Notes from 1925-1930

 

Growth and Politics

 

Pittsburgh was a rapidly growing city during this time. In 1925, the "total taxable value… of reality was $990,000,000," according to the Historic Pittsburgh website. In 1928, Pittsburgh and Allegheny County consolidated into a metropolitan district. By 1929, the city took a stand against pollution; a smoke prevention system was installed in the City's pumping station. Additionally, by 1930 the population grew to 669,817.  Historic Pittsburgh also reports, "The Chamber of Commerce reported that 27 new manufacturing plants and warehouses, representing investments totaling $29,502,000, started operations in the Pittsburgh district in 1930."  Politically, there were two mayors in Pittsburgh during this period: William A. Magee, who was in office from 1922–1926, and his successor, Charles H. Kline, who held office from 1926–1933.  Also, in 1930 Sara Soffel was the first woman to become a jurist in Allegheny County and Pennsylvania.

 

Construction

 

Many more important building and roadways were being constructed at this time. The Cathedral of Learning, located in Oakland on the University of Pittsburgh's campus began construction in September 1926. The funding for this building was an enormous $5,597,782- twice the price of any other educational or philanthropic purpose in Pittsburgh at the time. Also at the University, Pitt Stadium was opened in 1925. Other structures that were completed during this time were the Clark Building located on Liberty Avenue, the Grant Building, and the Koppers Building. Additionally, the $2,700,000 county office building began construction in April 1930.  With respect to roadways and bridges, the Liberty Bridge was constructed between 1926 and 1928 to ease ventilation problems in the Liberty Tunnels that had already been built four years previous.  Additionally, Saw Mill Run Boulevard was completed in 1929; the combination of the three new structures created the first auto route from the South Hills to downtown Pittsburgh. Furthermore, the Seventh Street Bridge was opened in 1926. Other interesting things completed during this period were Frick Park in Squirrel Hill and the Ohio River Canal.

 

Entertainment

 

In the entertainment sector, The Pittsburgh Symphony was founded in 1927. More importantly, the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series in 1925. They defeated the Washington Senators 4 games to 3. In 1927, they made it to the World Series again, but lost 4 games to 0.

 

Industry

 

Industrially, quite a bit was going on. Expansions and improvements were being done in steel mills to the tune of $60,000,000. In 1929 and 1930 U.S. Steel and J&L Steel each announced a plan to spend $20,000,000 for expansions on their mills.  "United States Steel reported record peacetime profits of $197,531,349," in 1930 according to Historic Pittsburgh. In the mining industry, twenty men died in a mine explosion near Castle Shannon in 1926. Shortly after in 1927, a coal strike began nationwide due to pay cuts. 45,000 miners in the area joined the strike.

 

Transportation

 

Transportation was an important issue in Pittsburgh. In 1926, double-deck trolleys were no longer used due to an immense amount of accidents. I hope that this change will show in the coroner's case files with less trolley-related deaths. In air related transportation, Bettis Field became Allegheny County's first airport in 1926. Charles Lindbergh visited the new airport in August of 1927, a huge compliment to Pittsburgh. In January 1930, taxi drivers began a strike due to pay cuts, similar to the local miners.   Police used tear-gas to defuse the situation, which resulted in arrests and violence. 

 

AL 11 Oct 2007

 

*This information can be found in chronological order at The University of Pittsburgh's Archive Service Center.  Historic Pittsburgh Web Site

 

 

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1925

 

In the 50 sample files that I have done from 1925, 4 of them were automobile accidents. In two cases the driver was known and it was recommened by the Coroner's Jury that they be held for questioning by the Grand Jury. In the other two cases the driver of the automobile was unknown, they must have been hit-and-runs, but the Coroner's Jury still recommends that the "person or person's unknown" be held for trial.

 

AFS May 22, 2008

 

 

 

1926-1927

 

I have noticed in the files through these years a lot of deaths from different forms of tuberculosis.  Some people died from tuberculosis itself, while others died from tuberculosis resulting from a previous injury which no doubt weakened the immune system, allowing tuberculosis to set in.  The people who most commonly died from tuberculosis were infants or the elderly.  The most common type of tuberculosis I found was pulmonary tuberculosis which deals with the lungs, and is why people with this disease were called "lungers." 

 

CL 15 Sept 2007

 

 

It appears that someone has already gone through the files for several months in 1927 and written the cause of death on the upper right hand corner of the Press Report.  I was working with October, and I know other projects members were noticing the same thing in the months they were working on.  I wonder if these pencil marks were added later or as the files were being created by the coroner.  The Press Report, being on the inside of the docket, indicates that the person who wrote the pencil death descriptions would have had to have broken the rubber band seal in order to access them.  However, many of the dried out rubber bands remained mostly intact to the paper.  The pencil is not in the same ink or writing style that the Coroner's findings are in, and it looks to be newer.  I think that these writings were in fact added later, but I do not know for what purpose.  It is almost a very rough "processing" attempt by someone else. 

 

MG 18 Sept 2007

 

 

There seems to be an increase in the number of additional papers pinned to the case files.  These papers often include descriptions of the deceased's condition by the doctor attending the person at their time of death or the first one on the scene.  Other papers, including statements from their place of employment and the City Department of Public Safety, are also present in about half of the files.

 

ZB 18 Sept 2007

 

 

In the 1926-1928 files, I found that some boxes of case files seem to been looked at and organized previously with the deaths being written in the file's top right corner. We are not sure who went through them before they came to the University of Pittsburgh. I worked mainly with the spring and summer months and I noticed a rise in heat related deaths of mine workers and increasing number of automobile accidents.

 

AS 20 Sept 2007

 

 

I worked on case files from 1927 last week.  I made a point to keep track of the murders that took place.  There is a trend in the type of people that are being killed.  I noticed that the vast majority of people that were killed were male.  More then 90% of the men that were killed were shot.  Also, I noticed that about 75% of people that were shot were immigrants that would have been considered to be "whops" at the time.  The majority of the immigrants that were shot were from Italy. 

 

AL 20 Sept 2007

 

 

1927-1928

 

Through 1927 to 1928 more and more police reports are being included in the case files compared to 1925-1926.  I also noticed that the cause of death is written in the top right hand corner of the report.  More reports are also typed compared to the previous years I had making it a lot easier to read the papers included in the report. 

 

CL 21 Sept 2007

 

 

I worked with the case files from 1927 and 1928 I found some new terminology in medicine being used. The ones I found most frequently were myocarditis and nephritis. I had for research this new terminology; myocarditis is an inflammation in the heart muscle and nephritis is an inflammation in the kidney.  It is interesting to see the new terms for diagnosis of old diseases.

 

AS 26 Sept 2007

 

 

As I said before, I noticed that the majority of the immigrants that have been murdered during this time period were Italian.  I kept a tally since my last post and I found that eight of the 21 immigrants that were murdered in the case files I worked on were from Italy.  After doing some research, I found out that there was a lot of Italian mob activity in the Pittsburgh area at the time.  Many time the murders occurred in Clairton or Sharpsburg.  I found out that both areas had a high Italian population.  This Post-Gazette Article is one of many articles I found that give more background.

 

AL 27 Sept 2007

 

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Every now and then you will be fortunate to have an accompanying newspaper article along with your file.  I enjoy reading the articles that are not pertained to the incident reported in the file, as I think it is interesting to see what else was going on.  In a brief article in 192908_36, there is an article about an umbrella.  Yes, an umbrella.  This umbrella was being praised for braving the winter of what I think was 1888, and it was now making its 100th trans-atlantic flight.  Rihanna would be proud.

 

MG 27 Sept 2007

 

 

Beginning in 1929, there was an emergence of a new form in the coroner files.  The "Physician's Report to Coroner" paper started to replace the small notes from doctors that usually accompanied the files.  They are still pinned to the press report, but this shows the beginning of standardization between the medical community and coroner's office. 

 

ZB 27 Sept 2007

 

 

Soon, if we are not already, we will be covering the beginning of the Great Depression. I wonder if there will be a big spike in suicides when it hits October. I think we should make an effort to see if the suicides that do occur are a result of the bank crashes.

 

SH 27 Sept 2007

 

 

I have done some reports dating June and July of 1930 and have noticed a difference in the amount of suicides I have found compared to the previous years I have gone through.  The amount of suicides has gone up along with murders it seems.  Although it is hard to say for sure what is the cause of the suicides. 

 

CL 03 Oct 2007

 

 

In the late 1920s photographs of accident sites have become rare.  The companies that typically took photographs, such as Carnegie Steel, have stopped including them in the reports.  Many of the photographs I have found were taken prior to 1925.  One of the reasons for the lack of photographs may be that companies could not afford it as the Depression was kicking in.  It will be interesting to note when the photographs begin to appear regularly again. 

 

ZB 03 Oct 2007

 

 

This week I worked with the case files from the months right after the Great Depression (October, November, December) and as many of us thought there was a higher number of suicides. A greater number of suicides were men in their 30s and 40s. I did see some women in the same age range, however. With the increased number of suicides we can see the effects of the Great Depression on people living in Allegheny County. Something else that I found interesting were the deaths by exposure to the cold of the winter months, which mainly affects the elderly. This could also been linked back to hardships felt from the Depression. I also found a University of Pittsburgh football accidental death, where a starting fullback in 1930 broke his spine after being tackled during practice.

 

AS 03 Oct 2007