Secret Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh's steel industry was booming.

Sometimes, quite literally.  While the industry brought building materials to the working class’s hands and obscene profits to the pockets of some of Pittsburgh’s most notoriously wealthy people, it was not without fault. Working conditions were often abysmal. Every day, the employees of the mills were subjected to extreme temperatures which may have resulted in severe dehydration, burns that left them unable to work and/or eventually resulted in their deaths, and toxic gases which could have led to health problems later in life. A study done more recently in Malaysia has found a correlation between the inhalation of toxic gases and metal particles and a deterioration in lung function. The scientists reported that “particles formed when molten metal solidified in the air due to the temperature gradient outside the furnace. Without appropriate protective equipment, particles are easily inhaled, reach the alveoli, and damage respiratory function” (Hamzah, Tamrin, and Ismail 229). Pittsburgh’s mill workers most certainly didn’t have this “protective equipment.” If subjected to long-term exposure to these metal dust particles, mill workers could develop respiratory illnesses, such as bronchial asthma and COPD (230).

Thomas Bell’s Out of This Furnace follows the motivations and movements of a variety of people during the height of the steel industry. One of the most intriguing factors revolves around the experiences of the mill workers while they are working. The “Kracha” chapter, in particular, offers a good look at the dangerous conditions mill workers often faced every day they were on the job. Not only did the blast furnaces have a terrible effect on workers’ health, but the mills themselves were also incredibly unstable. Explosions—which were not uncommon—were catastrophic. Even worse, the instability of the furnaces was usually recognized before they exploded, but that knowledge did little to save workers’ lives. Kracha’s section highlights this, pointing out that even though it had already been known that the furnace was what they called “hanging,” which meant unstable, twelve workers were sent up towards the top of the furnace to help hoist up an or buggy that had fallen: “The explosion blew out the top of the furnace. Three men were killed instantly and eleven injured, three of them fatally” (Bell 54). What is most jarring about this particular section is that the workers appear to be seen more as a means to make money than as people. The usual protocol when a furnace was “hanging” was for the furnace keeper to order the blast lowered or shut off completely (Bell 54). Two men would stand on the top of the furnace to see to it that the stock of ore slipped down calmly. During this particular explosion, however, when it was discovered that one of the ore buggies had tipped and begun spilling, twelve men were sent up to assist in trying to right the 500-plus-pound stock. If it was known that an explosion was going to occur if they didn’t climb to the top of the furnace to try to right the stock, then why were they sent up in the first place? It seems obvious that by sending more workers up to the top of the furnace, they were just risking the lives of more workers. So why would they do this? The answer seems pretty evident, actually. An explosion would mean a loss in money. But this leaves a lingering question for me: Was the money that would have been saved if the workers had managed to right the stock worth more than their lives? I guess it depends on the morals of the individual.

It seems that I am not the only one who has questioned the dangers that the mill workers were subjected to—especially the dangers that extended past just the regular risks of the job. The formation of unions for the working class developed exactly because they were angry about their working conditions. The book Meet you in Hell, written by Les Standiford, offers some insight into the historical ramifications that Andrew Carnegie faced because of the way he ran his business. While its main purpose is to disclose some of the details surrounding what made the relationship between Carnegie and his sometimes-friend, sometimes-enemy Henry Clay Frick so tumultuous, the unrest amongst Carnegie’s workers becomes apparent on multiple occasions. The first time his workers went on strike, it was because they believed that their shifts were too long. Labor laws of the United States of today would agree with them. Carnegie settled this with them, reducing their workdays to three, eight-hour shifts rather than the two, twelve-hour shifts they had been working before. He was the first and only businessman to allow this practice at his mill. To further appease them, he also issued “a blanket 10-percent raise” (Standiford 71). His hope was that he could quell the impending unrest that he knew would arise when his workers discovered how much money he had made that year and began to compare it to their wages. This was not the end of Carnegie’s experience with rising unions, however. In 1888, after discovering that “it was [becoming] more expensive to maintain three distinct work forces than two,” he declared that the labor force at the Edgar Thomson mill would return to the two, twelve-hour shifts they’d had before (97). His workers immediately went on strike again. Once they realized what it was like to work in marginally better conditions, they knew they had to band together to make sure that those conditions were continuously met.

Not everyone wanted to participate in the unions. William Attaway’s novel Blood on the Forge, for instance, offers up a story of mill workers from the perspective of African Americans. It begins by following three brothers, Melody, Chinatown, and Big Mat on their northbound journey on a train. They find themselves settling down in Allegheny County, where they find work at a local iron mill. But just like the unstable mills written about in history books, one of the furnaces that they worked in was unstable, and Chinatown winds up blinded in an explosion. Following the explosion that blinds Chinatown, many of the workers see this as a reason to band together and form a union. Our main character, Melody, is not one of these. In part 5, he comes across some leaflets announcing a union meeting for the workers. “Melody saw these,” the narrator responds. “But his eyes did not carry the message to his brain…He did not resent the mills because of what they had done to his brother” (Attaway 197). For Melody, there is a disconnect between the mills and the responsibility the union believes they should have for their workers’ safety. Perhaps this is because slavery has only very recently been abolished at this point in the novel. Any paid work is better than no paid work. This difference in opinion of what the mills owe their workers appears to be a point of contention within the mills, however. Later in part 5, Melody and Big Mat are walking through town when they discover a group of men surrounding another man lying on the road. It’s Bo, another man who has chosen not to join the union. Attaway says, “He had been kicked and beaten. There was a lump the size of a pigeon’s egg at the base of his skull” (205). The men who had been surrounding him when Melody and Big Mat came upon him were beating him. When Melody asks him why, he responds, “’Say I’m the stool pigeon that told on them’” (207). The men have been laid off after it was discovered that they were a part of the union. Rather than taking it out on the mills, they’ve decided to take it out on someone who hadn’t stood with them. Tension between the mill workers was common and unions were a big source for this tension.

The mills didn’t pose a threat to only workers’ health, however. They also inflicted some pretty lasting damage on the surrounding environment. One article I found points out that, historically, slag, which is the byproduct of iron and steelmaking, “has been dumped in huge piles near the steel mills” (Alexander and Greber 15). From these piles came emissions of hydrogen sulfide, which added to the pollution already clouding the air from a number of blast furnaces in industrial plants throughout the city. Waste-waters produced from the blast furnaces could have contained ammonia, cyanide, phenol, suspended solids, and sulfide (14) Because the early steel mills of Pittsburgh often sent this waste-water back into the rivers via their pump systems, this means that any of these chemical compounds had the potential to enter the water, thereby altering the chemical composition and pH of the water until it was unlivable for a number of organisms. And this is something that did happen. Along with the dangers of molten steel spilling into the river and causing massive explosions as trains carried it from one side to the other (which also happened), the addition of these chemical compounds into the river water resulted in the complete eradication of one species of fish—the Paddlefish—from the river ecosystem (Ryan Henderson). Paddlefish used to be one of the most abundant species to exist in Pittsburgh’s rivers, but they disappeared during the peak of the steel industry. The damage that the steel industry brought to the river didn’t only affect river life, however. People who sourced their drinking water directly from the rivers would have had to put their water through special filtration or drink the equivalent of toxic waste. 

In recent years, active efforts have been made throughout the city of Pittsburgh to try to rectify the damage that has been inflicted on the city’s environment. Trees, for instance, have been planted in abundance in a number of human-made parks. The increase in oxygen production from these trees has resulted in cleaner air and easier breathing for the people of Pittsburgh. There have also been efforts made to clean up the river water. Most notable in recent efforts is the re-introduction of Paddlefish, the same fish that was once completely wiped out of the river waters. So far, as those who led the Rivers of Steel tour for our class have stated, they appear to be surviving in the river ecosystem. One troubling thing in the midst of this re-introduction, however, is that the fish do not appear to be reproducing. They are surviving, but without the ability to successfully reproduce, for how long?

Amidst all of the excitement from Rivers of Steel about the restoration of the river ecosystem, I couldn’t help but wonder about whether or not any efforts have been taken to try to rectify the damage that the mills caused to people. After all, the rivers weren’t the only thing affected by pollution. And unlike the rivers or the life inside them, people have consciousness. According to Ryan Henderson, a Pitt alum and Site Manager for the former Carrie Blast Furnaces, the earliest forms of worker compensation that came about were minimal dollar amounts given in exchange for specific types of bodily injury. These could range anywhere from puncture wounds to the loss of a hand, and no matter what happened, there was always an exact dollar amount attached to that body part (Henderson). Even worse, these injuries were usually kept off the books so as to avoid repercussions should the number of injuries ever be discovered. Following World War II, when unions became more institutionalized in the workplace, a stricter set of rules began to be enforced, but this wasn’t always to the benefit of the workers. In some cases, it was. The organization of unions allowed for negotiations for “higher worker’s comp and better health care…than non-union industries” (Henderson). But this also meant that the mill owners were able to negotiate their own terms, and among these was that “job site injuries could certainly be eligible for worker’s comp…but unless [it was proven that] the injury was a result of company negligence” there would be no company payout for long-term injuries or death. And seeing as this was the case for a number of years, and still is the case in many industrial companies today, it begs the question: Do these companies see people as nothing more than bodies to conduct their labor?

People were the heart of the steel mills. Without people, the steel mills of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries wouldn’t have functioned. While the Rivers of Steel tour painted restoration efforts in a very positive light, I’m not sure it’s possible to continue looking at it that way if we think about how the mills impacted people. Some were blinded in explosions. Others were badly maimed. Some lost their lives. And the minimal compensation for these tragedies cannot be made up for with most mills closing and the city giving special care to the environment now. People of today’s Pittsburgh have it better than ever. And that’s not a bad thing. But a good life and environment for the people of today doesn’t erase the fact that the people who suffered were never properly compensated in their time. It’s a step in the right direction. But it doesn’t mean that all the wounds have been healed.

 

Works Cited

Alexander, Susan and Brian Greber. “Environmental Ramifications of Various Materials Used in Construction and Manufacture in the United States.” United States Department of Agriculture, 1991. www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr277.pdf. Accessed 30 Nov. 2018.

Attaway, William. Blood on the Forge. www.courseweb.pitt.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-25152461-dt-content-rid-41208243_2/courses/2191_UPITT_ENGLIT_1412_SEC1010/BloodOnTheForge.pdf. Accessed 27 Nov. 2018. 

Bell, Thomas. Out of This Furnace. First Edition. Little, Brown and Company, 1941. www.courseweb.pitt.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-25152462-dt-content-rid-41208244_2/courses/2191_UPITT_ENGLIT_1412_SEC1010/BookScanCenter-11.pdf. Accessed 27 Nov. 2018. 

Hamzah, Nurul Ainun et al. “Metal dust exposure and lung function deterioration among steel workers: an exposure-response relationship” International journal of occupational and environmental health vol. 22,3 (2016): 224-232. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5102237. Accessed 29 Nov. 2018. 

Henderson, Ryan. Personal interview. 3 Dec 2018.

Standiford, Les. Meet you in Hell. Three Rivers Press, 2005.