What forces transformed a community in which industrial workers and other citizens exercised a real measure of power over their lives into a metropolis whose inhabitants were utterly dependent on Big Steel? How did a city that fervidly embraced the labor struggle of 1877 turn into the city which so fiercely repudiated the labor struggle of 1919? The Remaking of Pittsburgh is the history of this transformation. The cultural dimensions of industrialization come to life as Couvares calls upon labor history, urban history, and the history of popular culture to depict the demise of the "craftsman's empire" and the birth of a cosmopolitan bourgeois society. The book explores the impact of immigration on the shaping of modern Pittsburgh and the emergence of mass culture within the community. In the midst of these processes of transformation, the giant steel corporations were continually reshaping the life of the city.
The Pulitzer Prize–winning author’s “astonishing” debut novel, about a son’s struggle to find his own identity and integrity (The New York Times). Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Moonglow, and The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, is one of the most acclaimed talents in contemporary fiction. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, published when Chabon was just twenty-five, is the beautifully crafted debut that propelled him into the literary stratosphere. Art Bechstein may be too young to know what he wants to do with his life, but he knows what he doesn’t want: the life of his father, a man who laundered money for the mob. He spends the summer after graduation finding his own way, experimenting with a group of brilliant and seductive new friends: erudite Arthur Lecomte, who opens up new horizons for Art; mercurial Phlox, who confounds him at every turn; and Cleveland, a poetry-reciting biker who pulls him inevitably back into his father’s mobbed-up world. A New York Times bestseller, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh was called “astonishing” by Alice McDermott, and heralded the arrival of one of our era’s great voices. This ebook features a biography of the author.
An overview of scholarly research, both published and previously unpublished, on the history of a city that has often served as a case study for measuring social change. It synthesizes the literature and assesses how that knowledge relates to our broader understanding of the processes of urbanization and urbanism. This book is especially useful for undergraduate and graduate courses on environmental politics and policy making, or as a supplement for courses on public policy making generally.