OT: "The Point" in 1932...
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Marvelous photo! A really unique vantage point among the many great old photos of Pittsburgh.
Snapped from the Manchester Bridge above the Allegheny Rv, obviously looking at the utterly non-glamorized "point" with the "Point" Bridge in the background crossing the Mon.
Pittsburgh and its then-unnoted beautiful topography existed for one reason: the optimization of industry and production. ANYTHING else at the time - including human dignity - was an utterly moot point. Yet it was the epicenter of perhaps the nation's most important region during its most important period of development. Heavy metals (iron, steel, aluminum, titanium), oil & gas, electricity, glass. Technology (radio) and scientific achievement here were unparalleled.
Coolest, and most telling, factoids about Pittsburgh in the year that my late father was born into a large Slovak immigrant family on the North Side (1920): Pittsburgh held more bank wealth than any city in the WORLD not named New York (think about that!) and it was also home to the highest proportion of immigrants than any city in the USA. This smallish area was then a Top 10 population center in the USA.
Astounding place... and why native son and national-historian, David McCullough, refers to Pittsburgh as "the indispensable American city"
In the Smithsonian, there are journals / diaries that were found at the Elmira Confederate prisoner of War camp in New York.
In a couple of these journals, there were pages describing the POW's journey from southern battlefields to the camp. They were placed on coal barges and shipped up the Ohio River to Pittsburgh....and then the Allegheny to NY.
Historians have written that the first people in the country to know for certain who would win the Civil War were these confederate POW's, because when they got to Pittsburgh.....all they could see were factories making rifles, cannons, artillery, etc.
One of the journals wrote this almost word for word, "when we got to Pittsburgh we knew we could not win".
In a couple of these journals, there were pages describing the POW's journey from southern battlefields to the camp. They were placed on coal barges and shipped up the Ohio River to Pittsburgh....and then the Allegheny to NY.
Historians have written that the first people in the country to know for certain who would win the Civil War were these confederate POW's, because when they got to Pittsburgh.....all they could see were factories making rifles, cannons, artillery, etc.
One of the journals wrote this almost word for word, "when we got to Pittsburgh we knew we could not win".
Interesting how much lower the river was before they built the Emsworth dam a few years later.
Dear Panteras... I fancy myself as being aware of most all stories concerning Pittsburgh and its reputation. This one is new to me and as good as any I've ever heard!!! So cool!
BTW - it is reminiscent of the story about German soldiers manning the defenses on the shores of the Normandy coastline the morning of the D-Day invasion. They saw the vast armada arrayed on the ocean's horizon and many realized then, in the face of an enemy who could produce that sort of materiel, that the could NEVER win.
At the Tehran Conference in 1943, Stalin acknowledged to FDR that the Soviets never could have held out against the Germans without the vast "Lend Lease" armaments and goods shipped to Russia.
I bring those points up because while America was Roosevelt's "Great arsenal of Democracy"... Pittsburgh was America's arsenal. And, as usual, that prodigious effort left this region worn, tattered and in 1945, nearly shattered. I deeply resent jokes about Pittsburgh and its smokey heritage. This city built and saved this nation more than once.
BTW - it is reminiscent of the story about German soldiers manning the defenses on the shores of the Normandy coastline the morning of the D-Day invasion. They saw the vast armada arrayed on the ocean's horizon and many realized then, in the face of an enemy who could produce that sort of materiel, that the could NEVER win.
At the Tehran Conference in 1943, Stalin acknowledged to FDR that the Soviets never could have held out against the Germans without the vast "Lend Lease" armaments and goods shipped to Russia.
I bring those points up because while America was Roosevelt's "Great arsenal of Democracy"... Pittsburgh was America's arsenal. And, as usual, that prodigious effort left this region worn, tattered and in 1945, nearly shattered. I deeply resent jokes about Pittsburgh and its smokey heritage. This city built and saved this nation more than once.
At the old barbershop I used to go to the old timers used to talk about walking across the Allegheny River in the summer, when things were really getting dry. Before the dams.
I agree... and I'm very much pro-production and pro-economic activity. I'm not very "green" at all, in fact.
And as to production, I harken to these lines from Springsteen's "Youngstown":
Taconite coke and limestone
Fed my children, made my pay
Them smokestacks reaching like the arms of God
Into a beautiful sky of soot and clay
As my mother used to tell me about the soot and smoke "who cared? it meant that men were working"
That noted, it goes without saying that virtually no place, anywhere, took its environment so for granted.
Of course production is important but so too are healthy vital organs. As with everything else in life, balance is the key.
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Pittsburgh and in fact this country was built on the backs of immigrants. If you are not a Native American you came from somewhere else sometime in your family history.
And now we have people trying to keep good people out thru fear tactics.
You have it wrong.
We're trying to make sure its the good people who get in and we're trying to be sure we keep the bad people out.
This is called managing and enforcing the immigration process as it was designed. Most people support Legal immigration as opposed to illegal immigration!
America stopped the immigration process from approx. 1925 to 1965. The reason was so the immigrants who came in legallly prior to 1925 had time to learn the language, assimulate, gain skills, get jobs or improve their job status, learn the laws of their new country and become part of America.
Immigration was restarted around 1965.
Unfortunately today many immigrants are here illegally.
Both legal and illegal immirgrants aren't learning the language like their predecesors, aren't assimulating, aren't gaining education or skills, or securing good jobs, or starting businesses like the immigrants who came her before them.
Without English language skills there's very limited opportunity in America.
Instead the new immigrants live in countries within a country which wasn't the intent of the original immigration process!
"it's five o'clock somewhere"
Signed: Mr Buffett
Go PITT & CSU Rams!
Yes, the Germans, Irish, Italians and Polish immediately integrated. They never considered having their own churches.
I don't get your point. All of those people/groups did become part of America, learning it's language, customs, culture, and making it a better place.
The majority call themselves Americans with an ethnic legacy.
The highlighted sentences are what I was referring to.
When people who just arrive in America live in a country within a country and never learn the language, customs, laws, etc they will never be Americans.
Immigrant assimilation definition Assimilation is the act of absorbing, taking in, or incorporating [something] as one's own. Regarding immigration, and usually culture in general, reformers usually advocate a…ssimilation in order to promote a sense of ownership within the context of the new country.
"it's five o'clock somewhere"
Signed: Mr Buffett
Go PITT & CSU Rams!
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There is certainly nothing wrong with maintaining one's ethnic identity. And there is nothing about American immigration policy that ever insisted people drop their cultures at the gates to the USA. But BuffetParrot makes an accurate point: there has to be, in the immigration process, provision made for "assimilation".
Case in point - my father (born in 1920 as the 7th of 10 children in a Slovak hovel on the North Side) told me that they while the family all spoke Slovak inside the house, they were "ashamed to speak it out on the street... we wanted to be Americans". There are MANY immigrant neighborhoods in today's America (urban areas particularly) where generation after generation doesn't seem to make that effort to assimilate. And I - least among Americans given that 3 of my 4 grandparents were born in eastern/central Europe - have NO right or reason to protest access to this nation.
But having a "walk right in" policy for decades open to 2/3rds of the Western Hemisphere is lunacy, too. My paternal grandparents sent 4 sons into the military in WW-II. All were in combat theaters and my father (assigned to a Navy troop transport) rode Higgins boats into 7 first-wave beach invasions... from Sicily in July '43 to Tarawa in the Pacific that November and finishing with Okinawa in '45. My grandparents, I believe, only got their citizenship papers during WW-II. I'm not positive, but I think the Federal gummint realized "holy crap, these kids could get killed out there and we haven't naturalize their parents for 40 years!" Again, I might be wrong, but I seem to recall this as fact.
My point is assimilation does and did take time.
Also, don’t be so sure it is that different with the current wavy of Spanish speaking immigrants. A classmate of mine presented a great research paper comparing assimilation rates. I will grant that this was about 20 years ago, but by any reasonable measure the rates were very similar.
I agree that’s what we have been doing. Up until a little over a year ago. As far as opportunity, don’t forget the immigrants who come here to do the jobs you and I don’t want to do. It’s not a simple problem. And you can’t lump all immigrants into one column. I don’t care for the attitude “ I’m already here so screw you. Get out”. JMO
As I said earlier, the truth is always somewhere in the middle. The industrial revolution barons did help build this nation and Pittsburgh was a major part of it.
I don’t know how anybody could possibly be born and raised here and not be both aware of that fact and proud of it? For many of us, our grandfathers and great grandfathers literally built this country.
However, history has a way of balancing things in a way that mythology does not and the stone cold truth of the matter is that they also abused their workforce to shameful degrees and are primarily responsible for the formation of organized labor.
Child labor laws, the five day work week, minimum wage – all the result of incredible greed on the part of the people whose names adorn many of our most cherished institutions.
Had they treated their people humanely, unions would not have been a necessity in the first place. However, as always happens, greed eventually took over and no amount of money was ever enough.
Human nature.
That is not to say that there are not many problems with unions because we all know there certainly are a zillion abuses there as well. However, as we learned at the turn-of-the-century and we continue to learn today, there are just as many abuses if not more at the top and by the people we all so revere.
I don’t know how anybody could possibly be born and raised here and not be both aware of that fact and proud of it? For many of us, our grandfathers and great grandfathers literally built this country.
However, history has a way of balancing things in a way that mythology does not and the stone cold truth of the matter is that they also abused their workforce to shameful degrees and are primarily responsible for the formation of organized labor.
Child labor laws, the five day work week, minimum wage – all the result of incredible greed on the part of the people whose names adorn many of our most cherished institutions.
Had they treated their people humanely, unions would not have been a necessity in the first place. However, as always happens, greed eventually took over and no amount of money was ever enough.
Human nature.
That is not to say that there are not many problems with unions because we all know there certainly are a zillion abuses there as well. However, as we learned at the turn-of-the-century and we continue to learn today, there are just as many abuses if not more at the top and by the people we all so revere.
I am all for immigration reform. However, of course it has to be bipartisan. Both sides are going to have to relent on some of their primary goals and neither side is good at compromise. They are both going to have to get good at it because the Democrats are about to kick the Republicans’ asses in the midterms.
The GOP is making the exact same mistake that the Democrats made when Obama won the presidency and they arrogantly pissed away their short-lived advantage while the other side became very energized.
Before anyone cheers me or jeers me, please know that I hate them both, so I take no joy in saying that. However, Helen Keller could read the writing on this wall. The entire complexion of Congress is about to change. The only question is by how much?
I am absolutely for reinforcing the technology that enforces our visa program. Approximately 85% of illegal immigrants just overstay their visas. That’s where that money needs to go.
I am 100% against some boneheaded multi-billion symbolic middle finger to the Democrats so that the president can have his ego massaged and keep a campaign promise that everyone knew at the time was never going to happen.
Just think about how much money it will cost to build something like that and then to maintain it. You’re telling me that money could not be spent better elsewhere? BS! We could spend all that money on cigarettes and lottery tickets and it would be a better use of those resources.
And the worst part is anyone with a brain knows full well that eventually we’re going to tear the whole goddamn thing down anyway. Neither party rules forever.
So instead of throwing good money after bad, let’s spend our money like adults and on sophisticated programs, not something like China would’ve built in the second century to keep out the goddamn Huns.
The GOP is making the exact same mistake that the Democrats made when Obama won the presidency and they arrogantly pissed away their short-lived advantage while the other side became very energized.
Before anyone cheers me or jeers me, please know that I hate them both, so I take no joy in saying that. However, Helen Keller could read the writing on this wall. The entire complexion of Congress is about to change. The only question is by how much?
I am absolutely for reinforcing the technology that enforces our visa program. Approximately 85% of illegal immigrants just overstay their visas. That’s where that money needs to go.
I am 100% against some boneheaded multi-billion symbolic middle finger to the Democrats so that the president can have his ego massaged and keep a campaign promise that everyone knew at the time was never going to happen.
Just think about how much money it will cost to build something like that and then to maintain it. You’re telling me that money could not be spent better elsewhere? BS! We could spend all that money on cigarettes and lottery tickets and it would be a better use of those resources.
And the worst part is anyone with a brain knows full well that eventually we’re going to tear the whole goddamn thing down anyway. Neither party rules forever.
So instead of throwing good money after bad, let’s spend our money like adults and on sophisticated programs, not something like China would’ve built in the second century to keep out the goddamn Huns.
Anyone who watches South Park knows the phrase, "dey took r jobs" in regards to immigrants. The problem is, the current immigrants are not "taking r jobs". They are the guys who pick the crops. They are the guys who wash the dishes. Clean up in hotels, maids, janitors, etc.. We can't get "native" Americans to take or qualify for $25 an hour factory jobs. Unemployment is at a low. So these......the immigrants are taking our jobs stuff is completely BS. Americans aren't going to work those jobs.
Now, understanding just who is coming into the country, yeah, completely for this.
All of this is as old is America itself. Have you ever seen Gangs of New York? It’s basically about this exact same issue – immigrants coming in and not knowing their place while “established Americans” take umbrage with that under the guise of patriotism and safety concerns.
Daniel Day Lewis is brilliant in that film, BTW...as usual.
As another aside, if you’re looking for a really good podcast, and you have an interest in language and history, Lexicon Valley might be right up your alley. I will get to podcasts in another post. I think that might be a really interesting thread.
Anyway, I am 100% Irish and things have worked out okay for me and my family. You could always do better, but I could certainly do worse.
If you go into my basement, by my bar, I have all kinds of authentic anti-Irish imagery and signage expressing all the same concerns being expressed today about Latinos. “They are lazy, they are thugs, they are raping our women, they’re taking our jobs, et al.”
I have all kinds of political cartoons expressing all those same issues – except the drug thing – except that it’s Irish instead of Mexicans and it’s 1890 rather than 2018.
One of my favorites is one that is from the New York Times and which compares the Irish to monkeys because of their “inhuman appearance and belligerent behavior.” Under the editorial is a cartoon rendering of “the average Irishman” standing next to a monkey and asking the reader to identify which is which.
This is not it, but it looks a lot like this. These types of cartoons were incredibly common in their day.
That tells me that none of this is new. We saw similar things regarding African-Americans from the 1920s through the 1960s. This is just the latest phase in our glacial evolution and we will get through this as well when people calm down and realize that America will always be America no matter what - just as they have been forced to do many times in our past.
However, we still need to overhaul our legal immigration process. We do have too many undocumented aliens in this country and they need to figure out a way to regulate it.
Again though, as with everything else, it is about balance. It is not about keeping people out, but rather finding ways to legally and efficiently bring in good people who can and will contribute to the growth of our wonderful country.
Building some stupid ass and extraordinarily expensive wall is not the way to do that. And any person with a brain, regardless of their political affiliation, should understand that obvious reality. Putting those resources into tracking software and communication systems, that’s an entirely different deal. That makes perfect sense to me.
Daniel Day Lewis is brilliant in that film, BTW...as usual.
As another aside, if you’re looking for a really good podcast, and you have an interest in language and history, Lexicon Valley might be right up your alley. I will get to podcasts in another post. I think that might be a really interesting thread.
Anyway, I am 100% Irish and things have worked out okay for me and my family. You could always do better, but I could certainly do worse.
If you go into my basement, by my bar, I have all kinds of authentic anti-Irish imagery and signage expressing all the same concerns being expressed today about Latinos. “They are lazy, they are thugs, they are raping our women, they’re taking our jobs, et al.”
I have all kinds of political cartoons expressing all those same issues – except the drug thing – except that it’s Irish instead of Mexicans and it’s 1890 rather than 2018.
One of my favorites is one that is from the New York Times and which compares the Irish to monkeys because of their “inhuman appearance and belligerent behavior.” Under the editorial is a cartoon rendering of “the average Irishman” standing next to a monkey and asking the reader to identify which is which.
This is not it, but it looks a lot like this. These types of cartoons were incredibly common in their day.
That tells me that none of this is new. We saw similar things regarding African-Americans from the 1920s through the 1960s. This is just the latest phase in our glacial evolution and we will get through this as well when people calm down and realize that America will always be America no matter what - just as they have been forced to do many times in our past.
However, we still need to overhaul our legal immigration process. We do have too many undocumented aliens in this country and they need to figure out a way to regulate it.
Again though, as with everything else, it is about balance. It is not about keeping people out, but rather finding ways to legally and efficiently bring in good people who can and will contribute to the growth of our wonderful country.
Building some stupid ass and extraordinarily expensive wall is not the way to do that. And any person with a brain, regardless of their political affiliation, should understand that obvious reality. Putting those resources into tracking software and communication systems, that’s an entirely different deal. That makes perfect sense to me.
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Get out of the Trump/Fox News/Neo-Nazi scare tactics bubble. Guess what brown skinned immigrants to this country do assimilate, work on improving their English(most already learned it before they immigrated) and aren't all migrant farm workers or day laborers.
I live in the Detroit area and there's a lot of immigrants from South Asia both Hindu and Muslim in the Western suburbs where I live. They're moving here to work in IT or the medical field because white folks in the field bailed for Chicago, Portland, Austin or Denver, same thing is happening all over the Rust Belt.
Immigrants don't start businesses? Go to a dry cleaners, liquor store, strip mall restaurants and so on and it's most likely owned by an immigrants or first generation Americans. That immigrant who's driving a Lyft or Uber 18 hours a day is most likely saving up to open up some kind of business or pay for school. What today's immigrants are doing is just the modern version of what my Grandfather did when he came over from Greece.
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