From Blue to Green: Transforming Jobs Around the World
Chapter 2: The Steel City
The mill in its heyday was important to Pittsburgh’s reputation, stretching back to the late 19th century, as a manufacturing hub. By the early 20th century, Mill 19 and others like it lined the banks of Pittsburgh’s three rivers (the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio), operating at all hours to turn out the steel that built much of America’s infrastructure — including the Golden Gate Bridge in California and the Empire State Building in New York — and the artillery used in World War II.
Pittsburgh’s steel mills employed tens of thousands, including generations of men in Sippey’s family. “There was a pride for the people who worked in steel,” Sippey says. The jobs were good jobs.
Tim Sippey reflects upon the city of Pittsburgh and his father’s 32-year career in the steel industry.
Tim Sippey reflects upon the city of Pittsburgh and his father’s 32-year career in the steel industry.
But the mills polluted the city and made some workers sick. Mills’ coal-burning furnaces emitted so much black soot that businessmen in the 1950s would take an extra shirt to the office to change into because the shirt they wore during their commute would be dirty by the time they arrived at the office.
© Smoke Control Lantern Slide Collection/University of Pittsburgh Library System
© Smoke Control Lantern Slide Collection/University of Pittsburgh Library System
By the 1970s, the mills were closing due to foreign competition, and workers were losing their jobs.
Coming up next:
Chapter 3: Pittsburgh Goes Green
Pittsburgh moves to clean up the steel industry and Tim gets “the best career advice ever" from his father. Read Chapter 3: Pittsburgh Goes Green.
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