegie, Frick, Heinz, and Westinghouse—are names we still know today. Amid this fevered atmosphere Jamie Dalton, a recent Yale graduate and son of a corporate lawyer, must decide whether to accede to his father’s wishes and pursue a career in law or the steel business, or follow his own instincts and become a newspaperman. The greatest natural disaster of the 19th century, the Johnstown Flood, confirms his choice to be a journalist, and Jamie goes on to cover Pittsburgh’s business titans, labor strikes and assassination attempts. While reporting on the unions of the era, he is exposed to a very different world, symbolized by his infatuation with a mysterious woman under the sway of an Eastern European anarchist. Jamie struggles with balancing the access he has to Pittsburgh’s business elite while maintaining the objectivity to tell the hard truths about those same people. Ultimately, he must thwart a terrorist plot that could disrupt the massive corporate merger that would restructure the nation’s largest industry: steel.

From its establishment nearly 200 years ago as a village at the centre of an agricultural district, Hamilton has grown into one of Canada's biggest industrial centres, at the heart of a highly developed regional municipality. The story of its changing landscapes, both physical and human, is presented in the nineteen essays that make up this volume, all by geographers associated with Hamilton's McMaster University. Change is the essence of the story. Each contributor focuses on one aspect of the past, present, or future landscapes of Hamilton, and places it within the context of change in the region. The first series of essays explores physical landscapes – geology and relief, climate, soils, vegetation, and hydrology – and shows how human activity has moulded them. The second group charts the evolution of human landscapes in the region, paying special attention to contemporary Hamilton with its rich and diverse combination of people and cultures, and also to the political intrigue that surrounded the introduction of regional government to the area. Finally a third series focuses on the functioning of the Hamilton region. Within a highly complex system, the city and region balance a broad range of often contradictory trends and activities. The contributors examine the difficulties facing agriculture in a rapidly urbanizing region; the importance of Hamilton in caring for welfare-dependent populations; the future of steel in Steel City; the challenges posed by energy requirements in the region; and the hard choices facing policy-makers. The last two essays discuss the role played by McMaster University in the life of the region, and the landscape of Hamilton today: a remarkable complex of historical interest, great natural beauty, and modern city life.

Whether onstage or off, Oli Sykes is not one to bite his tongue. As the frontman of Bring Me the Horizon, one of the most polarising bands to emerge from the UK rock scene, he is the commander-in-chief of a band as uncompromising as it is unpredictable, and has led his comrades in a daring assault on the mainstream. But the band has been the source of much controversy to match its acclaim. In just over a decade they have endured drug addiction, brushes with the law, press hostility and even onstage assaults. But nothing has slowed their ascent from underground notoriety to the upper reaches of superstardom. Behind the noise, there is a restless creative energy which has seen Bring Me the Horizon take huge strides from album to album. This book tells their story for the first time, including their first steps into the hardcore scene of Sheffield, emerging from and then outgrowing the so-called 'deathcore' movement and the creation of their defining records. This is how Bring Me the Horizon took on the world and came out on top. Throw me to the Wolves

A double-sided flip book exploring the divide between fans of Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday Football rivalry is a common factor anywhere in the world where the sport is played, but some take it far more seriously than others. In Sheffield, the traditional capital of Britain's steel manufacturing industry, there is no greater tribal divide than between fans of Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday. The two clubs' supporters berate each other with a venomous passion, their long-running feud intense enough to divide families and workplaces from 1889 to the present day. But why? How does a natural rivalry that, in the 1960s, saw supporters from both clubs going to Hillsborough Stadium (Wednesday's ground) one week, then Bramell Lane (home to United) the next, turn to such enmity? In this history, authors Cowens (a United supporter) and Cronshaw (Wednesday) leaven their insider knowledge and fan anecdotes with a dark humor and bitter fascination with football violence. The struggle for supremacy between red (United) and blue (Wednesday), between "blade" and "owl", is absolute. To the people of Sheffield, Britain's fourth largest city, it’s never just a game.

How Pittsburgh Positioned Itself as a Center of Culture and Innovation at the Turn of the Century In From the Steel City to the White City, Zachary Brodt explores Western Pennsylvania’s representation at Chicago’s Columbian Exposition, the first major step in demonstrating that Pittsburgh was more than simply America’s crucible—it was also a region of developing culture and innovation. The 1893 Columbian Exposition presented a chance for the United States to prove to the world that it was an industrial giant ready to become a global superpower. At the same time, Pittsburgh, a commercial center that formerly served as a starting point for western expansion, found itself serving as a major transportation, and increasingly industrial, hub during this period of extensive growth. Natural resources like petroleum and coal allowed Western Pennsylvania to become one of the largest iron- and steel-producing regions in the world. The Chicago fairgrounds provided a lucrative opportunity for area companies not only to provide construction materials but to display the region’s many products. While Pittsburgh’s most famous contributions to the 1893 World’s Fair—alternating current electricity and the Ferris wheel—had a lasting impact on the United States and the world, other exhibits provided a snapshot of the area’s industries, natural resources, and inventions. The success of these exhibits, Brodt reveals, launched local companies into the twentieth century, ensuring a steady flow of work, money, and prestige

Pittsburgh's contributions to the uniquely American art form of jazz are essential to its national narrative. Fleeing the Jim Crow South in the twentieth century, African American migration to the industrial North brought musical roots that would lay the foundation for jazz culture in the Steel City. As migrant workers entered the factories of Pittsburgh, juke joints and nightclubs opened in the segregated neighborhoods of the Hill District, Northside and East Liberty. The scene fostered numerous legends, including Art Blakey, Billy Strayhorn, George Benson, Erroll Garner and Earl Fatha Hines. The music is sustained today in the practice rooms of the city's universities and by groups such as the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and the African American Music Institute. Authors Richard Gazarik and Karen Anthony Cole chart the swinging history of jazz in Pittsburgh.