VI
Pittsburgh maintains by popular support one of the four symphony orchestras in America. She has given many famous men to science, literature, and art. Her astronomical observatory is known throughout the world. Her rich men are often liberal beyond their own needs, particularly so William Thaw, who spent great sums for education and benevolence; Mrs. Mary Schenley, who has given the city a great park, over four hundred acres in the very heart of its boundaries; and Henry Phipps, who erected the largest conservatory for plants and flowers in our country. There is one other, Andrew Carnegie, whose wise and continuous use of vast wealth for the public good is nearly beyond human precedent.
Zoölogical Garden in Highland Park
If Pittsburgh people were called upon to name their best known singer, they would, of course, with one accord, say Stephen C. Foster. His songs are verily written in the hearts of millions of his fellow-creatures, for who has not sung "Old Folks at Home," "Nelly Bly," "My Old Kentucky Home," and the others? Ethelbert Nevin is the strongest name among our musical composers, his "Narcissus," "The Rosary," and many others being known throughout the world.
Charles Stanley Reinhart, Mary Cassatt, and John W. Alexander are the best known among our painters. Henry O. Tanner, the only negro painter, was born in Pittsburgh and learned the rudiments of his art here. Albert S. Wall, his son, A. Bryan Wall, George Hetzel, and John W. Beatty have painted good pictures, as have another group which includes William A. Coffin, Martin B. Leisser, Jaspar Lawman, Eugene A. Poole, Joseph R. Woodwell, William H. Singer, Clarence M. Johns, and Johanna Woodwell Hailman. Thomas S. Clarke is a Pittsburgh painter and sculptor. Philander C. Knox, United States Senator, and John Dalzell, member of the House of Representatives, are prominent among those who have served Pittsburgh ably in the National Government.
VII
And how about letters? Has Pittsburgh a literature? Those rolling clouds of smoke, those mighty industries, those men of brawn, those men of energy, that ceaseless calculation of wages and dividends—can these produce an atmosphere for letters? It seems unthinkable. Yet hold! Only the other day on the train a man who has been a resident of New York for thirty-five years remarked in this author's presence that "Pittsburgh is the most intellectual city in America." He had never visited Pittsburgh and the author did not and does not know his name. "How about Boston?" asked another traveler. "Boston used to be, but is not now," he answered. Then I, in my timid and artless way, ventured to ask him why he spoke thus of Pittsburgh. "Because," said he, "distant as I am from Pittsburgh, more inspiration in artistic and intellectual things has come to me from that city than from any other place in America." But that may have been his dinner or the cigar.
Literature I once attempted to define as the written record of thought and action. If this be an adequate definition, then Pittsburgh writers have substantially enriched the field of literature in every department, and given our city permanent fame as a place of letters. As we begin our survey of the local field, the wonder grows that the literary production is so large, and that the character of much of it is so very high. Let Pegasus champ his golden bit as he may, and beat his hoof upon the empty air, Pittsburgh men and Pittsburgh women have ridden the classic steed with grace and skill through all the flowered deviations of his bridal paths. This is scarcely the place to attempt a critical estimate, and it would be an ungracious and a presumptuous task for me to appraise the literary value of that work with any great degree of detail. The occasion will hardly permit more than a list of names and titles; and while pains have been taken to make this list complete, it is possible that some books may have been overlooked, but truly by inadvertence only.