Capital's utopia : Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, 1855-1916 / Anne E. Mosher.

Main entry:

Mosher, Anne E., 1959-

Title & Author:

Capital's utopia : Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, 1855-1916 / Anne E. Mosher.

Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.

Description:

xviii, 249 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Series:

Creating the North American landscape

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 203-240) and index.
pt. 1. Vandergrift's Antecedents -- 1. Experimentation in the Kiskiminetas Valley Iron Industry -- 2. Apollo's Uneasy Transition from Iron to Steel -- pt. 2. Vision, Plan, and Place: The Creation of Vandergrift -- 3. The McMurtry, Olmsted, and Eliot Plan for Vandergrift -- 4. Settling the Vandergrift Peninsula -- pt. 3. Gauging Vandergrift's Success -- 5. The Steel Strike of 1901 -- 6. Growing Pains for the "Model Town."

Summary:

"In the 1890s the Apollo Iron and Steel Company ended a bitterly contested labor dispute by hiring replacement workers from the surrounding countryside. To avoid future unrest, however, the company sought to gain tighter control over its workers not only at the factory but also in their homes. Drawing upon a philosophy of reform movements in Europe and the United States, the firm decided that providing workers with good housing and a good urban environment would make them more loyal and productive. In 1895, Apollo Iron and Steel built a new, integrated, non-unionized steelworks and hired the nation's preeminent landscape architectural firm (Olmsted, Olmsted, and Eliot) to design the model industrial town: Vandergrift."
"In Capital's Utopia Anne E. Mosher offers the first comprehensive geographical overview of the industrial restructuring of an American steelworks and its workforce in the late nineteenth century. By offering a thorough analysis of the Olmsted plan, Mosher integrates historical geography and labor history with landscape architectural history and urban studies. As a result, this book is far more than a case study. It is a window into an important period of industrial development and its consequences on communities and environments in the world-famous steel country of southwestern Pennsylvania."--Jacket.

Resources:
Book review (H-Net)
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description
Table of contents

ISBN:

0801873819 (acid-free paper)
9780801873812 (acid-free paper)

Subject:

McMurtry, George Gibson, 1838-1915.
Olmsted, Frederick Law, 1822-1903.
Company towns Pennsylvania Vandergrift History.
City planning Pennsylvania Vandergrift History.
Steel industry and trade Social aspects Pennsylvania Vandergrift History.
Iron and steel workers Pennsylvania Vandergrift History.
City planning.
Company towns.
Economic history.
Iron and steel workers.
Social conditions
Steel industry and trade Social aspects.
Vandergrift (Pa.) History.
Vandergrift (Pa.) Social conditions.
Vandergrift (Pa.) Economic conditions.
Pennsylvania Vandergrift.

Form/genre:

History.

Added entries:

Creating the North American landscape.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 231044
Call No.: NA44.O51.25 V3 2003
Status: Available

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