OUR RIVERS’ HERITAGE
SIA 2009 Annual Conference
Pittsburgh, PA
May 28-31, 2009



PAPER SESSION ABSTRACTS - Saturday, May 30, 2009

Archaeological Investigations at the Thomas Carlin’s Sons Foundry Site, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvanian - Kathryn M. Lombardi, Bryan C. Cunning, and Keith R. Bastianini 

Blacksmithing in the 18th Century Fur Trade Frontier, A Case Study at Fort Michilimackinac - Amy Roache-Fedchenko, Department of Anthropology, Syracuse University

Casting a Long Shadow: The Evolution of a Pittsburgh Foundry Dynasty and Its Contributions to the Regional Industrial Landscape of the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries - Jesse A. Belfast, Denise Grantz Bastianini, Martin T. Fuess, Timothy G. Zinn, and Carol J. Peterson

Coal. Iron. Steel. Session Organizer: Cameron Hartnell, Speakers (in order): Cameron Hartnell, Seth DePasqual, Scott See and Jan Dofner

COLUMBIA OIL FARM OF THE OIL CREEK VALLEY, VENANGO COUNTY, PA, – 150 YEARS OF PETROLEUM HISTORY - Amy Randolph, (PA DCNR)

Continued HAER Documentation along the East Broad Top Railroad - John R. Bowie, A.I.A., Historical Architect, Wallingford, Pennsylvania

Discovering Landscape Gardening Practices within Industrial Landscapes of the 19th Century: William Kemble’s “Cottage,” Cold Spring, New York - Megan Glazewski 

Golden Age in the City of Bridges: Allegheny County’s 1924 – 1940 Bridge Construction Program

Great Falls, Paterson, New Jersey -21st-Century Interpretive Opportunities & Challenges in the Industrial City

HISTORY, HERITAGE or ARCHEOLOGY:  Branding Industrial Archeology in the Digital Age - Peter Matthews AIA

Industrial Archeology and the World Heritage List - by Peter H. Stott, Massachusetts Historical Commission

INDUSTRIAL PLUMBISM: PIPES, PAINTS, AND PING - Lloyd B. Tepper, University of Pennsylvania

J&L Steel Carfloating on the Ohio River - John Teichmoeller 

National Heritage Area Candidate: The Iron Ranges of Lake Superior - Scott F. See, Michigan Technological University

The Nordberg Manufacturing Company of Milwaukee: History, Archives, and Research Potential - Erik Nordberg, Michigan Technological University

The Persistence of Mount Savage, Maryland as an Industrial Artifact - Sherman E. Silverman, Prince George’s Community College 

The Proto-Modern American Factory:  Erastus Bigelow’s Clinton and Lowell Weave Sheds in 1840s Massachusetts -Charles Parrott, Lowell National Historical Park, National Park Service

Reconstruction by Documentation: the Case of Lukens Steel - Carol Siri Johnson

Saving the Big Engines - Panelists: Rick Rowlands, Executive Director of the Tod Engine Foundation, Mike Piersa, National Museum of Industrial History, Dr. Thomas E. Leary, Youngstown State University History Dept.

The Steamboat Industry in Brownsville Pennsylvania: The Beginnings of Industrialization in the Upper Monongahela Valley -  Marc Henshaw, Michigan Tech

Unique Early 20th Century Solutions to Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge Reconstruction and Replacement in Pittsburgh. A Photographic Study - Ken Kobus


Archaeological Investigations at the Thomas Carlin’s Sons Foundry Site, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvanian - Kathryn M. Lombardi, Bryan C. Cunning, and Keith R. Bastianini 

Phase II archaeological investigations were conducted by Michael Baker Jr., Inc. at the Thomas Carlin’s Sons Foundry (36AL535), a late 19th- and early 20th-century industrial site located along the Allegheny River and adjacent to S.R. 0028 in the city of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.  The work was conducted on behalf of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation District 11-0 as part of the S.R. 0028, East Ohio Street Improvement Project. 

The Thomas Carlin’s Sons operated a foundry at this site beginning in the early 1890s.  After a devastating fire in 1903, the foundry was rebuilt incorporating modern construction and manufacturing methods.  The growth and expansion of the foundry occurred at a time of change and modernization in Pittsburgh’s iron and steel industry.  The foundry manufactured products for coal mining, coke production, brick making, quarrying, oil production, road construction, and municipal public works.  Excavations revealed numerous features of the foundry operations, e.g., foundation walls demarcating the extents of the foundry, machine shop, and warehouse; remains of the clay and cinder foundry floor; a variety of brick floors within the machine shop and warehouse; concrete pads to anchor machinery; remains of a water hydrant; the base of a core oven complex; rubble from cupola ovens; a portion of a mold flask; a nearly intact subterranean loam mold; and the base of a twin boiler setting.  The excavations also identified an underlying 19th-century residential component comprising portions of intact foundation walls and brick walkways, as well as a few associated artifacts. 

Historically, the foundry was sandwiched between the adjoining Western Pennsylvania Railroad line on the north as well as River Avenue, a second railroad line, and the Allegheny River on the south, which all provided means of transport vital to the foundry operations.  Limited land availability on all sides of the foundry necessitated the handling and storage of materials within the foundry building itself, which is an atypical design, given that most foundries stored their materials outside.  These constricting factors resulted in the vertical expansion of the building to three stories to accommodate on-site storage. 

The industrial-related portion of the foundry site, therefore, was recommended as eligible to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) under Criterion A for its association with the Pittsburgh iron industry and for being representative of the general layout and scale of a mid-sized, late nineteenth and early twentieth century iron foundry that incorporated a unique method of raw material storage.  The industrial-related portion of the site was also recommended as eligible to the NRHP under Criterion D, as the archaeological remains provided valuable information that both confirms the written record and produced new data in the form of features not known to be documented in the written record.


Blacksmithing in the 18th Century Fur Trade Frontier, A Case Study at Fort Michilimackinac - Amy Roache-Fedchenko, Department of Anthropology, Syracuse University 

Most studies of blacksmithing detail the intricacies of the techniques and technologies associated with the craft, often from an idealistic perspective that blacksmithing can be universally understood.  Yet, 18th century blacksmithing that occurred in urban centers varied from blacksmithing that occurred in rural communities, and both would have occurred differently from blacksmithing in the North American frontier.  Numerous variables, broadly including changing politics, economic trends, the natural environment, and/or diverse social networks,  impacted the way in which blacksmiths were able (or unable) to complete their work in the 18th century.  This study examines the types of techniques used by fur trade frontier blacksmiths at Fort Michilimackinac (1715-1781) by examining artifacts recovered which exhibit repair and the quality of those repairs.


Casting a Long Shadow: The Evolution of a Pittsburgh Foundry Dynasty and Its Contributions to the Regional Industrial Landscape of the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries - Jesse A. Belfast, Denise Grantz Bastianini, Martin T. Fuess, Timothy G. Zinn, and Carol J. Peterson 

The Thomas Carlin’s Sons Foundry operated along the Allegheny River in what is now Pittsburgh’s Northside from ca. 1893 to 1917.  The foundry’s history however, extends back to the 1860s when Thomas A. Carlin established a series of partnerships that eventually culminated in the founding of Thomas Carlin & Company by ca. 1868.  He solely owned and operated the business until his death in 1884, after which time his three sons (Thomas H., William J., and John H. Carlin) variously entered the business under the new name of Thomas Carlin’s Sons.  When the first Carlin-owned foundry was established in 1868, Pittsburgh was in its florescence as the nation’s iron and steel capital, giving way to rapid industrialization of the Pittsburgh area and the birth of numerous satellite industries.  From its inception, the foundry experienced a concomitant growth, evidenced by an increase in the work force, from approximately 20 laborers in 1870 to as many as180 skilled workmen by 1896. 

During the 49-year dynasty, the Carlin family successfully operated their mid-range foundry enterprises, producing a vast assortment of machinery, tools, and equipment critical to the support of the rapidly expanding iron and steel industry, as well as other extractive industries, transportation, and infrastructure projects in western Pennsylvania and beyond.  The Carlins did not revolutionize the industry with their patented designs, but seemed to strive more for improved efficiency and productivity in existing engine, machinery, and tool types and public works designs.  One of their engines was awarded first place at the second annual Pittsburgh Exhibition in 1876.  Vestiges of their iron sewer castings can still be found on Pittsburgh area streets. 

Surviving catalogs published by the company illustrate the many diverse products that they manufactured and, in some cases, patented.  From these catalogs and a wealth of other company and family holdings, courthouse records, U.S. patent files, etc., a remarkably complete contextual picture has emerged creating a blueprint for subsequent archaeological investigations recently conducted by Michael Baker Jr., Inc at the Thomas Carlin’s Sons Foundry site (36AL535).  The work was conducted on behalf of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation District 11-0 as part of the S.R. 0028, East Ohio Street Improvement Project. 


Coal. Iron. Steel. Session Organizer: Cameron Hartnell, Speakers (in order): Cameron Hartnell, Seth DePasqual, Scott See and Jan Dofner

Pittsburgh once dominated the basic materials of the industrial age: coal, iron and steel. Spurred by the setting, the session pairs speakers on the history of coal mining in the Arctic and the heritage of iron and steel in America.

The first part discusses the role an American company played in the opening of a coal mining region in the high-Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen, now called Svalbard. Cameron Hartnell will describe the strategy of the company in developing a new operation in this isolated setting and the role the Arctic environment played in shaping it. Seth DePasqual will explore the evolution of the company’s mine with particular reference to how the changes are visible in the landscape today.

The second part explores industrial heritage, a theme of increasing interest to the SIA. Scott See will describe the various heritage organizations associated with the Lake Superior iron mining districts and proposes a national heritage area as one way to improve heritage management there. Jan Dofner will describe the formation of the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area, surrounding this very conference, and discuss the various challenges and outcomes of that effort.


COLUMBIA OIL FARM OF THE OIL CREEK VALLEY, VENANGO COUNTY, PA, – 150 YEARS OF PETROLEUM HISTORY - Amy Randolph, (PA DCNR)

August 27, 2009 will mark the sesquicentennial anniversary of the first commercially successful oil well drilled in the United States.  The well was drilled by “Colonel” Edwin Drake in the Oil Creek Valley of Venango County in northwestern Pennsylvania.  Oil drilling leases bordering along Oil Creek were quickly secured up and down the valley following Drake’s success.  

One such company which leased early in the oil boom was the Columbia Oil Company, formed by a group of Pittsburgh investors.  The property they leased became known as the Columbia Farm, on which several high-yielding oil wells were drilled.  A young Andrew Carnegie was one of the early investors in the Columbia Oil Company; Carnegie’s profits allowed him to eventually quit his job with the Pennsylvania Railroad, thereby affording him the opportunity to then found his steel-making ventures.  The company town which sprang up at the site hosted a library (thought by some to have been the inspiration for later Carnegie-funded libraries), its own baseball team and cornet band, a church and company housing.  Several building foundations and a small cemetery are all that is left of this settlement.  Believing that the oil would soon run out, Carnegie’s associate and co-investor, William Coleman, conceived of an idea to construct a brick-lined impoundment capable of storing 100,000 barrels of oil, so that they might take advantage of a price spike resulting from short supply and high demand.  The oil didn’t run out, the impoundment concept failed, but the remains of the suspected “brick pond” are still discernible in the form of a present-day wetland. 

The history of the oil-drilling operations on the Columbia Farm ranges from the early-1860s to near present.  One of the wells on site may have been the first to have been unintentionally “water-flooded”, a technology which later became industry standard for the enhanced (i.e., secondary) recovery of oil reserves.  Brundred Oil Company eventually bought the property and employed compressed air injection for this same purpose.  Casinghead gasoline was a crude, unrefined petroleum product which helped supplement domestic supplies during World War II, and was later manufactured at the site though a distillation process, the equipment for which was only just removed in 2008.  

In the early 1950s, Quaker State Oil and Refining Corporation bought the property and in the mid-1970s it unsuccessfully experimented on site with its “Maraflood” enhanced oil recovery project.  

In the 1970s, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania acquired the surface rights to the Columbia Farm for incorporation into Oil Creek State Park.  

The oil drilling legacy of the area is on-going.  The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is still locating and plugging many old oil wells within the Oil Creek Valley, while at the same time, drilling is actively taking place within the boundaries of the Allegheny National Forest, located a short distance east of Drake’s original well.  Pennsylvania is also in the midst of a natural gas drilling boom related to the recently recognized “unconventional” Marcellus shale gas deposit.   


Continued HAER Documentation along the East Broad Top Railroad - John R. Bowie, A.I.A., Historical Architect, Wallingford, Pennsylvania

The East Broad Top Railroad is a National Historic Landmark, and according to the National Park Service “…is the best remaining example in the nation of a regional narrow-gauge railroad system … complete with railroad facilities and associated industries – is probably the only opportunity in the nation to tell a comprehensive railroad industry story.” 

Over the past several years, the Friends of the East Broad Top, Inc., a non-profit corporation organized in 1983 by persons interested in the history, preservation and restoration of the East Broad Top Railroad, has worked with cooperation from the owners of the railroad to study, document and preserve its cultural legacy.  As part of this work, the Friends have recorded two EBT structures to the standards of the Historic American Engineering Record. 

The first structure is the Saltillo Station – a freight and passenger depot that served a small village located midway between Orbisonia and Robertsdale, at the foot of Sideling Hill.  Saltillo Station was documented with drawings and large-format photographs.  Although the building was an architectural gem within the Saltillo community, it was in a state of advanced deterioration, and the documentation effort represented the only feasible form of preservation it could receive prior to its demolition in December 2004. 

The second structure is the Coles Water Tank – the last surviving example of the enclosed water stations that formerly stood along the main line and branches of the EBT.  These water tanks were enclosed to keep water needed for the locomotives from freezing during the winter.  The Coles Water Tank still stands, and is located in deep woods at the top of Sideling Hill between the Sideling Hill Tunnel and the Wrays Hill Tunnel.  Its documentation provides a record of its construction and operation, as well as a blueprint for its continued stabilization and eventual restoration. 

The drawings and photographs of these structures add to the remarkable collection of drawings, photographs and written historical materials on the EBT conducted by HAER from 1989 through the 1990s, currently on file and available at the Library of Congress.  

This presentation will feature the documentation projects at Saltillo Station and at Coles Water Tank, including the field measurement, drawings, photographs and supporting items of interest to the project team. 


Discovering Landscape Gardening Practices within Industrial Landscapes of the 19th Century: William Kemble’s “Cottage,” Cold Spring, New York - Megan Glazewski 

A rapid increase in industrialization was in full swing during the 19th century in the eastern states of America.  With this surge in industrialization came a rapid increase in deforestation due to charcoal production before coal became widely used.  The Hudson River valley was not exempt from this phenomenon since the river allowed for easy transportation of raw materials, goods, and people, making this water highway an ideal location for establishing industries.  One such industry was the West Point Foundry Association (1817-1912), founded by Gouverneur and William Kemble.  For at least the first decade of operation, the company relied heavily on charcoal for use in their forges and furnaces.  The company used the trees in the valley in which the Foundry sat as well as from the surrounding area.  However, the Foundry left some plots of land untouched, such as the small rise along the Hudson adjacent to the western part of the Foundry.  This small knoll became William Kemble’s summer home, called the “Cottage,” in the early 1830s.   

Industrialists in the 19th century participated in other social activities outside of running their businesses.    William Kemble was no different, and one of his hobbies was gardening.  In the early part of the 19th century, gardening practices in western Europe and America began to see a shift from highly formalized gardens to more natural looking gardens.  The champion for these practices in America was Andrew Jackson Downing, who published his first treatise on landscape gardening in 1841.  Hobbyists and professionals considered Downing’s work to be the guide during the second half of the 19th century and into the early part of the 20th, and went through several editions and reprintings.  Downing, who resided in Newburg, New York, had considerable influence on gardening in the Hudson area, and more importantly on the owners of these gardens.  He befriended many members of the middle and upper classes, including the Kembles of Cold Spring.  

This paper discusses the archaeological excavations and vegetation surveys done at William Kemble’s property in Cold Spring, and looks at how this property is an example of 19th century gardening practices.  Using a geographic information system (GIS), the author looked for patterns in the surveyed trees on the property based on species, diameters, heights, and approximate ages.  She also used the GIS to georeference historic maps and current infrared images of the Kemble property, and overlaid these with the tree data to see if any of the original paths and drives could be detected.  The author utilized Downing’s work to compare the larger landscape gardening practices with what was happening at William Kemble’s “Cottage.”  It is apparent from the field data, the historical documents, and GIS mapping that the landscaping of this property was deliberate, and it appears that William Kemble was using some of Downing’s ideas on landscape gardening.  This paper will conclude with an examination of how the landscape of this small plot of land differed from the larger industrial landscape of the Foundry and Cold Spring. 


Golden Age in the City of Bridges: Allegheny County’s 1924 – 1940 Bridge Construction Program 

Between 1924 and 1940, Allegheny County launched one of the largest infrastructure improvement programs ever undertaken by a Pennsylvania municipality.  The county erected more than 100 bridges, including magnificent structures that have become signatures of the county’s modern landscape, including the “Three Sisters,” the West End, McKees Rocks, Liberty, and Westinghouse Memorial bridges.  This Golden Age of bridge building cemented Pittsburgh’s reputation as the “City of Bridges” and marked Allegheny County’s Department of Public Works (DPW) as a world leader in bridge design.

Launched in response to explosive growth in vehicular traffic, the program sought to lift the county’s roads out of the horse-and-buggy era and help retain Pittsburgh’s industrial dominance.  Allegheny County’s bridge program was a component of a proposed Ultimate Highway System designed to link Pittsburgh with outlying areas while also connecting suburban towns without the necessity of entering the city.  It would tackle head-on the county’s hilly topography, curving roads, deep ravines, and narrow bridges.

County Commissioner Joseph G. Armstrong, leader of one of the county’s Republican Party’s factions, championed the infrastructure improvement program.  Motivated by a complex mixture of concern over Allegheny County’s national status, a desire to help the county’s industries, and the vast patronage network that the program would ensure, Armstrong reinvented county government in order to prosecute the program.  He created the DPW, a self-contained organization with technical and administrative personnel necessary to design roads and bridges and supervise their construction.

Animus over the DPW, coupled with opposition to the use of bond funding to pay for the improvements program and charges of political corruption, split the already fractious Allegheny County Republican Party.  In 1931, the DPW and its patronage network was dismantled and its design and construction responsibilities transferred to a semi-independent authority.  However, the campaign undermined the Republican political machine, the dominant political force in Allegheny County since the Civil War, and helped sweep the Democratic Party into power, which it retained for 60 years.  The Democrats revived the bridge building program, completing a number of major river crossings before steel restrictions associated with World War II ended the program.

Great Falls, Paterson, New Jersey
21st-Century Interpretive Opportunities & Challenges in the Industrial City 

This session will explore recent developments at the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures (S.U.M.)/Great Falls National Historic Landmark District in Paterson, New Jersey.  The renewal of downtown Paterson, the establishment of a state park, and the prospect of a national park, have created new opportunities as well as challenges for presenting Paterson’s distinguished industrial past to the public.  A state park master plan raises questions of whether industrial heritage is an easy fit with proposed multi-use recreational spaces and scenic developments that overlay the remaining elements of a complex industrial landscape.  A preservation study of the operable Great Falls Power Plant has created the opportunity to refresh interpretations of electrification and water management but challenged old conceptions of the S.U.M. 

Where’s the Grit? – Old City, New Century: Complexities of Redefining the Historic Urban Landscape at the Great Falls State Park in Paterson ,New Jersey. - Gianfranco Archimede, MS RPA

The Great Falls of the Passaic is a natural gem that is also the cornerstone of America’s legacy of economic independence.  The Falls and surrounding area was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, named a National Historic Landmark in 1976, and was recently designated a state park in 2004.  A national competition for the park’s design commenced in 2005, and New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine announced Field Operations, a New York-based landscape architecture firm, as the winner of the competition to design the Master Plan between 2006-07.  Two years of consultation, public outreach and multiple-agency review crafted the final Master Plan that was released in the summer of 2008.

The process brought to the fore some strong ideological trepidation in the community that watched it unfold, especially from those who were around at the conception of the Great Falls Historic District.  The question posed by them is simply and profoundly “Where’s the Grit?” which directs us to the central theme of landscape interpretation - getting to the sense of a place.  The complexities of understanding and finding renewed value in  the historic industrial landscape remains the same battle of the same ideas that we have already seen, with devastating consequence, in the Urban Renewal chapter of the last century.

A look at the past of our “gritty cities” explains much of how they are today.  It is possible to identify many of the influences of location, early innovation and historical accident that worked together to  create the visual character that has withstood decades, even centuries, of change.  How to negotiate contemporary change of values brought on by large interventions like a park in a way that navigates the delicacies of weaving the past and the future together is paramount.  The planning process is supposed to be the touchstone of opportunity for this, but may actually bring irreversible consequence to a landscape’s enduring visual character - in our case, the rubbing out of the grit, among other possible devastations, and the unique sense of place passed on to us by industry. 

New Interpretations of the S.U.M. Great Falls Power Plant - Patrick Harshbarger

This paper will present findings that were developed as a result of the preparation of a study of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures (S.U.M.) Great Falls Power Plant, a hydroelectric facility built in 1914.  The goal is to reopen the plant to public tours and enrich the interpretation of the plant, as well as address needed repairs.  One of the findings of the research was that little was actually understood about the reasons for the plant’s construction in 1914.  This was a natural enough shortcoming since interest in the S.U.M. has long been (and appropriately) focused on its nationally significant origins more than a century earlier in 1791.  The usual themes presented at Great Falls have been the waterpower system’s association with Alexander Hamilton, Pierre L’Enfant, and Peter Colt, and the development of the S.U.M.’s three-tier canal system in the early 19th century.  In the typical interpretation, the later power plant and electrification have been presented as the pinnacle of waterpower system’s progressive technological evolution – the “gradual perfection of American engineering” as stated by the National Register nomination.  While this story line is compelling, recent research has found that it falls short of reflecting the complexity of the choices industrialists faced when deciding to essentially abandon a century-old, canal-based system for the promise of electric power.  New research has revealed that electrification was not heartily welcomed by Paterson’s mill operators, some of whom preferred their individual waterwheels and turbines to a centralized power plant.  The S.U.M., however, forced the mills to relinquish their water leases.  It wasn’t that electric power was naturally a better technology; financiers were manipulating the S.U.M. and its 19th-century waterpower system in an attempt to limit competition over an increasingly scarce and valuable natural resource in the rapidly urbanizing North Jersey region – water.   This paper will present the story of how the construction of the S.U.M. Great Falls Power Plant was a means to an end – weaning the factories from the canal and squeezing every last profitable drop of water out of the Passaic River.  The challenges of addressing this story to the public will also be discussed.  

What Has Happened to Other Gritty Cities? Putting Paterson in Context - Fredric L. Quivik

Large, gritty industrial cities are important places in U.S. history, and it is important to preserve and interpret some of their fabric.  This overview paper will explore challenges other gritty places (Lowell, MA; Butte, MT; Richmond, CA) have faced in planning preservation and interpretive developments for nationally significant industrial landscapes.  The paper will show that, in general, grit has been lost, but that interpretive planners have found creative ways to suggest grit to those who visit. 


High-Arctic Coal Mining: The Strategy of the Arctic Coal Company - Cameron Hartnell

In 1904, J. M. Longyear and Frederick Ayer decided to fund the ambitious and almost totally untested idea of opening a coal mining operation on high-Arctic Spitsbergen. Swedish and Norwegian iron mining interests had recently begun opening large-scale operations above the Arctic Circle, the first such efforts in world history, but the Arctic Coal Company’s mine and its smaller neighboring mines, attempted mining far north of these and were easily the most northern mines in the world.

Longyear and Ayer personally invested over one million dollars into the company, which they originally felt assured would be an easy success. Time showed, however, that the project posed more difficult problems than anticipated and the men sold out in 1916 at a moderate loss.

This presentation provides an overview of the development of the company, from 1905 to 1916. It argues that the company was strategic in its approach to Spitsbergen’s undeveloped mining landscape. J. M. Longyear, a major iron mining industrialist, brought land use concepts he had perfected on the iron ranges of the western Lake Superior region to Spitsbergen. Hartnell will explain the company’s changing industrial makeup including its rail network, coal storage strategy, dock and ships, and use that to show the its strategy to growth. The company first concentrated on its core mining and transportation infrastructure and then broadened its facilities for a more efficient and effective operation. It also started with British and European skills and technologies and later shifted towards American ones.

The presentation will draw particular attention to the role of the Arctic environment on the operations. Longyear originally judged that northern environment to be habitable year round, posing a minimum restraint on development. While the Arctic climate was certainly an inconvenience to the operations, the company adapted to it fairly easily with standard housing and technologies. The climate played a critical role in unexpected ways. The summer / winter cycle forced the company to ship all of its coal over a few months, straining the company’s shipping system and its connection with Norway’s commercial markets.


HISTORY, HERITAGE or ARCHEOLOGY:  Branding Industrial Archeology in the Digital Age - Peter Matthews AIA

In 1971 the founders set several principal goals to guide the emerging Society for IndustrialArcheology (SIA).  These goals support scholarship and educational outreach.  Whereas, scholarship is the central focus of the SIA agenda, the educational outreach still needs to reach a much wider audience.  Expanding the American audience for industrial heritage would attract capital for the development of more industrial heritage sites and resources to preserve, study and visit.

Today, the SIA operates in a much changed societal context created by high-technology.  As the digital revolution continues to radically change individual lives and organizations, branding identities have become a short-hand for the key messages that need to be communicated amidst the fast-paced market dynamics of this media-saturated marketplace. 

How this changed context has affected the SIA educational outreach mission?  In order to expand its audience, industrial archeologists must communicate effectively their intended messages.  To be readily understood by that vast untapped audience, we need to ask these questions: Who even knows what industrial archeology is?  How to be understood and make an inviting first impression?  How to increase heritage-site visits?  How to present the history with authenticity?   

Three examples of different scales are offered to illustrate how branding relates to industrial heritage: 

ALIGNMENT: THE INTERNET

Today, a clear web-presence is critical to building an intended audience.  Through the deliberate process of branding, the key messages are revealed often in the sequence they are to be presented, so that communications align with objectives.  For example, similar web-searches in Europe are normative, integrated and understandable.  Considering the key words that underlie web searches, the layperson finds the words ‘history’ or ‘heritage’, more understandable than ‘archeology’.  A well-conceived portal web-site will communicate a framework of related elements to quickly orient a visitor to join a growing audience. 

VERACITY: IN SITU HISTORY

Pittsburgh is synonymous with steel.  In its rough transition effort out of heavy industry over the past thirty years, leaders have sought to address the city’s ‘image problem’ through attempts to rebrand the city or region.  With steel no longer central to the local economy, the implicit question has been how to regard ‘steel’ or ‘industry’ – even today those words are rarely found on any official web-site.  This local climate has made realizing the Rivers-of-Steel initiative quite challenging.  Without the proper restoration of the Carrie Furnaces as the Pittsburgh Steel Heritage Center, the veracity of the visitor experience is greatly diminished - by presenting in a museum downtown that sanitizes the experience - rather than appreciated in situ, on the actual site. 

BRANDED-PLACE: OREOs and GOOGLE

When Manhattan’s Chelsea Markets, where Nabisco baked the first Oreo cookie, was converted into a bustling commercial development, threatened neighborhood food purveyors and bakeries were included as part of branded redevelopment strategy.  With its industrial character intact and consistent use, branding has inspired this active urban place that daily attracts global visitors who are fascinated watching food preparation mixed with the gritty working history.  Adding to the synergy are corporate clients, such as Google, that have sought a creative environment.


Industrial Archeology and the World Heritage List - by Peter H. Stott, Massachusetts Historical Commission

 The World Heritage List, administered by UNESCO's World Heritage Centre on behalf of the intergovernmental World Heritage Committee, was initiated in 1978 when 12 sites were listed ("inscribed"). As of July 2008, the Committee had inscribed 878 properties on the List in 145 countries -- from natural sites, like the Grand Canyon or the Great Barrier Reef (Australia) to cultural sites from all eras of human history. Today, 45 of the 679 cultural properties honor, at least in part, industrial and/or engineering heritage, although the distribution of the types of IA sites is anything but uniform. Sites and communities related to mining (gold, silver, iron, coal, copper, salt) have dominated the List since 1978. Although canals and railways have been represented on the List since the 1990s, only two bridges (both masonry aqueducts) uniquely represented that category until recently.[1] Sites often represent a distinctive feature of the nation concerned, as the engineering sites in the Netherlands dealing with water management. While the United Kingdom, beginning with Ironbridge Gorge in 1986, dominates the list of countries with IA sites (6 properties), and France, Germany, Spain and Sweden each have three sites of IA interest, the US current has none.

The paper will begin with a brief introduction to the 1972 World Heritage Convention, which the US helped to write. Using both the typological classification developed by HAER in the 1970s, and a chronological approach, the paper goes on to examine the pattern of inscription of Industrial and Engineering sites on the World Heritage List since 1978. The Committee has made special efforts to "balance" the List; has it made a difference?  How does this pattern of inscription inform our understanding of developing national and international appreciation of IA?

The paper concludes with a selective look at what IA we can expect to see on the World Heritage List in coming years, as represented in the "Tentative Lists" -- those lists put forward by each country outlining what they plan to nominate in the near future. 


[1] Historic town and city centers, of which there are more than 200 on the World Heritage List, frequently have numerous bridges, but these are not normally counted in a classification of types of sites since the reason for the inscription is usually not the bridge.


INDUSTRIAL PLUMBISM: PIPES, PAINTS, AND PING - Lloyd B. Tepper, University of Pennsylvania 

Ores of lead have been mined and smelted since antiquity, and evidence of industrial lead poisoning has existed since the writings of Nicander (second century BCE), who ascribed hallucinations and paralysis to white lead.  Over the course of centuries similar attributions have become increasing specific and reliable with the recognition of the classic effects of lead upon three organ systems: 1) gastrointestinal, with colic and constipation; 2) hematopoietic (blood-production), with pallor and anemia; and 3) nervous, with paralysis and seizures.  Recognition of more subtle effects of lead on the fetal nervous system and in children stimulated a redefinition of lead poisoning over the last 50 years. 

Lead poisoning has occurred in multiple applications; however three of them are especially worthy of consideration.  Lead piping was fundamental to the extensive hydroengineering projects of ancient Rome, but even then a hazard was recognized.  Municipal water distribution systems with lead pipes, especially home service pipes, have been associated with adverse effects for 150 years.  Water hardness and pH are relevant to the release of lead from piping. 

Lead carbonate, either natural or manufactured, has been used as a pigment since antiquity.  The manufacture of Dutch-process white lead, blending of the pigment in paint, and sanding painted surfaces were hazardous.  The ingestion of flaking paint by children and their chewing on painted surfaces and playing in areas contaminated by chalked paint have created major public health problems.  Red lead (Pb3O4) used as a primer and corrosion inhibitor has created industrial hazards, especially in its removal or in the torch cutting of painted structural surfaces. 

“Ping” or knock in high-compression engines can be minimized with the use of a more highly aromatic fuel or a negative catalyst, most notably tetraethyl lead (TEL), a potent neurological poison.  There was early concern about the health of the public exposed to inorganic lead residues in the exhaust of vehicles using “ethyl” gasoline.  Reductions in the permissible levels of lead in motor fuels through the 1980s and the elimination of lead in 1995 have been associated with a dramatic drop in population blood lead concentrations.  A concurrent ban on lead solder for “tin” cans was undoubtedly contributory. 

Localized but often high risks of plumbism have been associated with the pasting of grids in lead-acid storage batteries, the application of lead glaze to sanitary ware, and the use of lead as type metal.  There have been dozens of minor applications, not all industrial, but not necessarily minor to those affected.  Among them have been lead nipple shields; lead glazes on low-fired, hand-crafted pottery; folk remedies and cosmetics from Asia and Latin America; moonshine beverages prepared in stills with condensers fabricated from automobile radiators; and dusts derived from highly comminuted bullet metal released from sand backstops in target ranges. 

With the elimination of lead in house paints, plumbing systems, motor fuels, and food can solder, there has been a general ten-fold reduction in the blood concentrations of lead in American populations.


J&L Steel Carfloating on the Ohio River - John Teichmoeller 

The transportation of railroad equipment over water, i.e. carfloating, is usually associated with major port areas such as New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore or San Francisco.  The practice is employed to move railroad cars from one point to another across bodies of water when bridges or tunnels don’t exist.  However, carfloating was employed during a number of periods in Pittsburgh’s history.  This presentation’s focus is on a carfloat service operated by Jones and Laughlin Steel from July, 1927 to October, 1935 in an effort to provide more cost-effective railcar movement between its Pittsburgh and Aliquippa plants.  This was in lieu of service by the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie railroad, for whom J&L was a captive customer.  The presentation describes and illustrates the service, the vessels used and the landing arrangements.    The service was terminated because J&L and the P&LE ended up negotiating mutually satisfactory business terms.    Early 19th century predecessor carfloating on the Pittsburgh rivers will be touched upon, as will a proposed service by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This is an expanded version of an article by Jack Polaritz and John that was published in the December 2006 issue of The S&D Reflector (quarterly publication of the Sons and Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen).  A briefer version of this material was also published in Classic Trains, Winter 2008. 


National Heritage Area Candidate: The Iron Ranges of Lake Superior - Scott F. See, Michigan Technological University

Heritage management in the United States is the responsibility of a complex collection of local, state, and federal organizations. These organizations strive to interpret history and material culture across a wide spectrum of topics and geographies. Many of these organizations, however, struggle to effectively meet their basic responsibilities. Shortages of funding, knowledge, and community support threaten their very existence. In addition, a lack of established communication networks often makes it difficult for them to work together in any meaningful way. An example from the iron ranges of Lake Superior helps illustrate the difficulties in this environment. 

Iron mining has played an important role in the economic and social histories of the U.S. states that border the immense body of freshwater known as Lake Superior. In addition to witnessing incredible mining achievements, the states of Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin have entire communities that owe their very existence to the pursuit of iron ore. Although a number of these communities no longer support active mining operations, they all share the story of iron mining as an integral part of their local identity. 

Over the years, a wide variety of heritage management organizations formed to protect and interpret the remains of the iron mining past. There was no overall plan for this to happen, and the founding of each organization usually resulting from a unique set of circumstances. Consequently, there is little, if any, information sharing between the organizations today. Many of them struggle in isolation with only a basic awareness that there are similar groups in existence. 

The objectives of this paper are to identify the relevant heritage organizations on the iron ranges, assess their similarities and differences, and explore the formation of a national heritage area as one way to improve the state of heritage management in the district. This will not only illustrate how the national heritage area program could help in this situation, but it will also provide the organizations with a clearer picture of the larger heritage management context in the region. 


The Nordberg Manufacturing Company of Milwaukee: History, Archives, and Research Potential - Erik Nordberg, Michigan Technological University 

The Nordberg Manufacturing Company fabricated its first stationary steam engines in a former Pabst brewery building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1886. Its founder and chief engineer, Dr. Bruno V. Nordberg, had studied with the Allis company and patented an automatic cut-off governor which formed the basis for the new industrial venture. In the late 1890s, Nordberg began to produce large steam hoisting engines for the mining industry and quickly dominated the market for compound steam ore-crushing stamps, mining air compressors, pumps, and hoisting engines. The company acquired the Symons cone crusher business and expanded into production of gyratory crushers, ball mills, and rod mills. 

In 1914, the Nordberg Company entered the internal combustion field, building some of the first (and largest) American diesel engines, initially under license with Carels Freres of Belgium. The company became a significant producer of diesel engines in the utility power generation and marine propulsion markets, producing large-bore two-cycle engines, the first uniflow diesel engines, one of the earliest turbocharged four-cycle diesel engines, and a variety of heavy duty industrial radial engines. At the other end of the spectrum, Nordberg produced a smaller “Power Chief” line for use in the oil and gas industry. 

With the purchase of the Busch-Sulzer Diesel Engine Company of St. Louis, Missouri, in 1946, the Nordberg Company used its two modern plants to formally enter the specialty machine tool market. Contracts included large boring, drilling, and milling machines, mechanical presses for the automotive industry, and special castings for wind tunnels in the developing aerospace market. Nordberg also operated a successful railway equipment division which produced a variety of hydraulic track-laying machinery. 

This paper provides an illustrated overview of the company’s history, facilities, and products. In addition, the author examines the disposition of the company’s business records, including a large collection of engineering blueprints. In the late 1970s, Robert Vogel, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, and Robert Johnson, a private steam engine collector, appraiser, and museum consultant, worked to preserve corporate records from Nordberg’s Milwaukee headquarters. A selection of material made its way to the Smithsonian, including several dozen boxes of project proposals, order books, photographs, and advertising literature – as well as 34 sets of drawings. The remaining collection of blueprints – more than 1,200 sets with over 100,000 individual drawings – was donated to repositories at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and the Western Museum of Mining in Colorado Springs. The author will critically examine the archival processing and use of these records over the last 30 years in these four locations.

The history of the Nordberg Manufacturing Company and the disposition of its archival records provide a useful case study of the value of such companies and collections to industrial archaeology. These collections, particularly the voluminous sets of dimensioned blueprint drawings, provide distinct curation challenges to collecting institutions and present mixed experiences in the actual and potential use by historians, restoration specialists, and other researchers.


The Persistence of Mount Savage, Maryland as an Industrial Artifact - Sherman E. Silverman, Prince George’s Community College 

Problem:  Cultural landscapes reflect spatial expressions of how societies perceive nature over periods of time.  The embodiment of economic and political ideology provides societies with alternatives on how Nature is perceived which, ultimately, affects how natural amenities are transformed.  Given this assumption, how does the evolution of Mount Savage, Maryland reflect the rise and demise of industrialization in Maryland’s western most regions within the historic Pittsburgh Coal Seam? 

Natural Attributes and Location:  Mount Savage is located on the Allegheny Plateau  within the geologic province of Appalachia.  The historic Pittsburgh Coal Seam transects the Western Panhandle of Maryland which would see the rise of numerous mining communities by mid nineteenth century.  Until the 1840s, Mount Savage was a simple rural hamlet in proximity to America’s National Road linking Cumberland with Wheeling on the Ohio River.  

Mount Savage resides within the synclinal trough of Jennings Run with Dans Mountain on the east and Big Savage Mountain on the west.  Jennings Run is a swiftly flowing stream converging with Wills Creek prior to flowing through The Narrows en route to its junction with the North Branch of the Potomac River at Cumberland.  The Narrows became a significant water gap eventually enabling railroads to pass through the Appalachians en route to the Ohio Valley.  It was proximity to coal and the swift flowing current of Jennings Run that attracted early development and entrepreneurial activity.  As reported in an 1837 survey the attributes of Mount Savage as a lucrative investment said: 

In the Mount Savage tract there were marble and hard-woods to build warehouses and towns, abundant farmlands and pastures for crops and cattle, maple trees to construct tram-roads and to produce sugar for the “mining population,” heat-resistant sandstone to erect iron furnaces and clay for firebricks to line them, limestone for flux, and most importantly, “inexhaustible supplies of coal and iron ores, both of the best quality.” Mount Savage was also centrally located between the “ancient east and the rising young west,” linked now by the “great national road,” soon to have the “grand canal.”  After that would follow “an unlimited demand arising from the boundless wants of our great and rapidly growing country, calling not only for fuel and iron, but for every produce which can be manufactured by human skill and industry, managed by the dense population that will hereafter occupy this remarkable region. 

Mount Savage as an Industrial Emporium:  Access to eastern coastal markets occurred when state funds were appropriated for two transportation projects, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.  Prospects of both canal and rail linkage with Atlantic Coastal ports stimulated entrepreneurial investment both foreign and domestic.  As mining intensified so did iron forging amplified by Mount Savage’s location attributes.  Five hundred men worked in the foundry and the town’s population reached 2,000 when America’s first heavy rails were rolled in 1844.  The mill turned out between 25 to 30 tons of iron rails per day for the Baltimore and Ohio as it constructed its route over the Allegheny Plateau towards the Ohio Valley.  Optimism prevailed as the town was promoted as one of America’s great manufacturing sites.  The Federal Manuscript Census for 1880 reveals a tightly nucleated industrial work force consisting of master craftsmen, skilled workers and ordinary laborers.  It was a self-contained community where members of the managerial group were domiciled in spacious homes overlooking the rows of company housing.  

The Demise of Mount Savage:  Nothing remains of the iron forge and furnaces erected by the Maryland and New York Mining Company in the 1840s.  The site is partially obscured by dense vegetation.  With the exception of a few rotting railroad ties appearing above their cinder foundation, there is nothing to remind the visitor that there was once a formidable rail yard and roundhouse.  The census reported 3,138 persons within the Mt. Savage district in 1950; the most recent 2000 census gave a figure of 478 individuals.  

Community volunteers assiduously work to renovate what remains of the once industrial landscape.  The town’s historical society now occupies what once was the local bank that was donated, to the society, with a proviso that no other financial competitor be permitted to reoccupy the facility.  Archival materials, stored in the bank, are rich in memorabilia and artifactual items.   The success of the historical society to make Mt. Savage accessible to tourists will be dependent upon continued volunteer recruitment, contributions and governmental funding.  Indeed, the fortunes of the community are linked to Maryland’s ability to capitalize on the importance that Western Maryland played in America’s initial industrial revolution and people who remain intrigued by industrial archeology. 

 Key Talking Points: 

  • What made Mount Savage and attractive site for early industrial development?
  • What were the variables that made Mount Savage a successful company town?
  • Why was Mount Savage able to endure for a prolonged period of time as the economic fortunes of Western Maryland began to decline?
  • What attributes remain which reflect the successful endeavors of the historical society to restore the archeological importance of Mount Savage?

The Proto-Modern American Factory:  Erastus Bigelow’s Clinton and Lowell Weave Sheds in 1840s Massachusetts - Charles Parrott, Lowell National Historical Park, National Park Service

The elements that have come to define the modern factory as an architectural and technological assemblage horizontally organized for mass production is not generally thought to have come together in full measure until the turn of the 20th century.  During the 19th century progressive developments in production equipment, transportation, building technology, and power generation and transmission coalesced at its end into the wide-spread, systematic rationalization in large-scale manufacturing operations.  But this focus on the emergence of the modern factory then has overlooked one paired instance where at least five decades earlier a confluence of events produced two technologically advanced factories.  In them inventive production machinery, a single production level, an advanced power distribution method, and an innovative use of overhead natural lighting were combined in the mid-1840s in a way then completely novel in American industrial architecture. 

These buildings were the large weave sheds of the Lancaster Mills in Clinton and the Lowell Manufacturing Company in Lowell.  They and the technology they enclosed came about through the central involvement of Erastus Bigelow (1814-1879), best known as the inventor of the power carpet loom, but whose mechanical ability ranged over the patents issued to him for several fancy fabric and patterned carpet loom innovations in the mid-19th century. 

Extending the capability of the plain power loom to the weaving of fancy and colored patterns was all the rage from the late 1830s in textile circles.  Bigelow’s ability in that area brought him early success in his own endeavors and soon enough to the attention of some of the moneyed textile mill developers looking for the next big thing.  They engaged Bigelow in both the establishment of the Lancaster Mills for the first power-loom production of gingham checks and the major extension of the Lowell Manufacturing Company for the first large-scale production of woven carpets on Bigelow’s power loom. 

At both establishments Bigelow installed his innovative looms in equally innovative buildings that captured the essence of the modern factory a full fifty years before most historians have acknowledged its emergence.  This paper will explore the genesis of these buildings and attempt to place them in the larger context of the technological ferment in textiles of their era and the buildings with similar ideas that both preceded them and were to follow.  Although the Lowell building was demolished in the mid-20th century, the nucleus of the altered Clinton building survives, and will inform this presentation.


Reconstruction by Documentation: the Case of Lukens Steel - Carol Siri Johnson 

Lukens Steel was operated by a single family for 188 years, from 1810 to 1998.  The family fortunately saw that its surviving documentation may be of interest to the future and deposited their papers at the Hagley Museum and Library.  They donated the documentation as it existed, straight from the filing cabinets of the executives and the floor books of the workers.  From this collection, we can see the hands of the men and women at work in Lukens Steel and even reconstruct the physical environment.

The most powerful medium for reconstructing an industrial environment is blueprints.  Lukens had blueprints of the entire plant, numbering the different units and attaching a key; they had blueprints of the railroad sidings; they had blueprints of each mill complex within the plant and the tables connecting the mills; and they had blueprints of individual machines.  There is an index for the majority of their drawings and blueprints which was probably kept on the factory floor since it is covered with black dust.  The owners also took photographs whenever a new part of the plant was opened, leaving us with images of the machinery, equipment, buildings and grounds.

Lukens also kept inventories of their equipment in bound books.  Some of these were created for financial and income tax purposes, at different times and at varying levels of detail.  There was no master list of workers or the positions they held, but there are separate lists of worker’s names, management, and the various positions that were required in different parts of the plant.  Moreover, in the early 20th century, they began having a series of meetings with the management which were transcribed by a stenographer, so we have a week by week description of the activities of the plant during those years.

The interactions of the management and workers can be reconstructed by the correspondence going back and forth across the plant.  Social changes within the plant were documented by outside observers – consultants writing reports – beginning in the 20th century.  In conclusion, it is possible to gain an intimate knowledge of an industrial site and its workings if there is a solid trail of documentation left for the future.  More documentation such at this for many different sites exists in many other archives as well.


Saving the Big Engines - Panelists: Rick Rowlands, Executive Director of the Tod Engine Foundation, Mike Piersa, National Museum of Industrial History, Dr. Thomas E. Leary, Youngstown State University History Dept.

This panel discussion will deal with the preservation of large reciprocating engines once used in steel mills, waterworks, and compressor houses throughout the American industrial landscape.  Today, only a handful of these giant machines are still in existence.  This panel will discuss today’s most vibrant preservation efforts to reveal the process by which these engines are being documented, preserved, and interpreted.  Contrasting examples of preservation will be given by focusing primarily on two massive projects in Youngstown, Ohio, and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  The challenges of relocating an engine in Youngstown versus preserving them in-situ in Bethlehem will be dealt with.  These sites and others will also be compared in regards to their place in their community, becoming park centerpieces and casino attractions.

Youngstown

The Youngstown paper will deal with the history and preservation of the Tod Engine. This is a 600,000 pound stationary steam engine that drove a rolling mill at the Brier Hill Works of Youngstown Sheet and Tube.  It operated until 1979 and sat idle until 1995 when the preservation story begins.  In short, a lone individual with a grassroots support network moved a giant steam engine out of a defunct steel mill and into a new home away to keep the engine away from the scrap yard.  The engine is now being reassembled and readied for public exhibition.

By describing and analyzing the events leading up to and including the relocation of this engine, many significant findings will be made.  Among the important lessons from this engine is that large preservation projects do not need to occur on a historic site.  When faced with destruction, even massive objects can be relocated and become the base of a new institution. In detailing this process, the financial considerations will take a paramount role.  This project did not require millions of dollars.  By strategically managing the enterprise, a budget well within the five figure range has been held to.

The history of this engine’s preservation will also reveal the flexibility that is necessary in industrial preservation.  Initially slated for exhibit in a proposed steel industry museum, the engine survived the demolition of its anticipated home and unwelcome in an existing public industrial museum, it nonetheless lived to find a home in an industrial heritage park.  Facing obstacles that would have halted many others, this project has continued to survive and evolve.  It is now nearing completion and will be open to the public shortly.  Beyond Youngstown, this project holds merit because it redefined what is realistic while also providing a model and experienced personnel ready to tackle even larger projects.

Bethlehem

The Bethlehem paper will deal with the gas powered blowing engines that once pumped air into the blast furnaces of Bethlehem Steel.  Each of the dozen engines stretches just over 80 feet long and the row fills a 540 foot long building.

This powerhouse adds a whole new dimension to the issue of industrial preservation.  Situated amidst a preserved blast furnace complex, this site begs for in-situ preservation.  However, this has not been a straightforward process.  In discussing these engines, a number of lessons of value to any industrial preservationists will be brought out.

The first is the issue of ownership.  Rather than a preservation group having clear title to the property, it rests with a casino.  By tracing the preservation projects from its origins in the Bethlehem Steel Corporation through its bankruptcy and subsequent sales, the unusual ownership situation that the engines face will be brought to the surface.  In this context, the custodial relationship that the National Museum of Industrial History enjoys over the engines will also come into play.

Further points will be made about the mechanical and interpretive challenges of the restoration.  Presented with a nearly complete, but deteriorating environment, it has been necessary to map out and prioritize preservation and restoration work.  The motives and logic behind the specific choices will be explained in terms of practical concerns as well as long term institutional goals and strategies.  The roles of documentation and interpretation will also be elaborated on, as will the ever growing volunteer base and recruitment base.

As in Youngstown, the flexibility of this project will be stressed.  By showing how it has evolved since its inception with a now deceased industrial giant to its continuation under the guidance of a nascent museum, this project will show how a willingness to adapt and work with outside interests, such as casinos, can be vital for industrial preservation.

Hidden and Emerging Engines

In addition to the massive projects in Bethlehem and Youngstown, a handful of large engines exist in other places in the United States.  A brief overview of these engines will be given based around the means by which these engines have survived.  Many of them exist in retired states in operating facilities.  Places such as the Colonel Ward pumping station in Buffalo, NY, have a row of vertical steam powered water pumping engines which, though long out of use, exist to this day because a small portion of the structure housing them has been upgraded and continues to serve its intended function, pumping water with modern electric pumps.  Still serving the community, this site and others in the same situation present a real, albeit rarely appreciated, means of historic preservation.

Other examples will deal with sites in limbo, such as the Oradell water works in New Jersey.  Although historically significant, little action has been taken to preserve the engines here, so they survive awaiting their fate.  In comparison, a few large engines that have successfully been preserved will also be discussed.  Although somewhat smaller than the individual engines of Bethlehem and Youngstown, they are nonetheless relevant.  Often found at antique engine clubs, these examples show the benefits and drawbacks of such preservation work.  Often in new, rural homes, disconnected from an industrial environment, they lack the context of their original place of use, but still serve as important examples in artifact relocation, care and operation procedure.  This latter category of engines will briefly delve into contrasting examples based around a pair of “Snow” built engines, one of which is successfully being returned to operation at the

Coolspring Power Museum while another is languishing at a different museum, essentially abandoned after a botched restoration.  By making a virtual tour of these hidden and emerging engines, the array of simultaneously unique, but interconnected preservation issues will further emerge.


Steel Heritage: Preserving an Industrial Legacy - Jan Dofner

From the close of the Civil War through two World Wars and a long stretch of mid-20th century prosperity, America focused its industrial capital and might like never before, transforming itself into a global economic superpower. No region defined or embodied this second Industrial Age and the nation’s shift from rural isolation to world leadership more dramatically than southwestern Pennsylvania. This session on will describe how an effort to save a part of a steel mill grew into the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area. The session will describe the challenges, choices, and outcomes Rivers of Steel has encountered as it preserves and promotes the cultural and industrial heritage of southwestern Pennsylvania and interprets the major interpretive themes from the Age of Big Steel: the struggles of the early union era; the region’s massive industrialization and technological innovation; and the importance of the rivers and rails.

The Steamboat Industry in Brownsville Pennsylvania: The Beginnings of Industrialization in the Upper Monongahela Valley -  Marc Henshaw, Michigan Tech

This paper examines how the invention of the steamboat led to the early industrialization of Brownsville, Pennsylvania in the early part of the 19th century. The steamboat dominated inland transportation before the railroads, and opened the door to western expansion. This was at a time when Brownsville marked the edge of the frontier and mercantilism dominated the economy. The introduction of the steamboat meant river travel was no longer dependant on the direction of water flow in the river. Transportation from city to city, such as Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, or St. Louis to New Orleans took weeks instead of months. The steamboat was different from the ubiquitous flatboat on the rivers. It could travel down river and return under its own power. The research presented here explores how the steamboat and the many industries that supported it, such as the foundries, the boatyards, and even the river system were integrated into a network of industrialization that formed the landscape of Brownsville during the 19th Century. This landscape carried diverse ethnic, religious, and racial underpinnings of an emergent working class who toiled on the docks and labored on the boats. This paper represents a small study in a wider frame of research into the industrialization of rivertowns in the Monongahela River Valley.      


Unique Early 20th Century Solutions to Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge Reconstruction and Replacement in Pittsburgh. A Photographic Study - Ken Kobus

The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) was by most statistics the largest railroad in the United States.  Pittsburgh was its freight traffic center. Due to the region’s mountainous topography the Pennsy had to span many rivers, streams and valleys on its journey westward. Traffic became so heavy in and through Pittsburgh that the railroad had to build bypass routes around the city in the late 19th and very early 20th centuries. Quoting one history of the Pennsylvania Railroad, “It may be a surprising statement, and yet is true, that in 1893 the tonnage by river and rail from the Monongahela Valley exceeded the entire Trans-Atlantic tonnage of the United States, and also that to South America.” 

Although the railroad had constructed a new state-of-the-art double deck steel bridge over the Allegheny River (usually called the Ft. Wayne Bridge)  in 1902, increasing river traffic and interference owing to inadequate clearances with the river pool forced them to raise the entire structure and its approaches by more than eight feet in 1917. As this bridge was one of America’s main east-west passenger routes between New York and Chicago, this feat had to be accomplished even as the structure remained open to rail traffic! 

Due to the heavy passenger traffic across the Allegheny, the Pennsylvania RR embargoed freight traffic in the station area and forced it through the Monongahela Valley by building a bridge over the Monongahela River at Braddock in the 1870s.  This route was further enhanced through construction of an almost 1 mile long bridge and approaches over the Ohio River at Brunots Island in 1890 by a PRR subsidiary, the Ohio Connecting (OC) Railway. By 1914 the single track bridge complex was so undersized in relation to traffic loading, that a new double track structure had to be erected in its place. Due to time and political constraints the new bridge needed to be built in the exact footprint of the old bridge and because of heavy traffic loads it had to be done quickly, but the old spans were required to continue in operation during reconstruction.  The railroad proposed and adopted a unique plan, in the three distinct phases, which addressed the impediments to the replacement of the old bridge. The realization of this plan took several seasons to complete but was well documented photographically. This presentation will reconstruct the railroad’s intricate plans through an analysis of the photographic record of these tasks on both the Ft. Wayne and OC Ry. Bridges. 

Even though these remarkable feats were completed almost 100 years ago, before modern construction techniques were developed or adopted, both bridges still stand and remain Norfolk Southern’s principle railroad routes through Pittsburgh. 


Winning Coal at 78º north: Mining, Management and Negotiation at Old Longyear City- Seth DePasqual

This presentation will review the evolution of an early 20th century mining system on Spitsbergen/Svalbard as applied by Boston-based Arctic Coal Company (ACC). During its existence, the ACC developed and improved multiple facets of its operation in incremental stages. Many of the improvements made were part of a general development plan. Others were related to adaptations necessary for effective continuation of the endeavor. Each was deemed crucial to the success of the company within its isolated setting. Through examination of this process, I intend to examine the Arctic Coal Company’s attempt to define an appropriate technology within this untried region.

Between 1905 and 1916, the company worked to develop its Spitsbergen claims, effectively proving to other interested parties that a functional coal mine was possible within a remote arctic setting. While embodied at the location, the ACC operated under a variety of unique conditions not experienced by other coal mining endeavors. Mining practices and technologies were tested on the isolated landscape with little room for error or adjustment. As such, seasoned mining engineers were challenged daily to balance efficiency with practicality.

This analysis will address the following questions: Did the mining system in Longyear City evolve in a prescribed, organized manner? If not, what sort of factors influenced and/or encouraged the development of this system? And how might these agents manifest themselves on the landscape today? Additionally, can archaeological research be used to identify differences between the necessary and the contingent?

Answers to these questions will be sought through review of historical records and material residues identified during the 2008 field examination on Spitsbergen. The Arctic Coal Company’s flagship mine, ACC Mine No. 1, will serve as a backdrop for this analysis. The mine was the company’s largest undertaking during its occupation of Longyear Valley and today exhibits a large collection of related features and artifacts. The presentation will emphasize the material record and the natural environment with the intention of illuminating how a particular resource extraction industry took root in the Arctic.


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