"Pittsburgh, Pa. The coopers plant at the Penola, Inc. grease plant, where large drums and containers are reconditioned. Here a workman lifts a drum from a boiling lye solution which has cleaned it from grease and dirt particles." March 1944. Gordon Parks; Library of Congress
In December 2022, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was designated an American World War II Heritage City. Accepting the honor, Mayor Ed Gainey described a city that has long supplied the materials and the workers to change the world, that was one of the nation's crucial defense manufacturing centers in the war, and whose people have kept that legacy alive in museums, memorials and programs.
What did that home front sound like at the time?
Pittsburgh in the evening, February 1941. Jack Delano; Library of Congress.
"Dear Mr. President," early 1942
In January or February 1942, several Pittsburghers "from different walks of life" — a cross-section of the city — were recorded speaking as if they had a short private interview with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his office. The recording is in the Library of Congress (listen online). What they said, paraphrased:
| Speaker | What they told the President |
|---|---|
| Mrs. William Houghton, housewife and mother of two | She pledged whatever help she could give. The government had been a friend to her family: her husband had held a job in the liquor stores for six years, which only the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment made possible; they had lived for a year and a half in government housing, far better than they could afford privately; and a government defense course had just got her husband a better job. Anything asked of them now, she said, would be small repayment |
| Clark W. Kelley, director of the central office of western Pennsylvania's newspapers | The region's papers, large and small, were united behind the war. Whatever they had disagreed about before December 7 was gone; the Pittsburgh area — the "workshop of the world", source of much of the country's munitions — and its newspapers had enlisted under their Commander in Chief |
| Gladys Crawley, a Black clerk in the city deeds registry | She credited Roosevelt's stand on equal opportunity for Black citizens and other minorities with giving her people more hope than ever. But Black Americans, she told him, still did not have equal opportunities in the military camps and defense industries — and she trusted him to fix that soon. Meanwhile the groups she belonged to were doing Red Cross work and buying defense stamps |
| Paul L. Houston, president of the Yellow Cab Company | People needed a leader they could trust, and had one. The world before December 7, 1941, felt gone for good; hard times were bringing out the best in people and making home and family more precious. He had never felt so confident |
| John Forelli, coal miner, Library, Pennsylvania | He worked for the Pittsburgh Coal Company, one of the world's largest coal producers. Miners knew their part was to dig more coal — and that coal alone would not win the war. No miner would be a slacker |
| George J. Shale, city superintendent of public safety equipment | Pittsburgh's police and fire services were ready for civil defense: patrol ambulances with two-way radios, warning devices, first-aid kits, stretchers and machine guns; fifty more cars patrolling constantly; a 25% cut in mileage to save tires; ninety fire engines in good order, with sixteen more on the way |
"A poster comes to life. The middle man in the poster looks at his image mounted on a wall at Allegheny-Ludlum Steel Corporation, wonders what the other two fellows are like, and where they are these days." The model was George Woolslayer, a 32-year-old welder, for an Office of War Information poster. Alfred Palmer; Library of Congress
Mary DaVanzo, twenty-two, a stationary firemen's helper in the Pennsylvania Railroad's steel car shop boiler room at Pitcairn, earning seventy-two cents an hour; she had been a waitress at Pittsburgh's Mercy Hospital. May 1943. Marjory Collins; Library of Congress.
Why Heritage Cities?
In 2018, a bill in Congress, H.R. 6118, proposed directing the Secretary of the Interior to designate at least one American World War II Heritage City every year. The House report on it set out the reasons:
On December 7, 1941, military forces of the Empire of Japan attacked the U.S. Naval Fleet and ground bases at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. On December 8, 1941, one day after what President Roosevelt referred to as, "a date which will live in infamy," the United States declared war against the Empire of Japan. Three days later, on December 11, 1941, Japan's ally, Germany, declared war on the United States. Sixteen million Americans, mostly young working-age men, served in the military during World War II, out of an overall United States population of 113 million.
At the same time, the report notes, the country drastically increased war production — for its own forces and its allies, Roosevelt's "Arsenal of Democracy" — and that combination changed American society. The war brought the largest internal migration in the country's history, as people moved to industrial centers for well-paid jobs and out of patriotic duty; some became boomtowns. Richmond, California, grew from under 24,000 people to more than 100,000.
For teachers
This page comes from the National Park Service's Teaching with Historic Places series on the World War II home front, one of four lessons on Pittsburgh.
Essential question: Why was Pittsburgh chosen as a World War II Heritage City, and how does it compare with other home front cities?
Questions
- What do the photographs show, and what do they say about Pittsburgh then?
- What do the six speakers have in common? How do their jobs and identities shape how they see the war? What does the recording reveal about the public mood? Extension: argue for or against the claim that they represent a cross-section of American society.
- What was the purpose of H.R. 6118? Using the lessons, why was Pittsburgh designated? Which other cities come to mind as home front contributors, and why?
Optional: the WQED documentary America's Arsenal: How Pittsburgh Powered World War II (27 minutes) covers western Pennsylvania's part in the war — among other things, the Bantam jeep designed in Butler, landing ships built on Neville Island, steel from Homestead, and the Westinghouse artist behind the "Rosie the Riveter" image.
Culminating project. Students create a product — written, graphic, artistic or digital — that:
- identifies important home front sites in Pittsburgh and explains their significance;
- summarizes what Pittsburgh's diverse civilians and service members contributed;
- evaluates short- and long-term changes in the city — economic, social, geographic and environmental;
- optionally, compares Pittsburgh with another Heritage City (recommended, for a fuller picture of the home front).
Projects should be student-led, student-chosen and student-assessed. Two simple tools help: a comparison matrix (a column for themes and one per city), and two single-point rubrics — one for chosen standards, one for the four objectives — each with a middle "proficient" column describing the target and blank columns either side for "areas to improve" and "areas exceeding."
Sources
Based on "(H)our History Lesson: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Comparing and Connecting WWII Home Front Cities," a Teaching with Historic Places lesson by Sarah Nestor Lane, educator and consultant with the Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education, funded through the National Council on Public History's cooperative agreement with the National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The 1942 recording is in the Library of Congress; the report quoted is House Report 115-998 (October 30, 2018); Mayor Gainey's remarks are from a City of Pittsburgh press release of December 16, 2022. The 1942 speakers and Mayor Gainey are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words. The lesson's gallery photograph of war bond volunteers, held by the Carnegie Museum of Art, is not reproduced.
In these publicationsPittsburgh, PA, WWII Heritage City Lessons
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
1
0
0
0
Comments
