The Economic History of Pittsburgh
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Pittsburgh became a leader in America’s industrial production. This industrial production dominated Pittsburgh’s economy for over a century. This attracted many foreigners to Pittsburgh which had a demand for unskilled workers. However, Pittsburgh eventually lost its position as one of the world’s largest industrial producers and became a rising city for businesses in the field of information technology. As a result, Pittsburgh shifted from a city of mostly blue-collar workers to a city of mostly white-collar workers.
As a result of its location west of the Allegheny Mountains, excellent river transportation and high quality coal deposits Pittsburgh became one of America’s most industrialized cities in the nineteenth century. It produced many raw materials such as aluminum, glass and coke and coal chemicals as well as other industrial products such as electrical generators, appliances, railroad cars and locomotives. However, one industry in particular dominated Pittsburgh’s economic scene and that was the steel industry.
In the mid-nineteenth century, Andrew Carnegie created the Carnegie Steel Company, the largest steel monopoly during the Industrial Revolution, which dominated Pittsburgh’s industrial production and economy. Because of this, Pittsburgh was dubbed The Forge of America. Because the Carnegie Steel Company was so dominant in Pittsburgh’s economy at the time, the history of the company serves to explain the history of industry at the time.
By the 1970’s, because of several factors, Pittsburgh lost the steel industry as its primary economic source. As a result, there was a dramatic shift in Pittsburgh’s economy from one based ...
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Andrew Carnegie, the monopolist of the steel industry, was one of the worst of the Robber Barons. Like the others, he was full of contradictions and tried to bring peace to the world, but only caused conflicts and took away the jobs of many factory workers. Carnegie Steel, his company, was a main supplier of steel to the railroad industry. Working together, Carnegie and Vanderbilt had created an industrial machine so powerful, that nothing stood in its path. This is much similar to how Microsoft has monopolized the computer software
In the mid-nineteenth century, industrial America witnessed an evolving struggle between labor and big business. Although fiercely opposed by industrialists, rising labor movements in the steel and iron industries, which had become increasingly critical to the U.S.’ modernization and emergence as a world power, experienced initial success for decades up until the early 1890s. The strongest union in the industries, the Amalgamated of Iron and Steel Workers (AAIS) was able to garner support from an increasing membership and national recognition from other labor organizations as well as from the press, and in 1892, rose to meet the challenge of the powerful Carnegie Steel Company.
Meyer, David R. The Roots of American Industrialization. N.p.: JHU, 2003. N. pag. Google Books. JHU Press. Web. 29 Sept. 2013
The Foundry, defined by Joel Garreau in his book called The Nine Nations of North America, is an area compiled of cities in the Northeast Corridor such as New York City and Philadelphia to the cities near The Great Lakes. The Foundry is located in the Northeastern section of the Continental U.S. With cities such as NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, and others, The Foundry is by far the most populous area in the United States. The common characteristic that ties most of the cities in The Foundry to each other is industrialization, thus the Northeast also being dubbed the “Rust Belt” (Rust Belt). Even though it is the Industrial heart of the U.S., The Foundry is not limited to coal and manufacturing, but stretches out to agriculture as well. That being said, to truly get an understanding about The Foundry, one would have to go back to the Age of Industrialization to appreciate the string that ties these cities together. But even with such a big part of history tying The Foundry together, every city and area in it, whether small or big, has its own unique taste and culture that differentiates one from the other. From their physical geographies to their cultures, each make up what the United States is, a land of diversity. From Detroit, Michigan’s Motown Blues and Chicago’s Great Lakes to New York City’s Broadway, Ivy League schools, and Niagara Falls, The Foundry is made up of a variety of people, land, and cultures.
steel pipe tubing, Carnegie threatened to ruin him by invading his business if Morgan did not buy Carnegie out. E...
Rauch, Jonathan. “The Right Kind of Gun Rights.” National Journal Vol. 40 Issue 11. Academic Search Complete. 15 Mar. 2013. Web. 6 June 2015.
[2] Dowlut, Robert. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms in State Bills of Rights and Judicial
The issue of gun control has always been a hot topic among the American public. Most everyone, if asked, will tell you that gun control is an issue needed to be dealt with because of the event that took place at Columbine High School back on April 20th, 1999. The American public has been wrestling with gun control long before then. If we take a look back at August 1st, 1966 at the University of Texas, a man armed with a hunting rifle committed one of the most violent mass murders in history. Gun control refers to the Government placing restrictions on the American public to buy, own and sell firearms. If we read the constitution, our second amendment right is the right to bear arms. This has been the ongoing controversy of this issue. We the people say our constitutional right to buy and own firearms is being seized from us. The government is using our society’s violent incidents as cover to place restrictions and bans on firearms. This essay’s purpose is to provide proof that buying and owning firearms is our legal constitutional right and that our government is trying to attack the wrong angle when trying to fight crime involving guns in the United States.
Rivkin, David, and Andrew Grossman. "Gun Control and the Constitution." The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 10 Feb. 2013. Web. 17 May 2014.
The right to bear arms has been an important conversation in America for decades. As of recent tragedies such as the Sandy Hook shooting and the Aurora Colorado Theater shooting, the debate is more heated than ever. From large-scale massacres to single fatality shootings, gun violence is unwarranted and heartbreaking. However, the Second Amendment protects individual citizens’ right to own firearms: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” it states (Bill of Rights). Although this part of the Bill of Rights has not been changed in United States’ history, some citizens argue that, because the Constitution is a working document, this should be adapted to fit current needs and protect communities. Citizens who wish tip the scale in favor of the community’s protection argue that guns are dangerous, easy to access, popular weapons that allow disgruntled or mentally unstable citizens to “inflict mass causalities” and were originally only intended for use in a militia (Joe Messerli). On the other hand, those who wish to benefit civilians argue that taking away guns restrains individual liberty and that gun control would prove futile because criminals would find ways such as the black market to obtain guns, weapons can serve as self-defense prevent crimes, and reasonable restrictions would be more effective than an outright ban (Joe Messerli). Both arguments have valid, well developed ideas, and both sides tend to be passionate in debate.
For years proposals for gun control and the ownership of firearms have been among the most controversial issues in modern American politics. The public debate over guns in the United States is often seen as having two side. Some people passionately assert that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns while others assert that the Second Amendment does no more than protect the right of states to maintain militias. There are many people who insist that the Constitution is a "living document" and that circumstances have changed in regard to an individual’s right to bear arms that the Second Amendment upholds. The Constitution is not a document of total clarity and the Second Amendment is perhaps one of the worst drafted of all its amendments and has left many Americans divided over the true intent.
"The History of the Right to Bear Arms." Gun Control: Restricting Rights or Protecting People?. Sandra M. Alters. 2009 Ed. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Information Plus Reference Series. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 5 Feb. 2014.
McCullough explains how Johnstown became an example of ‘The Gilded Age’ industrialization prior to the 1889 disaster. The canal made Johnstown the busiest place in Cambria County in the 1820s. By the 1850s the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Cambria Iron Company began, and the population increased. There were about 30,000 people in the area before the flood. The Western Reservoir was built in the 1840s, but became generally known as the South Fork dam. It was designed to supply extra water for the Main Line canal from Johnstown to Pittsburgh. By saving the spring floods, water could be released during the dry summers. When the dam was completed in 1852, the Pennsylvania Railroad completed the track from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and the canal business began its decline. The state offered to sell the canal, the railroad company bought it for the right of ways yet had no need to maintain the dam, which due to neglect, broke for the first time in 1862. McCullough stresses that man was responsible for the...
Professional champions of civil rights and civil liberties have been unwilling to defend the underlying principle of the right to arms. Even the conservative defense has been timid and often inept, tied less, one suspects, to abiding principle and more to the dynamics of contemporary Republican politics. Thus a right older than the Republic, one that the drafters of two constitutional amendments the Second and the Fourteenth intended to protect, and a right whose critical importance has been painfully revealed by twentieth-century history, is left undefended by the lawyers, writers, and scholars we routinely expect to defend other constitutional rights. Instead, the Second Amendment’s intellectual as well as political defense has been left in the unlikely hands of the National Rifle Association (NRA). And although the NRA deserves considerably better than the demonized reputation it has acquired, it should not be the sole or even principal voice in defense of a major constitutional provision.
Those parties in favor of gun ownership and the freedom to use and keep weapons, rely on the fact that the facility for such rights is preserved in the constitution. In this climate of growing violence, common with chaos and crime, gun activists feel more than ever that their position is justified. As citizens of the “Land of the Free” owning a gun is an