Industrialization in Pittsburgh and its Effects to People

By taking such a position, Couvares gives the impression that there is a certain inescapably to the process of industrial enterprise itself. Once the industrialisation process is chthonianway, its effect seem to be unstopp equal. At the same time, there were in Pittsburgh certain cultural and political realities which accelerated the process of industrialization once it commenced.

The book begins with the railroad workers' strike in 1877 against the protoactinium Railroad. The strike is portrayed as popular not except among the workers themselves, but among all the working class people in the city. The railroad was seen as the clear culprit in the dispute, and the workers the victims whose inescapably had been systematically ignored or trampled by the railroad. The balance of world berth in the dispute was significantly on the side of the workers.

As Couvares notes in the final chapters, by the end of the second ten dollar bill of the 20th century, the shift in power was remarkable. Immigrants had altered the commonwealth mix in the interceding ten dollar bills, and though they were progressively involved in action against the repression of the steel quite a detaileds, they were no match for the power of the corporation in their strike efforts.

Couvares clearly believes that the increasing number of immigrants in the ranks of steelworkers was an important factor in the repression of those workers in the second decade of the century. Couvar

In "The Craftsmen's Empire," Couvares writes that Pittsburgh was thoroughly in the hands of the workers in terms of their relationship with the owners of businesses. The title of the chapter refers to the metier of skills which gave workers that power and which restricted the power of employers. Simply put, the employers needed the skills of the craftsmen and had at that point not yet devised a plan whereby they could conceal the relationships of the workplace.

Again, however, it would be misleading to state that the unions lost all their power. They were able to gain some victories, but those victories did not change the power relations which increasingly favor the steel owners over the workers.

Although Couvares focuses on the period up to 1919, he does not that it was not until the thirties that the unions began to be able to battle the owners on equal ground. However, it took the picture and major political, economic and social upheavals before the powerful dare of steel on the city could be loosened in an important way.

We see, then, that Couvares has painted a thorough portrait of the forces at work which resulted in the shift to a steel-controlled city by dint of the four decades covered in the book. Once the process of industrialization had gotten under way, the changes in Pittsburgh appear to have been inevitable. The nature of capitalism as described by Couvares is such that power increasingly accrues to the big corporations, and is increasingly lost to the workers in the industries controlled by those corporations.

Couvares in the next few chapters makes clear that there were other fluctuations in labor and social relations through the 1890s. For example, there was a law and order try in the 1880s which had little actual impact on the city. On the other hand, that movement was an indirect sign that the city was gradually coming under the control of politicians and powerful social and economic leaders who favored the corporations
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