Regional - Böcker

Given the tensions and demands of medicine, highly successful physicians and surgeons rarely achieve equal success as prose writers. It is truly extraordinary that a major, international pioneer in the controversial field of transplant surgery should have written a spellbinding, and heart-wrenching, autobiography.Thomas Starzl grew up in LeMars, Iowa, the son of a newspaper publisher and a nurse. His father also wrote science fiction and was acquainted with the writer Ray Bradbury. Starzl left the family business to enter Northwestern University Medical School where he earned both and M.D. and a PhD. While he was a student, and later during his surgical internship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, he began the series of animal experiments that led eventually to the world\u2019s first transplantation of the human liver in 1963.Throughout his career, first at the University of Colorado and then at the University of Pittsburgh, he has aroused both worldwide admiration and controversy. His technical innovations and medical genius have revolutionized the field, but Starzl has not hesitated to address the moral and ethical issues raised by transplantation. In this book he clearly states his position on many hotly debated issues including brain death, randomized trials for experimental drugs, the costs of transplant operations, and the system for selecting organ recipients from among scores of desperately ill patients.There are many heroes in the story of transplantation, and many \u201cpuzzle people,\u201d the patients who, as one journalist suggested, might one day be made entirely of various transplanted parts. They are old and young, obscure and world famous. Some have been taken into the hearts of America, like Stormie Jones, the brave and beautiful child from Texas. Every patient who receives someone else\u2019s organ - and Starzl remembers each one - is a puzzle. \u201cIt was not just the acquisition of a new part,\u201d he writes. \u201cThe rest of the body had to change in many ways before the gift could be accepted. It was necessary for the mind to see the world in a different way.\u201d The surgeons and physicians who pioneered transplantation were also changed: they too became puzzle people. \u201cSome were corroded or destroyed by the experience, some were sublimated, and none remained the same.\u201d

Few American cities reflect the challenges and promise of a twenty-first-century economy better than Pittsburgh and its surrounding region. Once a titan of the industrial age, Pittsburgh flourished from the benefits of its waterways, central location, and natural resources-bituminous coal to fire steel furnaces; salt and sand for glass making; gas, oil, and just enough ore to spark an early iron industry. Today, like many cities located in the manufacturing triangle that stretches from Boston to Duluth to St. Louis, Pittsburgh has made the transition to a service-based economy.Pittsburgh and the Appalachians presents a collection of eighteen essays that explore the advantages and disadvantages that Pittsburgh and its surrounding region face in the new global economy, from the perspectives of technology, natural resources, workforce, and geography. It offers an extensive examination of the processes and factors that have transformed much of industrial America during the past half-century, and shows how other cities can learn from the steps Pittsburgh has taken through redevelopment, green space acquisition, air and water quality improvement, cultural revival, and public-private partnerships to create a more livable, economically viable region for future populations.

Pittsburgh has a rich and diverse theatrical tradition, from early frontier performances by officers stationed at Fort Pitt through experimental theater at the end of the twentieth century. Pittsburgh in Stages offers the first comprehensive history of theater in Pittsburgh, placing it within the context of cultural development in the city and the history of theater nationally.By the time the first permanent theater was built in 1812, Pittsburgh had already established itself as a serious patron of the theatrical arts. The city soon hosted New York and London-based traveling companies, and gained a national reputation as a proving ground for touring productions. By the early twentieth century, numerous theaters hosted 'popular-priced' productions of vaudeville and burlesque, and theater was brought to the masses. Soon after, Pittsburgh witnessed the emergence of myriad community-based theater groups and the formation of the Federation of Non-Commercial Theatres and the New Theater League, guilds designed to share resources among community producers. The rise of local theater was also instrumental to the growth of African American theatrical groups. Though victims of segregation, their art flourished, and was only later recognized and blended into Pittsburgh's theatrical melting pot.Pittsburgh in Stages relates the significant influence and interpretation of urban socioeconomic trends in the theatrical arts and the role of the theater as an agent of social change. Dividing Pittsburgh's theatrical history into distinct eras, Lynne Conner details the defining movements of each and analyzes how public tastes evolved over time. She offers a fascinating study of regional theatrical development and underscores the substantial contribution of regional theater in the history of American theatrical arts.

Winner, 2008 Special Jury Award, Gourmand World Cookbook AwardsHailed as the most architecturally significant private residence in the United States, Fallingwater was a welcome retreat for Edgar J. Kaufmann, his wife, Liliane, their son, Edgar jr., and their many guests. The Fallingwater Cookbook captures the experience of fine and casual dining at this famed home. Suzanne Martinson, former food editor and writer for the Pittsburgh Press and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, relates recipes from Elsie Henderson, the longtime and last cook for the Kaufmann family at Fallingwater, along with Henderson's memories and anecdotes of life in the renowned house on the waterfall. Henderson also recounts with humor, affection, and vivid detail her encounters with Senators John Heinz and Ted Kennedy, Isaac Stern, and Frank Lloyd Wright, among others.The book is rounded out with additional recipes from Chef Robert Sendall, who began producing special events at Fallingwater in the early 1990s, Jane Citron, with whom Sendall taught cooking classes, and Mary Ann Moreau, former chef of the Cafe at Fallingwater. Artfully composed photographs of food, architecture, landscape, family, and guests complete the collection, which, like Fallingwater, will be treasured for years to come.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Pittsburgh was leading the nation in glass production, and glass bottle plants in particular relied heavily on adolescent (and younger) males for their manufacturing process. These "glass house boys" worked both day and night, as plants ran around the clock to meet production demands and remain price competitive with their newly-automated rivals. Boys performed menial tasks, received low wages, and had little to say on their own behalf. By the turn of the century, most states had enacted laws banning children from working at night, and coupled with compulsory education requirements, had greatly reduced the use of children in industry. In western Pennsylvania, however, child labor was deeply entrenched, and Pennsylvania lawmakers lagged far behind the rest of the nation. In The Glass House Boys of Pittsburgh, James L. Flannery presents an original and compelling examination of legislative clashes over the singular issue of the glass house boys. He reveals the many societal, economic, and political factors at work that allowed for the perpetuation of child labor in this industry and region. Through extensive research in Pennsylvania state legislature archives, National Child Labor Committee reports, and union and industry journals, Flannery uncovers a complex web of collusion between union representatives, industrialists, and legislators that kept child labor reform at bay. Despite national pressure, a concerted effort by reformers, and changes to education laws, the slow defeat of the "glass house exception" in 1915 came about primarily because of technological advances in the glass bottle industry that limited the need for child labor.

In Knowing and Seeing, muralist Douglas Cooper reflects on his long career as a muralist in various cities around the world. Part memoir and part an examination of his art, Cooper looks back on his half-century career from two points of view. First, through personal anecdotes on site sketches and finished works, and secondly, on the intellectual roots of the works. Though the core ideas of his work began in Pittsburgh, Cooper has exhibited work and produced murals, up to 200 feet long, in Cologne, Rome, San Francisco, Seattle, Qatar, Frankfurt, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington DC. Memory has been a recurring theme in his art. All of Cooper’s works are driven by a desire to combine his conception of place with his perception of it—knowing and seeing. Knowing and Seeing features personal essays and more than 240 color images, including early Christian and Renaissance paintings as well as contemporary murals and other illustrations of Cooper’s unique work.

Foreword by Maxwell KingAfterword by Ron BaraffThe Monongahela River Valley in Southwestern Pennsylvania is steeped with a rich industrial history. Starting with iron, brass, tin, and glass production, the river towns—from Brownsville to Braddock—ultimately helped make Pittsburgh the one-time steelmaking capital of the world. With this industrial legacy in mind, artist Ron Donoughe set out to document the small towns in this region, one painting at a time.Over a twelve-month period, he explored the forgotten towns of Brownsville, California, Donora, Charleroi, Monessen, Monongahela, Clairton, Duquesne, McKeesport, Braddock, and the Monongahela River itself. Brownsville to Braddock provides key insight on a forty-mile stretch of river towns. The post-industrial economy led to a decline in manufacturing, and with it, substantial job losses. These towns face many significant challenges, yet there is still beauty to be found. Donoughe finds it as he paints the human spirit through the mills, factories, parks, and homes. The people he meets share their stories of family joy and sorrows, along with a genuine love for the area they call the “Mon Valley.”

America’s emergence as a global industrial superpower was built on iron and steel, and despite their comparatively small numbers, no immigrant group played a more strategic role per capita in advancing basic industry than Welsh workers and managers. They immigrated in surges synchronized with the stage of America’s industrial development, concentrating in the coal and iron centers of Pennsylvania and Ohio. This book explores the formative influence of the Welsh on the American iron and steel industry and the transnational cultural spaces they created in mill communities in the tristate area—the greater upper Ohio Valley, eastern Ohio, northern West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania—including boroughs of Allegheny County, such as Homestead and Braddock. Focusing on the intersection of transnational immigration history, ethnic history, and labor history, Ronald Lewis analyzes continuity and change, and how Americanization worked within a small, relatively privileged, working-class ethnic group.

Join celebrated author and photographer Tim Palmer as he takes us down one of America’s most magnificent rivers. From the Youghiogheny’s lofty headwaters to its quiet ending only a dozen miles from Pittsburgh, the river he reveals shines with splendor and beckons to all who walk, bike, paddle, or simply pause to appreciate the natural wonder awaiting those who live nearby or visit from near and far. A companion to Palmer’s earlier book—Youghiogheny: Appalachian River—this elegant photo essay shows us the remarkable beauty of a river that has become enormously popular. With a sharp eye to all things wild, Palmer also presents an engaging narrative and features opportunities for enjoying and exploring Ohiopyle State Park in Pennsylvania, Swallow Falls State Park in Maryland, and elsewhere along this river’s rapid descent through America’s oldest and most biologically rich range of mountains. Watching the River Run is a book for all who visit and cherish this extraordinary waterway.

Leland Baldwin presents a succinct account of the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 in Western Pennsylvania, recalling the economic and sociological factors that led to this historic uprising.

A definitive account of nearly every aspect of Western Pennsylvanian life and development up until the War of 1812. The book opens with a narrative of the formative years of the region. Succeeding chapters deal with the development of agriculture, industry, education, religion, social customs, and law and order --all based upon the results of the work of the Western Pennsylvania Historical Survey.Among the more than one hundred illustrations are contemporary pictures, maps, plans of forts, portraits, architectural photographs and more.

Out of This Furnace is Thomas Bell’s most compelling achievement. Its story of three generations of an immigrant Slovak family -- the Dobrejcaks -- still stands as a fresh and extraordinary accomplishment.The novel begins in the mid-1880s with the naive blundering career of Djuro Kracha. It tracks his arrival from the old country as he walked from New York to White Haven, his later migration to the steel mills of Braddock, Pennsylvania, and his eventual downfall through foolish financial speculations and an extramarital affair. The second generation is represented by Kracha’s daughter, Mary, who married Mike Dobrejcak, a steel worker. Their decent lives, made desperate by the inhuman working conditions of the mills, were held together by the warm bonds of their family life, and Mike’s political idealism set an example for the children. Dobie Dobrejcak, the third generation, came of age in the 1920s determined not to be sacrificed to the mills. His involvement in the successful unionization of the steel industry climaxed a half-century struggle to establish economic justice for the workers.Out of This Furnace is a document of ethnic heritage and of a violent and cruel period in our history, but it is also a superb story. The writing is strong and forthright, and the novel builds constantly to its triumphantly human conclusion.

Excerpt from Flatlanders and Ridgerunners: Out-Riddling the Judge Back in Prohibition my uncle made moonshine. His name was Moses Kenny and his whiskey--they called it “White Mule” was the best in the county. Well, the feds got after him and finally they arrested him. Took him to a federal judge down in Philadelphia. Now, the judge liked a good time and thought he’d have a little fun with this hick from the mountains. When Uncle came into court, he said, “are you the Moses who can make the sun dark?” Moses looked at him and said slowly, “Nope, your honor. But I am the Moses who can make the moon shine.” The judge let him go.

Sidney Saylor Farr was a woman who knew Appalachia well. Born in Stoney Fork in southeastern Kentucky, she lived much of her life close to the mountains, among people whose roots are deep in the soil and who pass on to their children a love for the land, a strong sense of belonging and of place, and an equally strong connection with traditional foods.The women of Stoney Fork rarely had cash to spend, so they depended upon the free products of nature—their cookery used every nutritious, edible thing they could scour from the gardens and hillsides. With instructions for making moonshine whiskey, for fixing baked groundhog with sweet potatoes, for making turnip kraut, cracklin’ bread, egg pie, apple stackcake, and other traditional dishes, More Than Moonshine is more than a cookbook. It evokes a rural way of life in the mid-twentieth century that centered on kitchens at home, the warmth from the wood-burning stove, the smell of coffee, and the family gathered around the table to eat, talk, and share each other’s company.

The death of David Leo Lawrence in 1966 ended a fifty-year career of major influence in American politics. In a front-page obituary, the New York Times noted that Lawrence, the longtime mayor of Pittsburgh, governor of Pennsylvania, and power in Democratic national politics, disliked being called Boss. But, the Times noted, "he was one anyway."Certainly Lawrence was a consumate politician. Born in a poor, working-class neighborhood, in the present-day Golden Triange of Pittsburgh, he was from boyhood an astute student of politics and a devoted Democrat. Paying minute attention to every detail at the ward and precinct level, he revived the moribund Democratic party of Pittsburgh and fashioned a machine that upset the long-entrenched Republican organization in 1932.When "Davy" Lawrence, as he was affectionately known, won the gubernatorial election in 1958, he became the first Roman Catholic governor of Pennsylvania and the oldest. But he achieved his greatest public recognition as mayor of Pittsburgh. Taking office in 1945, at the close of World War II, this stalwart Democrat formed an alliance with the predominantly Republican business community to bring about the much acclaimed Pittsburgh Renaissance, transforming the downtown business district and persuading many large corporations to retain their national headquarters in Pittsburgh. In 1958 the editors of Fortune magazine name Pittsburgh as one of the eight best administered cities in America.Don't Call Me Boss examines the lengthy career of this remarkable politician. Using over one hundred interviews, as well as extensive archival material, Michael Weber demonstrates how Lawrence was able to balance his intense political drive and devotion to the Democratic party with the larger needs of his city and state. Although his administration was not free of controversy, as indicated by the city's police and free work scandals. Lawrence showed that it was possible to make the transition from nineteenth-century political boss to modern municipal manager. He was one of the few politicians of the century to do so. When the undisputed bosses of other American cities - the Curleys, Pendergasts, and Hagues - were out of power and disgraced, Lawrence was elected governor of Pennsylvania.More than twenty years after his death, David L. Lawrence and his success in rebuilding the city of Pittsburgh continue to serve as an example of effective urban leadership.

The Milkweed Ladies is written out of deep affection for and intimate knowledge of the lives of rural people and the rhythms of the natural world. It is a personal account of the farm in southern West Virginia where poet Louise McNeill’s family has lived for nine generations.The Milkweed Ladies is filled with memorable characters—an herb-gathering granny, McNeill’s sailor father, her patient, flower-loving mother, and Aunt Malindy in her “black sateen dress” who “never did a lick of work.” McNeill writes movingly of the harsh routines of the lives of her family, from spring plowing to winter sugaring, and of the hold the farm itself has on them and the earth itself on all of us. McNeill juxtaposes the life of the farm with the larger world events that impinge on it, such as the destruction from lumber companies in the 1930s and World War II in the ’40s.With her poet’s gift for detail and language, McNeill creates a particular world forgotten by many of us, and to some of us, never known.

Marcia Bonta is a naturalist-writer who has lived for decades on a five-hundred-acre mountaintop farm in Central Pennsylvania. In Appalachian Spring, the intricacies of the season unravel day by day in journal entries that combine Bonta’s own meticulous observations with the research reported by botanists, entomologists, and other natural scientists.Every aspect of the natural world catches her eye, from the life cycle of a tent caterpillar to the sex life of jack-in-the pulpit. She hopes, by recounting such wonders, to convert others to what she calls the “third stage” in humanity’s relationship with nature, that of empathy with all of nature for its own sake: “To know the earth better, to grasp a little of its workings, to look on it with awe and wonder as well as with respect, is to want to save it from destruction.”

The profound disruption of family relationships caused by industrialization found its most dramatic expression in the steel mills of Pittsburgh in the 1880s. The work day was twelve hours, and the work week was seven days - with every other Sunday for rest.In this major work, S. J. Kleinberg focuses on the private side of industrialization, on how the mills structured the everyday existence of the women, men, and children who lived in their shadows. What did industrialization and urbanization really mean to the people who lived through the these processes? What solutions did they find to the problems of low wages, poor housing, inadequate sanitation, and high mortality rates?Through imaginative use of census data, the records of municipal, charitable, and fraternal organizations, and the voices of workers themselves in local newspapers, Kleinberg builds a detailed picture of the working-class life cycle: marital relationships, the interaction between parents and children, the education and employment prospects of the young, and the lives if the elderly.

An overview of scholarly research, both published and previously unpublished, on the history of a city that has often served as a case study for measuring social change. It synthesizes the literature and assesses how that knowledge relates to our broader understanding of the processes of urbanization and urbanism. This book is especially useful for undergraduate and graduate courses on environmental politics and policy making, or as a supplement for courses on public policy making generally.

Roy Lubove's Twentieth-Century Pittsburgh is a pioneering analysis of elite driven, post-World War II urban renewal in a city once disdained as \u0022hell with the lid off.\u0022 The book continues to be invaluable to anyone interested in the fate of America's beleaguered metropolitan and industrial centers.

Photographs by Charlee BrodskyIn 1986, with little warning, the USX Homestead Works closed. Thousands of workers who depended on steel to survive were left without work. A Town Without Steel looks at the people of Homestead as they reinvent their views of household and work and place in this world. The book details the modifications and revisions of domestic strategies in a public crisis. In some ways unique, and in some ways typical of American industrial towns, the plight of Homestead sheds light on social, cultural, and political developments of the late twentieth century. In this anthropological and photographic account of a town facing the crisis of deindustrialization, A Town Without Steel focuses on families. Reminiscent of Margaret Byington and Lewis Hine\u2019s approach in Homestead, Charlee Brodsky\u2019s photographs document the visual dimension of change in Homestead. The mill that dominated the landscape transformed to a vast, empty lot; a crowded commercial street turns into a ghost town; and an abundance of well-kept homes become an abandoned street of houses for sale. The individual narratives and family snapshots, Modell\u2019s interpretations, and Brodsky\u2019s photographs all evoke the tragedy and the resilience of a town whose primary source of self-identification no longer exists.

A detailed, carefully wrought business biography of Henry Clay Frick, one of the leading entrepreneurs in American heavy industry during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Kenneth Warren has provided not only insight into the life of Henry Clay Frick, but a major contribution to our understanding of the history of the basic industries, the shaping of society, locality, and region - and thereby of laying the foundations for the value systems and landscapes of present-day America.

Summer afternoons at Forbes Field, playoff Sundays with the Steelers, winter nights at the Igloo cheering for Mario and the Penguins: Pittsburgh Sports captures all that and more. With stories from sports fans, historians, and former athletes, Pittsburgh Sports mixes personal experiences with team histories to capture the full range of what it means to be a sports fan—in Pittsburgh, or, by extension, anywhere.A book that can be read cover-to-cover, or in bits and pieces, Pittsburgh Sports includes chapters on the ill-fated Pittsburgh Pipers, who won the American Basketball Association\u2019s first championship, then folded four years later; the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays, perennial Negro League powerhouses; Johnny Unitas, Joe Namath, Jim Kelly, Joe Montana, Dan Marino, and other legends of western Pennsylvania high school football; boxing\u2019s illustrious past in the Iron City; football reminiscences by a former Steelers punter; and the ups and downs of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Singing the City is an eloquent tribute to a way of life largely disappearing in America, using Pittsburgh as a lens. Graham is not blind to the damage industry has done—both to people and to the environment, but she shows us that there is also a rich human story that has gone largely untold, one that reveals, in all its ambiguities, the place of the industrial landscape in the heart. Singing the City is a celebration of a landscape that through most of its history has been unabashedly industrial. Convinced that industrial landscapes are too little understood and appreciated, Graham set out to investigate the city\u2019s landscape, past and present, and to learn the lessons she sensed were there about living a good life. The result, told in both her voice and the distinctive voices of the people she meets, is a powerful contribution to the literature of place. Graham begins by showing the city as an outgrowth of its geography and its geology—the factors that led to its becoming an industrial place. She describes the human investment in the area: the floods of immigrants who came to work in the mills in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, their struggles within the domains of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. She evokes the superhuman aura of making steel by taking the reader to still functioning mills and uncovers for us a richness of tradition in ethnic neighborhoods that survives to this day.

Tells of the founding and subsequent history of Ephrata, a mystical religious community that flourished in eastern Pennsylvania in the mid-eighteenth century. Its leader, Conrad Beissel, a German Pietist who came to America in 1720 seeking spiritual peace and solitude. Settled in Lancaster County, his talents and charisma attracted other German settlers who shared his vision of a community built in the image of apostolic Christianity.

Crisis in Bethlehem: Big Steel’s Struggle to Survive is Pulitzer Prize winner Strohmeyer’s account of the collapse of Bethlehem Steel. As editor of the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Globe-Times from 1956 to 1984, Strohmeyer followed the steel industry from the height of its power through its decline. He evaluates the self-indulgence of both the unions and industry management and movingly describes the human agony caused by the failure of steel. His account is reinforced by over one hundred interviews with steelworkers, union leaders, steel executives, and industry analysts. First issued in 1986, the book is more significant than ever. In this edition, Strohmeyer includes an update on steel today.

Pennsylvania Constitutional Development has proven to be the definitive study of the history of Pennsylvania's constitution in its first four incarnations. Rosalind Branning's critique, first published in 1960, reflects the movement that led to the constitution of 1968. After tracing the history of the 1776 constitution and its earliest revisions--in 1790 and 1838--Branning primarily focuses on the constitutional convention of 1872-73 and the resulting document of 1874, which endured for almost a century. She uses the published Debates, newspaper files, and the observations of contemporary writers and statesmen to provide a detailed and engaging study of the politics and leadership of the time. Her analysis demonstrates that this constitutional convention produced an instrument that was designed to meet nineteenth-century needs but would need significant revisions by future generations. Foreseeing the very issues that would be addressed in the 1967-68 constitutional convention, Branning identifies the elements that are necessary for successful constitutional lawmaking.The evolution of Pennsylvania's body of laws serves as a cogent example of the opportunities and foibles intrinsic to the process of defining effective governance of a state. Pennsylvania Constitutional Development remains an essential resource for students and historians, and should be read by anyone interested in the government of the Keystone State.

Spring training, a time when every team is in first place, is an American tradition dating back to the early years of the twentieth century. William Zinsser vividly brings to life the unique, once-a-year relationship between Bradenton, Florida, and its adopted team, the Pittsburgh Pirates.In 1988 the Pirates were an unproven yet promising bunch with high hopes of competing for the National League pennant. Given rare access to players, management, scouts and umpires, Zinsser sought to discover how a team prepares for the longest season in professional sports.As valid today as it was when first published, Spring Training reveals how the fundamentals of baseball are taught and learned. The author has added a new introduction and postscript, which includes a lengthy interview with manager Jim Leyland about the lessons that can be learned from losing.

Thirtieth Anniversary EditionAny number of writers could spend an entire season with an NFL team, from the first day of training camp until the last pick of the draft, and come up with an interesting book. But only Roy Blount Jr. could capture the pain, the joy, the fears, the humor—in short, the heart—of a championship team. In 1973, the Pittsburgh Steelers were super, but missed the bowl. Blount’s portrait of a team poised to dominate the NFL for more than a decade recounts the gridiron accomplishments and off-the-field lives of players, coaches, wives, fans, and owners. About Three Bricks Shy . . . is considered a classic; Sports Illustrated recently named it one of the Top 100 Sports Books of All Time. This thirtieth-anniversary edition includes additional chapters on the Steelers’ Super Bowl wins, written for the 1989 paperback, as well as a new introduction by the author.