On January 2, the Pittsburgh district was recognized as the nation’s No. 1 steel center after its 1942 record of having produced 20,000,000 tons of steel, chiefly for war purposes. In addition, employment was up 10 percent.
Construction
1940
On January 5, city and county officials announced that the $38,000,000 "Moses Plan" would be put into motion with reconstruction of Duquesne Way, at a cost of $2,500,000, as the first project. Next on the list were a $1,400,000 Liberty Tubes grade separation plaza and a $1,500,000 extension of Saw Mill Run Boulevard to West End. On June 4, The Pirates played their first night game in Forbes Field.
Highland Park Zoo was completely overhauled and modernized and was reopened to the public on June 28. The two-level Water Street Bypass, built at a cost of $3,000,000 to relieve Downtown congestion, was opened to traffic on August 23. On October 1, the nation’s longest toll expressway, the 160-mile, $70,000,000 Pittsburgh-to-Harrisburg "dream highway," was opened. 1,560 motorists paid tolls to use the new highway the first day. Governor James ordered the speed limit fixed at 50 miles per hour. On October 10, plans for a park at the Point were announced.
Famous People
1941
On February 9, Howard Heinz, president of the H. J. Heinz Company, and son of its founder, died at the age of 63 in a Philadelphia hospital.
1942
On December 9, H. J. Heinz, II, president of the 1942 United War Fund, conducted a successful $4,500,000 drive. He was honored by the Junior Chamber of Commerce as the "man of the year."
1941
On February 13, City Hall was flooded with mail complaints about the smog that continued to blanket the city. By March 20, Dr. Joseph H. Barach of Presbyterian Hospital, in the first public hearing before the smoke commission, testified that smog increased the incidence of colds, pneumonia, and other illnesses in Pittsburgh.
1942
In May, after serving as first assistant to nine city solicitors, Anne X. Alpern was appointed city solicitor by Mayor Scully as replacement for William A. Stewart, who entered the army. She was the first woman to become the chief legal officer of a major American city.
1943
On February 1, Judge Sara M. Soffel of the Common Pleas Court became the first woman ever to preside over an Allegheny County criminal court.
1945
On January 3, Mayor Scully signed an ordinance setting the 1946 budget at $25,417,422 -- highest since 1931. On November 6, David L. Lawrence, a 56-year-old Democratic state chairman, was elected Mayor of Pittsburgh by a margin of 12,000 votes. Five Democratic councilmen retained their seats.
WWII
1940
On September 16, the Mesta Machine Company received an $8,390,000 contract for "artillery material," the largest national defense order placed in the Pittsburgh district to this date. By October 16,188,876 Allegheny County men registered for the nation’s first peacetime draft; of that number, 89,069 were city residents.
1941
On December 7, Pittsburgh was shocked over the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The next day, more than 1,200 Pittsburgh young men volunteered for enlistment in the armed services in one day.
1942
On January 1, the amount of prime defense contracts awarded to Pittsburgh industries totaled $137,865,000. Industry expansion projects amounted to $137,106,000. During the previous year, 23,000 workers were added to payrolls of iron and steel industry in the area. By February 16, 115,000 Allegheny County men in the expanded 20 to 44-year age group registered for the draft. On March 1, domestic use of natural gas was curtailed as a war measure, and on March 5, air raid drills were organized. On April 6, an estimated 300,000 persons assembled in the Downtown area to watch 35,000 marchers in an Army Day demonstration of loyalty and patriotism.
Following an auction sale of prize dairy herds, bulldozers began leveling an 1100-acre tract of the old Bell farm in Moon Township for a $3,000,000 defense airport on April 20. By the 29th, Pittsburgh and nine surrounding counties were designated defense rental area by the national government, and rents were frozen.
1943
On May 20, Pittsburgh police, enforcing an OPA ban on pleasure driving stopped scores of motorists and cited 403 people in two days for violation of ration rules. By the 24th, drastic curtailment of bus and taxi service was required by ODT’s 40 percent cut in Pittsburgh’s gasoline allotment; the city faced a serious transportation problem as Pittsburgh Railways eliminated five bus routes and curtailed nine others. On the 26th, the nation’s first gasoline "night court," set up by the OPA office to speed up action against pleasure driving, opened in the Fulton Building. By June 3, Mayor Scully had his gas-ration privileges suspended for three months for violating the OPA driving ban by making a 350-mile trip to West Virginia.
1944
On August 7 a survey showed that war contracts completed to date or underway in Pittsburgh district plants totaled $903,398,644, with $322,000,000 of it delivered to the front lines.
Random Happenings
1942
On December 30, Allegheny and Monongahela rivers overflowed, crested at 36.6 at the Point, forced war plants and Downtown theaters to close, made 7500 persons temporarily homeless and disrupted auto and trolley traffic.
1944
On November 14, in one of the district’s worst trolley disasters, six persons were killed and 34 injured when a Homestead-East Pittsburgh streetcar loaded with war workers crashed into the rear of an empty East Liberty-Homestead car at Munhall Junction.
On December 11, thousands of Monday-night Christmas shoppers were stranded Downtown by a 15-inch snowfall. All hotels were filled to capacity and lobbies were pressed into service as shelter. Mills, schools, and many other activities were suspended for two days.
1945
On February 16, Dr. John G. Bowman, the nation’s highest-paid educator of the day at $31,500 a year, resigned after 15 years as chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Rufus H. Fitzgerald, vice-chancellor, was designated his successor.
On April 12, the city and county governments, business, schools, and all other activities were suspended, all churches scheduled special prayer services, and Mayor Scully asked all amusement places to close in mourning for President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
AL 21 Nov 2007
All information can be found on the Historic Pittsburgh website.
1940
I have noticed a decrease in suicides and murders during 1940. I have actually only read about 4 or 5 murders total, which is a significant amount less then the previous time periods. The majority of the case files that I have encountered are health-related, which are not as interesting to read.
AL 26 Oct 2007
1940-41
Natural and accidental deaths still outnumber the suicides and murders and other kinds of criminal activity that has been taking place in Pittsburgh and around it. I have noticed a difference in some of the case files lately. The front of a case file usually only says the verdict on it. Lately I noticed that if the death was a result of a murder the case file would have grand jury stamped on the front of it and the crime would be listed under it.
CL 26 Oct 2007
It seems that the cases of septicemia have dropped considerably. I have not seen anyone die from it as a result of a scrape or bruise for a couple of weeks now. I wonder if this is the result of modern antibiotics being used for the first time.
SH 28 Oct 2007
I have seen a great deal of coronary occlusion deaths which I have not seen in the files before. The symptoms are usually pain in various parts of the body, such as the side or legs. All of the victims have been in the late 40s and older, and I would say there have been more male than female victims. The affidavits usually describe the deceased as being unhealthy in appearance too.
MG 01 Nov 2007
So far in 1941 and 1942 I have seen two changes in the case files. First, when the cause of death is undetermined it is accompanied with natural causes. Second, when an industrial accident is the cause of death a large report is included that has witness interviews of what happened and discusses how an accident like the one that just happened can be prevented in the future and how to go about doing that.
CL 02 Nov 2007
1942
I have noticed there is an increase in women dying in industrial settings. Case files 194206_13-194206_20 are all women that died at the Central Railway Signal Company. There was an explosion that took place that made parts of the building collapse and catch fire. The incident resulted in the death of eight women, one of which was the superintendent's daughter. Sadly, the superintendent was there to witness his daughter's death. I believe that this influx of women in industry during this time period is caused by the United States entering WWII. Since men were being drafted into the army, women replaced them to fill the demand for industrial production.
AL 02 Nov 2007
To compliment what is stated above, according to Historic Pittsburgh, December of 1941 saw the immediate enlistment of 1,200 Pittsburgh men. Then on February 16, 1942, a total of 115,000 Allegheny County men in the expanded 20-to-44-year age group registered for the draft. This led the way for more women to be in the workforce. For example, on November 22, 1942, women bus drivers were first employed.
MG 06 Nov 2007
I find it interesting that in March 1942, the domestic use of natural gas was reduced to support the war effort. However, there continue to be a number of deaths involving burns from gas stoves and the inhalation of natural gas. See file numbers 194301_193, 194301_190, 194301_15, and 194301_261. The deaths appear to be mostly accidental, which is surprising because the United States began to add odor to the gas back in 1937 to prevent such accidents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas). Because all of these deaths are in the month of January, there was still a need for natural gas in heating the homes. It is just surprising that the reduced use of natural gas, and the fact that it had that familiar odor, continued to result in Pittsburgh deaths.
MG 06 Nov 2007
1943-44
I have noticed that during this time the coroner changed the way that files were stored. Instead of rubber bands the coroner was using paperclips and metal clasps. Also, I have noticed more errors in the numbering system then ever before. I have found three numbers that were repeated on two different records for two completely different people in one box.
AL 09 Nov 2007
Some of the files that I processed did not have the month or the year stamped on them. I noted this because this was the first time I have seen files without the month or year stamped on them.
CL 10 Nov 2007
On June 23, 1944 at least one tornado hit McKeesport and the surrounding areas, killing 18 people, many of which were small children or elderly (files 194407_61-194407_78). All of these deaths occurred because the house that the victims were in collapsed. This was the first time that a natural disaster was explicitly written in the cause of death. The only other instance that I know of that might have had a natural disaster listed as a cause of death would have been the 1936 floods that killed over 70 people, but unfortunately those files were destroyed.
Also, in file 194407_112 there was the first photograph of a victim's injured internal organ. A piece of the victim's small intestine was removed and photographed to show that there was a tear in the lining which caused septicemia. Perhaps we will see more photographs like this in the upcoming years.
ZB 16 Nov 2007
1945
I have nothing to really report on the files for this period except that some, if not most, of the files contain a green police report that says “City of Pittsburgh.” The files are written by the inspector who got called to where the deaths took place and explains what he thinks happened.
CL 16 Nov 2007
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