pa1778data.pdf

U.S. STEEL DUQUESNE WORKS
HAER No. PA-115
(Page 18)
financed the construction of playgrounds and swimming pools in
working-class neighborhoods, and provided instruction to working-
class mothers on the middle-class principles of good
housekeeping, the environmental character of the city would not
improve until the development of new technology after World War
II in response to more stringent environmental regulations. 21
PART TWO: 1918-1945
Even though the mill gained an important addition with the
construction of an electric furnace plant and heat treating
facility in 1943, its technological development was relatively
stagnant in the years between World War I and II. Efforts to
organize steel labor increased during this period, leading to a
national strike in 1919, and finally the establishment of the
United Steel Workers of America in the 193 0s. An important
element of this movement toward unionism was the workers' desire
to gain a more eguitable share of the benefits derived from
increasing productivity. The eventual success of organized
labor, along with the construction of the electric furnace and
heat treating facilities, significantly altered the city's
physical, social, and political composition.
Technological Development. 1918-1955
Between 1918 and 1924, the blast furnace plant at Duquesne
underwent a major reconstruction. Prompted, in part, by the need
to upgrade the plant's raw materials storage, handling, and
delivery facilities, the reconstruction reflected the quick pace
of technological change in the steel industry during the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although Marvin
Neeland's design remained the prototype from which blast furnace
plant raw materials facilities were constructed, much of the
equipment making up that design became antiquated in the twenty
years since the plant was built. As a result, company officials
authorized an almost complete modernization of the plant's
auxiliary equipment. The original ore bridges were replaced, and
the stockhouse was modernized with the construction of hoist
bucket pits at each furnace, the installation of electrically
powered scale cars for the delivery of raw materials to the
bucket, and the construction of a coke dust removal plant.
Finally, a new hoist house was built, complete with the
21 S. J. Kleinberg, The Shadow of the Mills: Working-class
Families in Pittsburgh, 1870-19Q7 (Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 1989), 65-99; Beth Shervey, "Steelmaking and the
Growth of Monongahela Valley Mill Towns," manuscript in HAER
office, p.9, Historic American Engineering Record, National Park
Service, 1989; "Features of Welfare Work at Duquesne, Pa.," The
Iron Age 97(January 20, 1916): 193-96.