Charities and the Commons: The Pittsburgh Survey, Part I. The People

by Various

Seven miles from Pittsburgh, up the valley of the Monongahela River, lie the town of Homestead and the largest steel plant in the world. Seventeen years ago, Homestead was, for a time, the center of national interest, while the men and the Carnegie Steel Company fought to the finish one of the most dramatic battles in the history of the labor movement. The men failed,—public interest died out,—but the mill has gone on growing steadily and the town has kept pace, until now it numbers about 25,000. Throughout this time, the corporation, through its practically unquestioned decisions as to wages and hours of labor, has in large measure determined the conditions under which the men shall live. There is only one other industry in the town, the Mesta Machine Company, and little other work except in providing for the needs of the mill workers. We may consider then that the conditions resulting when a great organized industry creates about it, without a definite plan, a town dependent solely upon it for development, are fairly represented in Homestead. For, after all, the town is to be considered in part as a product of the steel industry, as well as the rails and armor plate shipped in the great freight trains that puff away down the river, and the success of the corporation must be estimated, in part, by its share in creating the homes and moulding the lives of the workers.

Thirty years ago, two farms occupied the land now covered by the vast plant and the homes of hundreds of workers. In 1881, when Klomans built the mill, now a part of the United States Steel Corporation, the change began. The very aspect of Homestead shows how during the twenty-seven years that have passed, the plant has been the unifying and dominating force in the town. The mill has now stretched itself for over a mile along the river and the level space between the river and a hill rising steeply behind, which was the original site of both mill and town, has been entirely shut off from the water front. The smoke from the many furnaces and from the two railroads which cross the town settles heavily, making the section gloomy even on the brightest days. Wash day for some must wait for a west wind, if the clothes are not to come in blacker than when they went into the tub, and mothers find it a problem to keep children even reasonably clean in a place where the grass itself is covered with oily dust.

This level space was originally large enough to accommodate the houses as well as the mill, but with the growth of the town, the homes have spread up the hill, and even out into the region beyond. For the English speaking people who were earlier comers, have been glad to leave the level, smoke-hidden section to the more recent immigrants. Here, in houses huddled together, where the totally inadequate sanitary provisions and overcrowding are comparable to the worst sections of a great city, we find now the homes of the Slavs. Courts where seventy-five, or even in a few instances more than a hundred people, are dependent for water supply on one hydrant, and houses with an average of four or five persons to each room are frequent. These facts will be considered more in detail in another article, exemplifying as they do conditions existing in many small industrial centers.

Though there are no definite figures available as to the composition of the population of Homestead, the nationality of the men employed in the mill in July, 1907, will serve as a clue to the make up of the town as a whole. Of 6,772 employes, 3,601 or more than half were Slavs, 1,925 were native whites, 121 colored, 397 English, 259 Irish, 129 Scotch, 176 German, and 164 were of other Europeans.

Aside from the Slavs, there is almost no tendency among the different nationalities to live in separate sections. The more desirable part of the town, which includes aside from the upper part of Homestead proper the politically independent boroughs of West Homestead and Munhall, is occupied by the whole English speaking group and it is with their life that this paper deals.

Parallel to the main thoroughfare, along the side of the hill, runs street after street lined with simple frame houses. These stand detached from one another, though often with only a passageway between. There is usually a porch in front and a small yard where growing flowers or shrubs give a cheerful homelike air. The streets are full of merry children, coasting in winter down the steep hillsides, or in summer playing marbles and jumping rope. The hill lifts this section out of some of the smoke, but even here the sky is seldom really bright, and the outlook is over the stacks of the mills with their plumes of smoke. In general arrangement, the town shows an absence of interest in future development on the part of its original planners. The avenues, which run parallel from east to west with alleys between, are crossed at right angles by the main streets, cutting the town into rectangular blocks. Here and there are beds of old water courses down the hillside, on whose banks small houses, hardly more than shanties, have been built. The narrow lots of the original plan have had, moreover, a bad effect on the houses built on them. These houses are small, usually consisting of four or five rooms, but the middle room in the latter case opens only on the passage between the buildings, which is of necessity very narrow, and is never reached by sunshine. Moreover, the narrow lot which limits decidedly the choice in plans has resulted in a uniformity of design and a lack of artistic quality in the houses. This, especially in winter when there are no flowers to relieve it, gives to the streets an air of monotony.

As Homestead grew, houses were built to the east of it on property outside the borough limits, owned by the Carnegie Land Company, a constituent part of the United States Steel Corporation. This district and a section including most of the mill property were formed into the separate borough of Munhall, said to be the richest one in Pennsylvania. From the beginning the mill officials have taken a marked interest in its development, and the general effect of Munhall shows the results. In the center stand side by side, the imposing library with its little park, the gift of Mr. Carnegie, and the handsome residence of the superintendent of the mill. Behind are the houses of the minor officials, whose wide lawns are kept in beautiful condition by men in the employ of the company. On the streets farther back, where the employes live, are many attractive houses, and on Sixteenth avenue cottages of varying design set back from the street, show the possibility of securing effective yet inexpensive plans.

But neither the presence of the mill nor the dull sameness of the streets can hamper the sense of home-likeness which the workmen feel as they step across their own doorsteps. The burden of creating this falls on the shoulders of the housewife. Usually in these homes there is that proof of an upward social trend, a "front room," which with its comfortable furniture and piano or other musical instrument is the real center of the life and amusement of the family. As one woman said, "The children don't realize how much it costs to keep up the parlor, but they want it to look nice so they can bring their friends in, and as long as it keeps them home I'll manage it somehow." And no outsider can understand the sacrifices involved, the ceaseless economies if parlor curtains and pianos are to be evolved from a wage of fifteen dollars a week.

SIXTEENTH AVENUE, MUNHALL.