Pittsburgh In Baldwin's Pittsburgh

When thinking of Pittsburgh as a whole most people would immediately associate the municipality with the title of “The City of Bridges”. But if you think of Pittsburgh as a whole during the nineteenth century, the city would be more commonly known as “The Smoky City”. The connotation of being known as the smoky city is not necessarily a positive attribute in most individual’s eyes. However, Pittsburgh was labeled with this title due to the different innovations that occurred in the city during the 1800’s. In Leland Baldwin’s novel, Pittsburgh – The Story of a City, Baldwin discusses the city in many different aspects from the mid 1750’s to the late 1860’s. Throughout this span of time the city went through many changes from the frontier days to becoming a booming commercial city.

But despite Pittsburgh’s growth in population many of its residents started to become concerned about their hometown and its future. These Pittsburgh natives were concerned for reasons such as; the arrival of railroads wiping out the main source of trade, a change in the social relation of the city due to a rise in manufacturing, and the competition in the iron industry.

In the 1850’s Pittsburgh natives saw a significant change in their city especially when it came to trade. During Pittsburgh’s frontier day’s trade was more interregional. It was common for the city to trade with Philadelphia or Baltimore, and then for

regional trade to go on after commission merchants received goods within their city. It was also not unheard of to trade through city markets. There was a period of time where Pittsburgh struggled to trade, but by making navigation improvements such as the renovation of the Mon River, blowing up rapids to build dams, and the invention of steamboats, trading out of Pittsburgh started to take off in the right direction. However, all of these forms of trade came to a halt when a new innovation occurred, Railroads. As Baldwin states, “ The session of the Pennsylvania General Assembly held in 1846, was confronted with necessity of choosing between renewing the charter if the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and authorizing a new home-owned corporation, the Pennsylvania Railroad” (Wade, pg. 196). Many residents in Pittsburgh and the western end of the state were strongly opposed to this change. Instead those residents wanted to keep the Baltimore to Ohio railroad going. Pittsburgh residents were fearful of seeing a decrease in trade and loosing their biggest trade posts. Sure enough, “Already the Baltimore and Ohio had its eyes fixed on Cincinnati and St. Louis […]” (Wade, pg. 197). It wasn’t until 1851 when the Fort Wayne Railroad was the first railroad to run locomotives out of Pittsburgh. And although developing a railroad system had good intentions for transporting economically moving commodities such as minerals and farm goods, having this new form of transportation was a direct set up for a decrease in their quick direct trade.
After Pittsburgh realized they were simply not in a good location for trade, the city started to become a large manufacturing post.

As Pittsburgh started to grow in the manufacturing aspect there started to be a change in the social relation of the city. As stated in the novel, “ The most illuminating guide to Pittsburgh’s growth is found in the population statistics and in the summaries of manufactories” (Wade, pg. 218). The Pittsburgh natives were excited to see their city start back up in the right direction after their original commercial vision did not go as

planned.
The smoky city then started building small organizations, that had no blast furnace’s, small amounts of steel, no coke for fuel, and puddling was in the picture. In the cold months of January 1859, cold rolling of iron and steel was invented and patented by Bernard Lauth, who was a partner of Benjamin Jones. But not longer after James Laughlin, a wealthy banker and merchant built the first two Eliza blast furnace’s with beehive coke ovens. Laughlin had set this up on the north side of the Monongahela River, which was directly across the Lauth plant. The industry was improving at a fairly steady pace. By November of that same year the second blast furnace was built. This Clinton blast furnace was the first to use coke for the blast. With this newly innovated furnace Pittsburgh was in the spotlight of producing tons of iron per year. Aside from the immense production of being a heavy contribution to the commercial city and the manufacturing, Pittsburgh natives were concerned when they saw they were faced with competition.
Despite Pittsburgh having success with their manufacturing, between the years of 1840 to 1860 records showed, “the city witnessed some of the bitterest of the labor wars that enliven the history of American industry between 1840 and 1860” (Wade, pg. 222). The city natives were worried about their hometown and their personal futures when this uproar started. Workers in the glass factories were going else where to work, cotton mill owners were thinking about moving their companies, and overall there was cutthroat completion daily. The manufacture owners were struggling to keep up and as Wade says, “ The easiest way, and perhaps the only one, to meet such competition is to hire cheaper labor and drive it as many hours as possible” (pg. 223). However, that was a far fetch idea to these workers unless there was some sort of compromise elsewhere. The wages were set between one and two dollars a day and some roast beef for lunch. The workmen enjoyed this, but there was a whole other side they did not agree with. Workdays could be as long as 14 hours in the summer and 12 hours in the winter. Furthermore, due to these unfair disagreements and labor troubles, Pittsburgh was getting a bad name.
Although Pittsburgh’s population was increasing and the economic growth was taking off in the right direction, residents were fearful of what was going to happen next. In Leland Baldwin’s novel, Pittsburgh – The Story of a City, Baldwin analyzes Pittsburgh through the mid 1700’s to the late 1800’s. Throughout the book Baldwin discusses Pittsburgh becoming a commercial city. During these years as a commercial city local inhabitants saw the Pennsylvania Railroad system take over their source of trade they had built up, changes in the social relations due to manufacturing becoming prominent, and the competition within the different industries. Despite all of these impressive innovations Pittsburgh struggled through the second half of the nineteenth century. This downfall within the city left the Pittsburgh natives to not only concerned about their future, but also left them concerned about their hometown.