BOOK EVENT: Tracing the History of Pittsburgh
May 9 @ 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
$20.00
Pittsburgh Rising: From Frontier Town to Steel City 1750 — 1920
Thursday, May 9
5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Union Trust Building Auditorium
501 Grant Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
$20.00 per person
This program is limited to 300 people.
Purchase a ticket below.
Join us in the impressive auditorium of the Union Trust Building for a presentation by Edward K. Muller and Rob Ruck, authors of the 2023 book Pittsburgh Rising: From Frontier Town to Steel City, 1750-1920.
Tracing the history of the dynamic period in which Pittsburgh rose from a remote outpost to an industrial powerhouse, the authors examine the many factors—both natural and human—that contributed to the success of multiple industries and generated enormous wealth. They expand this deceptively familiar history by tracking the lives of immigrants and African American migrants, who did not share in the rewards of growth, and describing efforts by labor unions, charitable groups, and reform organizations to mitigate the dreadful conditions in which poor laborers lived.
They bring their analysis to bear on the contemporary situation by concluding that the class, religious, ethnic, and racial divides that thwarted resolution of inequalities in early-twentieth-century Pittsburgh continue to do so today.
About the authors:
Edward K. Muller is professor emeritus of history at the University of Pittsburgh and former director of the University’s Urban Studies Program. He has published extensively on the history and geography of North American cities, particularly Pittsburgh. His most recent book, prior to Pittsburgh Rising…, was Making Industrial Pittsburgh Modern: Environment, Landscape, Transportation, Energy, and Planning, co-authored with Joel A. Tarr.
Rob Ruck is professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches and writes about sport. His inquiries into the ways in which people use sport to tell a collective story about who they are have been both published as books and produced as PBS documentaries.