Pittsburg The history of Pittsburgh began with centuries of Native American civilization in the modern Pittsburgh region. Eventually French and British explorers encountered the strategic juncture where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet to form the Ohio. The area became a battleground when France and Britain fought for control in the 1750s.

Following American independence in 1783, the village around Fort Pitt continued to grow. The region saw the short-lived Whiskey Rebellion, when farmers rebelled against federal taxes on whiskey. The War of 1812 cut off the supply of British goods, stimulating American manufacture. By 1815, Pittsburgh was producing large quantities of iron, brass, tin, and glass products.

By the 1840s, Pittsburgh had grown to one of the largest cities west of the Allegheny Mountains. Production of steel began in By 1911, Pittsburgh was producing half the nation's steel. Pittsburgh was a Republican party stronghold until The soaring unemployment of the Great Depression, the New Deal relief programs and the rise of powerful labor unions in the 1930s turned the city into a liberal stronghold of the New Deal Coalition.

In World War II, it was the center of the "Arsenal of Democracy", producing munitions for the Allied war effort as prosperity returned. Following World War II, Pittsburgh launched a clean air and civic revitalization project known as the "Renaissance." The industrial base continued to expand through the 1960s, but after 1970 foreign competition led to the collapse of the steel industry, with massive layoffs and mill closures.

The Iron City Commerce continued to be an essential part of the economy of early Pittsburgh, but increasingly, manufacture began to grow in importance. Pittsburgh sat in the middle of one of the most productive coalfields in the country; the region was also rich in petroleum, natural gas, lumber, and farm goods.

Blacksmiths forged iron implements, from horse shoes to nails. By 1800, the town, with a population of 1,565 persons, had over 60 shops, including general stores, bakeries, and hat and shoe shops. The 1810s were a critical decade in Pittsburgh's growth. In 1811, the first steamboat was built in Pittsburgh. Increasingly, commerce would also flow upriver.

] Also, the British blockade of the American coast increased inland trade, so that goods flowed through Pittsburgh from all four directions. By 1815, Pittsburgh was producing $764K in iron; $249K in brass and tin, and $235K in glass products. When, on March 18, 1816, Pittsburgh was incorporated as a city, it had already taken on some of its defining characteristics: commerce, manufacture, and a constant cloud of coal dust. ]

Other emerging towns challenged Pittsburgh. In 1818, the first segment of the National Road was completed, from Baltimore to Wheeling, bypassing Pittsburgh. This threatened to render the town less essential in east-west commerce. In the coming decade, however, many improvements were made to the transportation infrastructure. In 1818, the region's first river bridge, the Smithfield Street Bridge, opened, the first step in building the city of bridges.

In 1834, the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal was completed. Now Pittsburgh was part of a transportation system that included rivers, roads, and canals.Manufacture continued to grow. In 1835, McClurg, Wade and Co. built the first locomotive west of the Alleghenies. Already, Pittsburgh was capable of manufacturing the most essential machines of its age. By the 1840s, Pittsburgh was not a town, but one of the largest cities west of the mountains.

Immigration Between 1870 and 1920, the population of Pittsburgh grew almost sevenfold. Many of the new residents were immigrants who sought employment in the factories and mills and introduced new traditions, languages, and cultures to the city. Ethnic neighborhoods emerged on densely populated hillsides and valleys.

The years 1916–1930 marked the largest migration of African-Americans to Pittsburgh. Jazz greats such as Duke Ellington and Pittsburgh natives Billy Strayhorn and Earl Hines played there. Two of the Negro League's greatest rivals, the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays, often competed in the Hill District. The teams dominated the Negro National League in the 1930s and 1940s

Andrew Carnegie The Steel City Carnegie's great innovation was in the cheap and efficient mass production of steel rails for railroad lines. This could not have happened without the prior invention of Bessemer Steel. Thus Carnegie's "innovation" was scale, not anything technical. Eads Bridge across the Mississippi River, opened in 1874 using Carnegie steel.

Eads Bridge

In the late 1880s, Carnegie Steel was the largest manufacturer of pig iron, steel rails, and coke in the world, with a capacity to produce approximately 2,000 tons of pig iron per day. In 1888, he bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a 425-mile (685 km) long railway, and a line of lake steamships. A consolidation of Carnegie's assets and those of his associates occurred in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.

A consolidation of Carnegie's assets and those of his associates occurred in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company. By 1889, the U.S. output of steel exceeded that of Britain, and Andrew Carnegie owned a large part of it. By 1900, the profits of Carnegie Bros. & Company alone stood at $40,000,000 with $25,000,000 being Carnegie's share.

Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works (named for John Edgar Thomson, Carnegie's former boss and president of the Pennsylvania Railroad), Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill (Wilson, Walker & County), the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines. Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the

landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri (completed 1874). This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology which marked the opening of a new steel market. The Homestead Strike was a violent labor dispute in 1892 that ended in a battle between strikers and private security guards. The dispute took place at Carnegie's Homestead Steel Works between the

Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and the Carnegie Steel Company. The final result was a major defeat for the union and a setback for efforts to unionize steelworkers. Carnegie sold all his steel holdings in 1901; they were merged into U.S. Steel and it was non-union until the late 1930s

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