Brief Bio:

 

I am currently a student in the University of Pittsburgh's School of Library and Information Sciences pursuing an MLIS with specialization in Archives.  I have a B.A. in History and Classics, as well as certificates in Historic Preservation and Medieval and Renaissance Studies from the University of Pittsburgh.  I am interested in Pittsburgh history, but more specifically its labor history.  This project has given me a unique perspective on the lives of everyday Pittsburghers in the early 20th century.

 

 

 

Working Notes:

 

 

1900-1920

 

I began working on this project in May 2007, about when the processing was starting the 1900s.  I was immediately struck by how many railroad accidents there were and the description of all incidents as "probably accidental."  There is no way to really tell how many of these accidents were accidental, but noticing how many suicides there were in the 1910s and the early part of the 1920s, it is hard to believe that all railroad accidents were in fact accidents. 

 

Another accident that appears quite frequently was the suffering of burns due to one's clothing catching fire from their stove at home.  This has peaked my interest as these incidents have been a constant in the files since I started, and I would like to find a photograph of a stove from the time period and determine what made them so dangerous.  If I find one, I will be sure to post it here.  ZB 09/06/07

 

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1920s

 

I had an interesting incident in one of today's files that I wanted to share.  The Press Report stated that a 66 year old man was killed after being struck on the head with a milk bottle in his home.  The verdict for the case stated that the man's wife was responsible for the fatal blow and that it was in self defense.  I read this as an instance of domestic violence.  I often find myself recreating the scene in my head and this is what I am imagining: the man was beating his wife, probably not the first time but definitely the last, and she finally snapped.  She picked up the closest blunt object and smacked him in the head with it.  It leads me to wonder how common domestic violence was in the 1920s.

 

I did some more research on the early 20th Century gas stove, but unfortunately I came up a bit short.  The only photographs I found were of stoves that belonged to well-to-do families.  I believe that most of the "clothes catching on fire" incidents were happening to poorer working class families because there is a lack of cases involving maids or servants dying in such a manner while at work.  ZB 9/11/07

 

 

Meet Miss Pittsburgh.  This airplane was the first to make an air mail delivery from Pittsburgh to Cleveland in 1927.  This plane is a good example of the type of airplane that could be seen over the city during the 1920s (if they could see through the smoke).  The airplane has been restored and currently hangs in the Pittsburgh International Airport.  This particular photograph can be found at The Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania in collection number 2001.0004-F01-I01.

  ZB 9/18/07

 

 

Today I found an incident in which a mother strangled her 6 year old son to death with a belt and then committed suicide by drinking Lysol (192906_134-192906_135).  I was thinking that this might be a case of postpartum depression.  ZB 9/27/07

 

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1930s

 

In file 193001_99, a 4 year old boy fell 8 stories from an elevator at a department store.  This incident sparked a city-wide ordinance which stated that elevators were required to have safety grates or doors.  The ordinance was attached to the file along with a news clipping on the incident.  Also according to the ordinance, elevators were not allowed to have openings on more than two sides after 1927.  ZB 10/3/07

 

 

File 193109_10 involved an incident in which the police arrested an intoxicated man and threw him into their patrol so hard that his head hit the floor, cracking his skull.  This was reported in the newspapers and clippings and testimony transcripts are present in the file; however, in the final coroner inquest verdict, the cause of this skull fracture was deemed undetermined.  It would be interesting to follow up on this case and see if anyone was charged with the man's death.  I believe that the coroner's office and police department worked together so much that they began to look out for each other except in blatant instances of police brutality.  ZB 10/12/07

 

 

In November of 1932 a man and an accomplice were attempting to rob a gas station when he was shot by a plain clothed police officer.  The file did not state whether the policeman was placed at the gas station purposely undercover or if he just happened to be walking by as the robbery occurred.  It would be interesting to see if the police department placed officers around the city in regular clothes to prevent an increase in crime during the Depression.  ZB 10/18/07

 

 

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1940s

 

I have noticed that the average age of the deceased has increased in the past decade. It is not uncommon to see files for people who live into their mid-60s or older.  Perhaps this can be attributed to better medical practices.  It seems that the use of different anesthetics was being experimented with and several deaths a year occur from anesthesia related incidents.  Also, we are noticing more deaths attributed to "coronary occlusion."  I wonder if this is due to a change in diet within the community, or a higher awareness of the disease within the medical field.  ZB 11/7/07

 

As the United States entered WWII we thought that we might see an increase in the amount of female deaths in industrial accidents.  Although a few have appeared, we did not see the spike that we had predicted even though war production caused inexperienced people to work faster and longer.  I thought about this for a bit and now believe that safety precautions taken in the mills prior to WWII, especially after the legalization of labor unions in 1936, made working in the mills that much safer for new employees.  There was a string of crane related incidents at mills in Allegheny County, but those issues seem to have been fixed.  By keeping workers alive, the mills stood to keep production up by not wasting time training new replacement employees.  ZB 11/16/07