Excerpt from Valley of Work: Scenes of Industry
Barbara L. Jones
Martin B. Leisser (1845-1940) and Johanna K. W. Hailman (1871-1958) were the exceptions, for they not only painted the natural surroundings in Scalp Level but also saw beauty in the industrial urban landscape. Leisser was one of the first Pittsburgh artists to transcribe the industrial scenes of the city in his paintings. As early as 1877, he was on the scene with three other Pittsburgh artists when he sketched Union Depot Riot, 1877 (color plate 2), depicting the riot that took place July 19-21 that year. He sent the sketch to Harper's Weekly, where it was remade as a wood engraving to illustrate the riot-a violent clash between state militia troops brought in from Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Railroad workers, who had gathered support from sympathetic citizens and local militia. During the strike, railroad cars, the roundhouse, and a grain elevator were set on fire, and it quickly spread to the station, producing the spectacular scene that Leisser captured on his canvas. Acting as a reporter, Leisser positioned himself high above the site in the steeple of St. Philomena's church to record the scene in its entirety the moment that it occurred. His painting is not nearly as detailed as the illustration that was published, which clearly defined the area; the workers, the crowd, the buildings, and the various onlookers perched on rooftops. While the painted view is from a similar perspective, the scene is artistically interpreted rather than illustrative. It is more about the spectacle of the moment at the height of the riot-the smoke engulfing the site, the glow of flames, sparks flying through the air-than it is about specifics. The darkness of night contrasts with the brightness of the blaze, heightening the drama of this significant event in the history of Pittsburgh.
¹Leisser's illustration is reproduced as "Steeple View of the Pittsburgh Conflagration" in Harper's Weekly, August 11, 1877, 624-25. Six images of the riot were reproduced in that edition. The three other artists who were there that night making sketches were John White Alexander (who was a staff member of Harper's Weekly); John Beatty; and Joseph Beeson, a lithographic engraver (Rina C. Youngner, "Paintings and Graphic Images of Industry in Nineteenth-Century Pittsburgh: A Study of the Relationship between Art and Industry" (PhD dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1991), 213, 412). This study is being published as a book by the University of Pittsburgh Press, due spring 2006.
²Two factors set off the riots: (1) the Pennsylvania Railroad cut workers wages by another 10 percent (they had previously been cut by 20 percent), and (2) the company began using trains with double-headers, or two locomotives instead of one, which threatened many jobs and made the job of the brakemen who now had to operate the double-headers more dangerous. It was not unusual for Leisser to be on the spot for this event, as he often contributed illustrations to Harper's Weekly of sites and events around the city. The site of this event is now the Pennsylvania Railroad Station, located on Liberty Avenue at Eleventh Street. The first Union Station burned in the 1877 riot; the building that replaced it, also called Union Station, was razed to make way for the present building, which has been turned into luxury apartments.
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Excerpt from Pittsburgh's Industrial Corridors
Edward K. Muller and Joel A. Tarr
Already a center of iron foundries and rolling mills by the mid-nineteenth century, Pittsburgh ironmasters responded to new market opportunities and technologies to erect by 1900 the nation's foremost district of iron blast furnaces and mass steel production. Huge integrated iron and steel mills lined the valleys of Pittsburgh's three rivers, where they shared the floodplains with an array of specialized enterprises, including sintering plants, bridge fabricators, barge builders, machine shops, scrap-metal yards, and a host of other industries. Industry's astonishing growth depended on the development of coal mines and coke works scattered throughout southwestern Pennsylvania; a web of railroad tracks and marshaling yards; rivers engineered in the service of manufacturing; and an unusual concentration of investment capital, innovators, and fearless entrepreneurs.
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