The reception will be held at the Senator John Heinz History Center, 0.5 miles from the conference hotel. Members who attended the 1993 conference may remember the site as the Chautauqua Ice Company Building. This impressive five-story museum houses exhibits on Pittsburgh sports, cultural, and industrial history. This evening event will include an opening program, full access to museum exhibits, hors d’oeuvres, and a not-inexpensive cash bar ($6-$7drink).
Reception Presentation by Edward K. Muller and Joel Tarr. Engineering has played a critical role in the transformation of Pittsburgh rivers from their natural form, to arteries shaped for commerce and industry, to current attempts to reshape them as an environmental setting for human recreation. Under the pressures of rapid industrialization from the 1850s through the 1920s, Pittsburgh engineered its waterways to function as infrastructure for its massive manufacturing complex and rapidly urbanizing region. We will briefly examine the engineering of the three main rivers, which turned them into a series of navigation pools, radically changed their riverine characteristics, and altered their landscape features. We will then provide a case study of the history of Nine Mile Run stream and valley, as technology transformed it from a natural setting into a waste dump for slag from the steel industry, and then reshaped it to become a locale for human recreation in a restored 'natural' setting.
Edward K. Muller is Professor of History and Director of the Urban Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh. His research focuses on the history and geography of American cities with an emphasis on Pittsburgh and urban planning. Joel Tarr is Richard S. Caliguiri University Professor of History and Policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. In 2008, Professor Tarr received the Leonardo da Vinci Medal of the Society for the History of Technology for his outstanding contributions to the history of technology. His interests include technology and its effects on the city and environment.
On this video Andrew Masich shows Pittsburgh's industrial history as depicted in art at the Heinz History Center. You may want to spend some of your free time at the history center.
