The Blurgh

Tis the season for finals, but thankfully, it looks like they won’t be too bad this semester.  My worst final will probably be Neuroscience, and that’s mostly because my attendance got a little shaky by the end of the semester.  One of the nice things about being a history major is that the finals tend to be essays done out of class, which eliminates the whole test anxiety deal.  On the other hand, though, you also have to write yet another essay…I guess finals just suck no matter what form they come in.

For the first time, though, I’m actually excited about one of the finals essays I have to do.  It’s the one for Dr. Lemley’s History of Pittsburgh class, and the essay question is: Is the current boom in Pittsburgh’s economy different than past booms?  If not, why, and if so, how?

There are a lot of answers to this question, which is the essence of what I think history is all about.  One of the thing’s I love about Dr. Lemley is how he always stresses that history is not about dates and names, it’s about argument and analysis.  Understanding, or at least being able to make a compelling argument, about the “why” of something is much more useful than being able to recite the “what” from memory.  I wish more history teachers taught like that; if they did, I think history would be a lot more popular than it currently is.

Anyway, since the essay is only supposed to be around 5 pages, I really can’t get too deep into an analysis of a lot of different boom periods in Pittsburgh (there are more of them than one would think).  Right now, I’m planning on taking the big one, the rise of the steel industry, breaking down the major themes, and then trying to do the same with the current boom.  I haven’t gotten too far in outlining it yet, but so far, it’s looking pretty interesting.

Big steel rose in Pittsburgh for a number of reasons–local raw materials, high-quality transportation, technological breakthroughs, etc.–and its rise acted like a magnet for immigration.  Up until World War 1, though, a lot of the immigrants did a lot of going back and forth between their homelands and Pittsburgh, which meant that while a lot of people were in Pittsburgh, a good chunk of them weren’t laying down roots.  What stopped that was when immigration was cut-off around World War 1, which meant that people stayed put and built many of the neighborhoods and communities that we still recognize today.

One element of this progression that fascinates me is how external it all is, and by that I mean that people were reacting to outside influences (here’s the psychologist in me coming out).  The industry rose because the environment was right for it, people came because of the industry, and people built communities because they couldn’t leave.  That is the big difference between that boom time and the current one–the catalyst for the current boom was a decision made by many individuals that they loved the city and they weren’t going to let anyone stop them from making Pittsburgh into the city they knew it could become.  It was an internal decision instead of a reaction to externalities.

The problem with this analysis is that it’s hard to get credible citations to support my current boom-time theory.  I’m planning on citing some blogs operating around the turn of the century, citing an increase in new progressive organizations being founded, and increase in the amount of programs sponsored by local universities to increase innovation and entrepreneurship, but no matter what, it isn’t going to be as clean as the data in support of the steel boom.

Maybe that’s because not enough time has passed yet, but I think when it comes down to it, it’s a result of the internal-focused nature of the current boom.  How do you get a nice and succinct citation for what thousands of individuals decided they wanted to do?  How do you document the many small, sometimes imperceivably small steps people took to slowly build momentum?  My guess is that it’d take a little more than 5 pages, but maybe it’s something I can get a littler closer to during my directed study with Dr. Lemley next semester.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions, especially if they help me get an A!