The busy and chaotic Mon Wharf, where goods were loaded and unloaded and passengers came to board downstream-bound steamboats. This picture was published in 1894, and we can see the dawn of the skyscraper age just beginning to break: the Conestoga Building, finished in 1892, was the first building in Pittsburgh built on a steel frame, and one of the first in the world.
The view is quite different today (or in 2021, when these pictures were taken), though many of the same buildings are there. The Robert Moses plan ringed downtown Pittsburgh with expressways, as Moses had done with Manhattan, cutting off the people from the rivers. It was an understandable adaptation: if there must be expressways, the riverfronts made space for them without knocking down a lot of buildings. But it took us decades to begin to reclaim the shores with a system of parks and bicycle trails.
From The Pittsburgh Bicentennial in 1958, an advertisement for Alcoa aluminum as the new wonder material in construction. All these buildings are still standing, though the Heinz Food Research Center badly needs a rescue.
From Closing Services, First Methodist Protestant Church, Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, some engravings of the old downtown church on Fifth Avenue, built in 1832. It was a sad day, of course, when the congregation moved out in 1892, but the consolation was that they were moving into a grand new Romanesque church designed for them by Frederick Osterling (still standing today as the Korean Central Church of Pittsburgh). They were probably also taking a pile of money for their church: the Kaufmann Brothers had leased the land on which the church stood, and soon a huge addition to their department store would rise there.
The First M. P. congregation had succumbed to the forces that were changing Pittsburgh from a dense medium-sized city to an urban colossus. The “Introductory Note” to the commemorative book explains the circumstances very well.
That those who worshipped together in the old church were strongly attached to it was a matter of course, and when at the close of the last service in it, Sabbath evening, May 15, the large congregation slowly retired, many went away with heavy hearts, sorrowing most of all because they should enter their old church home no more. If it is asked why did the church dispose of its home the answer is: The inexorable logic of events so decreed.
When the church was built probably no better location could have been found. It was then almost in the centre of the city and was easily reached from every point in the town. The population was held within a comparatively small territory, but as the city grew the need for business property became more and more urgent, and consequently the people were gradually forced away from their homes in the business sections of the city and scattered into surrounding suburbs. Many of the churches located in what was Pittsburgh sixty years ago have found in these later years their membership steadily and inevitably diminishing in number, and the difficulty in recruiting their ranks has increased with almost every passing year; and the explanation of both facts is the plain one: That the people have moved away and built other churches convenient to their homes.
So the church was abandoned to the inexorable march of commerce—but the land was not. For many years thereafter, Kaufmann’s, the Big Store, stood partly on land that was owned by and paying good money to the First Methodist Protestant Church, now in the tony suburb of Shadyside.
From the Sangamon Valley Collection, published at SangamonLink. These cards were sold in a local restaurant when Schrader set up shop in Springfield, Illinois.
On a blustery day in March of 1897, a bearded man in a robe rolled up on a bicycle and set up shop in the Masonic Hall in Dutchtown. Although no advance publicity had heralded his arrival, he was nevertheless recognized at once, and crowds started to gather around him. This was Schrader, the Divine Healer. And if you ask how he was recognized at once, it probably helped that he wore a bright sash across his chest with the words “DIVINE HEALER SCHRADER” printed in big letters.
Although his arrival was unheralded, the wire services had been playing John the Baptist for him for more than a year. Everywhere he went, Schrader was news. He attracted crowds; and the more news he generated, the larger the crowds; and the larger the crowds, the more news he generated.
And so we will allow the Press reporter to take it from here, and old Pa Pitt will return afterward to wrap up the story.
SCHRADER THE HEALER
BIKED INTO ALLEGHENY TO PRACTICE ON THE PUBLIC.
HIS COSTUME AND LOOKS.
He Gives an Illustration of His Alleged Miraculous Powers—Clergymen Opposed to His Methods and Describe His Subjects as Weak-Minded and Impressible.
Schrader, “the divine healer” from the west, arrived in Allegheny yesterday and this morning opened a mission for the healing of the sick and the lame, in the barroom of Masonic hall on Washington street. His coming was unheralded and the divine healer slipped in from Parkersburg on a bicycle.
The opening of the mission is being met by an avalanche of opposition from the North Side ministers. Schrader has been denounced as a fraud and an imposter by Rev. W. J. Robinson, of the First United Presbyterian church on Union avenue. In addition to the denu[n]ciation Assistant Superintendent Glenn, of the Allegheny police department, has ordered a watch kept on the alleged apostle’s movements, and Detective P. M. McDonough was this morning sent to investigate Schrader and the character of his meetings.
Schrader is a remarkable man. Personally he bears all the earmarks of being a sharp fakir, and is almost repulsive to look upon. His mouth is large and sensual, the forehead blotched and the nose and eye unattractive. These defects in his personal beauty are covered by a beard and long, curling hair, worn after the style of the old-time master’s conception of the Holy One. His clothes are old and worn, but over these he wears a long robe of cheap material and a cheap red sash.
In spite of the inclemency of the weather this morning, there were a number of people present when Schrader arrived at Masonic hall. He did not wait for any preliminaries, but started to work at once in his muddy shoes and bedraggled clothes.
His first subject was J. F. McBride, of 7 Monitor street. McBride is a believer in spiritualism, and for years has been a sufferer from nervous troubles. Schrader laid his hands on his head, and after shaking his brow gently, made the sign of the cross upon his breast. McBride’s handkerchief was then taken and blest, after which the stamp bearing the words “Schrader, the Devine Healer” was put upon it. McBride is an educated man, and thoroughly versed in hypnotism. He claims that there is no hypnotic influence excited by Schrader, but there is an undefinable feeling during the period the hands were left on the head. His nervousness entirely disappeared. Others were not so fortunate and left the room without receiving any relief.
Schrader, who is but 25 years old, said to a Press reporter this morning that he would remain in Allegheny for several weeks. It is his intention to hold meetings dally, but a sufficient number of people were not present to-day. He claims that since he was 13 years of age he has been practicing faith cure. He has been through the entire west, but unlike Balaam, who in Biblical times rode about on an ass, Schrader rides a bicycle. During his visit to Mexico he practiced the deception that he was Christ, and, according to his own story, was besieged by thousands, among whom he performed many cures.
In Allegheny his work will not be confined to his mission in the room, which has been the scene of many disgraceful orgies, but he will visit houses of the sick. His first public appearance was in 1895. From that time he has created a profound sensation in all parts of the west. He finally suddenly disappeared, and when he turned up in Denver he claimed he had fasted for 40 days on the Holy Cross mountain. Last spring Schrader came east and wandered through the south until he reached Galveston, Tex. He also spent considerable time at Chattanooga and Lexington. At the latter place he held services in the united brotherho[o]d church. He is accompanied in his wanderings by one man, who claims to be a believer. Schrader claims to have come to Allegheny at divine dictation.
Rev. W. J. Robinson, when seen by a Press reporter this morning, said: my mind Schrader is a most pronounced fraud. From the accounts the newspapers have published of his wandering, he is undoubtedly a man who has lost all moral sense of right and should be ostracized from a religious community. Every indication points to the fact that the man is a fraud. He claims to be gifted with the spirit of God. This alone should condemn him in the eyes of right thinking people. In addition to the fact his alleged cures are performed upon people who are nervous and physically weak and who are liable to great excitement.”
Rev. Robinson is not alone in his stand against Schrader, but a number of other ministers are indignant that such actions should be tolerated by the police. In defense of the position in which the police department is placed Assistant Superintendent Glenn said that as long as Schrader did not charge for his services or hold disorderly gatherings, he could not interfere. He ordered Schrader watched, however.
And now old Pa Pitt will wrap up with just a few more words. It seems as though Schrader’s visit to Allegheny followed the usual pattern. You may have noticed that a hall was prepared for him—the old German Masonic Hall at the intersection of Washington Street (now Pressley) and Madison Avenue, a location that is now under a pile of expressway spaghetti. Someone had planned the visit in advance. An article at the SangamonLink site describes Schrader’s visit to Springfield, Illinois, in 1896. It includes that card reproduced above. According to that article, Schrader was sponsored by local businessmen and railroads, who found it profitable to exploit the crowds he drew. The article is entertaining reading, so Father Pitt will send you there instead of filling in the details here. Another article at a Pittsfield news site tells us more about Schrader’s background.
Schrader continued in the faith-healing business for some years longer. Did he believe in his own divinity? It’s possible, but people who knew him before he became divine remembered him as a con man. In later years he grew more openly mercenary. He sold those divinely blessed handkerchiefs, the ones stamped with his name that he was already handing out in Allegheny, through the mail—a poor decision, because mail fraud was a federal crime. He was indicted, but died of natural causes while awaiting trial.
This picture from The Builder, April, 1919, p. 28, shows the Painter Dunn Company building—identified as an Overland service station (it later moved up to Pierce-Arrow)—as it was built. The architects were the Hunting Davis Company, architects and engineers who specialized in industrial buildings. Later a third floor was added—probably supervised by the same architects, since it is as well integrated as it could be with the design of the original building, and Hunting Davis remained, through various exchanges of partners, one of Pittsburgh’s leading industrial architectural firms for decades.
The building is on Centre Avenue opposite Millvale Avenue, and after years of neglect it was beautifully refurbished for another century of use.
This photograph of the Great Soho Curve, a maintenance nightmare for the cable cars that very briefly made up Pittsburgh’s transit system, was taken in 1893. It appears to have been taken from the roof of a house about where the ramp from Fifth Avenue to the Boulevard of the Allies is today. Fifth Avenue still makes this double curve, though the street is one-way inbound now, and the cable cars are gone.
This picture tells the story of why we don’t have cable cars anymore. Pittsburgh streets have curves, and curves are bad for cable cars. In this picture, the entire curve is lined with cable access points about every six feet, and the picture shows cars stopped while men are fussing with one of the cables. In San Francisco, the one city where cable-car lines are still in service, the lines are all perfectly straight, except for turns at intersections. When electric traction came along, it was obviously more suitable for Pittsburgh—except where hills were prohibitively steep, and for those places we have inclines, which are a kind of cable car permanently attached to the cable.
That fairy castle on the hill at upper left is the Ursuline Young Ladies’ Academy, designed by Joseph Stillburg. It has long since been replaced by more mundane buildings at Carlow University, but this picture shows the impression it must have made as you rode the cable car out from downtown toward Oakland.
This article is a first attempt at a history of the Mercantile Library, and it is doubtless riddled with errors and misapprehensions. It is the product of two afternoons of obsessively trawling the depths of old newspapers, and Father Pitt will correct and improve it as better information comes in.
On June 2, 1845, the Pittsburgh Gazette ran this little item:
☛Thomas H. Perkins of Boston has presented $2500 to the Mercantile Library Association of that city. We wish some of the rich men about Pittsburgh would take it into their head to give a handsome sum toward a Library Association of that kind in this city.
It is possible that a movement was already afoot when the unknowing editor wrote those words, because only two years later we find officers being elected for a Young Men’s Mercantile Library Association and Mechanic’s Institute (Pittsburgh Gazette, July 31, 1847, p. 2). On September 20, 1847, we find an advertisement in the Post that “The Young Men’s Mercantile Library and Mechanic’s Institute is open to subscribers from this date. ☛Hall in Gazzam’s Buildings opposite Philo Hall.”
At this point you may be wondering why the name Carnegie is stuck in your mind as the founder of public libraries in Pittsburgh. The answer is in those little words “open to subscribers.”
In the early and middle 1800s, big cities had circulating libraries open to the public, but most of them were subscription services. You had to pay for the privilege of checking out books. Thus, even though the library was ostensibly aimed at the education of young men, there was a barrier to entry. Andrew Carnegie remembered the charity of Col. Anderson in Manchester, who had a large library and opened it for free to working boys on Saturday afternoons, meaning that even the poorest could educate themselves if they were motivated. There is a reason “FREE TO THE PEOPLE” is engraved over the entrance to the main Carnegie Library in Oakland: that was Carnegie’s great ideal.
Still, a public library was a good thing to have in a growing city, even if you had to pay for a subscription. It was consistently difficult to keep that subscription money coming in, though; reports from the directors usually showed about a quarter of the subscribers in arrears. Nor was there ever a very large number of subscribers; the numbers, as far as old Pa Pitt can determine, never went much above 500. A report in 1852, for example, showed 305 subscribers, including 10 life members.
From the start, “lectures of a popular and scientific character”—one of the primary forms of intellectual entertainment in Victorian times—were an important part of the program at the Mercantile Library. The admission charge was supposed to help pay for the library establishment, but even with a program of popular and talented lecturers, it was hard to fill the seats. In that same 1852 report, the directors took the opportunity to chastise the taste of the public.
The Board of Directors do not like to complain, but it some times happens, when complaint is made, that the proper remedy is provided and a cure effected.
They therefore state—yet with regret and mortification—that in this city, noted for the enterprise and industry of its citizens, lectures got up for their gratification and improvement, the proceeds arising from them, to be applied to an object so praiseworthy as a public library, have not been fully sustained, whilst thousands of dollars are annually taken from their pockets to line those of strolling musicians, and mountebanks of every grade. The fact is bad enough, and we forbear comment on the subject.
Buried in this item, by the way, is a priceless glimpse of the lively Pittsburgh street life in the 1850s.
After the Civil War, there was a general sense of unbounded prosperity in Pittsburgh, and in 1868 the ambitious directors of the Mercantile Library Association undertook to give the Mercantile Library a magnificent new home—the building you see at the head of the article. From a report of the directors published in January of 1869:
“The plans for the building submitted by the architect, (Leopold Eidlitz, of New York) were adopted by the Board of Managers in May last, and Messrs. Barr & Moser of this city, were appointed superintending architects…”
Leopold Eidlitz was one of the most important American architects of the middle 1800s. Among other projects, he had designed P. T. Barnum’s eccentric Orientalist mansion Iranistan (which burned nine years after it was built). Barr & Moser were probably the most important Pittsburgh architects at the time; among their surviving works are the Armstrong County Courthouse in Kittanning and Old Main at Pennsylvania Western University, California.
The building was expected to cost $175,000—a prodigious sum in those days. To put it in perspective, the same report of the directors tells us that “the receipts for the past year, including $201.78 balance in Treasury, January 1st, 1868, were $4,608.21.” However, wealthy investors were persuaded to put up the money, and the building went up. The 1869 report contained a long description of the building as it was expected to be constructed, which you can find at the bottom of this article.
In order to separate the business of the building from the business of the library, a separate company called the Mercantile Library Hall Company was chartered to take charge of the building. The investors who financed it were financing this company on the expectation of getting a good return on their investment. Once those investments had been paid off, the building would become the property of the Library Association.
The profit was expected to come from rentals. The library would occupy the second floor; the ground floor would include storefronts and a magnificent auditorium. “It will be constructed upon the plan of a theatre, with a single gallery and will seat comfortably about 1,400 persons.” (For comparison, the Byham Theater today has a seating capacity of 1300.) This auditorium could be rented for a theater when it was not in use as a lecture hall, and an 1883 guide (from which the picture of the hall was taken) describes the building as “Library Hall, frequently called Penn Avenue Theatre.” By the late 1880s the theater was known as the Bijou.
Program from 1888 (a performance of The Jilt with Dion Boucicault), one of several at Historic Pittsburgh.
An 1890 article in the Dispatch tells us that the Panic of 1873 was very destructive to the fortunes of the Mercantile Library Hall Company. We forget today that the depression of the 1870s used to be called the Great Depression until we had a greater one. It was a bad time to be trying to pay off an extravagant building. Instead of making a profit, the company accumulated debts, and it could not dig itself out of the hole even when better times came. In 1889 the building just escaped a sheriff’s sale, and again in 1890.
Meanwhile, the theater that rented the auditorium was thriving, and its managers had their eye on the building. “As theater managers they have made a record of conducting the most successful and profitable theater yet known in Pittsburg,” says that 1890 article in the Dispatch. The directors of the library fought long legal battles with the theater managers, accusing them of plotting to force the Library Association into bankruptcy and acquire the building.
And at the same time, Andrew Carnegie was plotting the Mercantile Library’s downfall from another direction, although he had nothing against the institution. Construction of the Carnegie Library for Allegheny began in 1886, while the battles over the Mercantile Library were raging. In 1890, while the Mercantile Library was facing a sheriff’s sale, the city was occupied with the question of what to do with the magnificent gift Carnegie proposed to offer for the construction of a public library for Pittsburgh.
Small wonder that, though the Library Hall Company managed to avoid the auction block at the last minute, the stockholders were receptive to offers. In December of 1890, it was announced that the theater managers had purchased a controlling interest in the company. They had acquired the building.
In theory the Library Hall Company was still obliged to turn the building over to the Pittsburgh Library Association (as it was renamed at some point) when the investors had been repaid. In practice, that was never going to happen. The Association quivered on the brink of dissolution for several years, and in 1899 it moved out of the building. Rescued by the generosity of a rich resident of the up-and-coming borough of Knoxville, the books were moved to the Knoxville Public School, and in May of 1899 a gala opening was held for the new location.
After that Father Pitt has lost track of the library for now. It was still going in 1910, when it was mentioned among the area’s many public libraries as “the Mercantile Library upon the South Hills, rich in Shakespeareana.” But the fact that, on this list, it came after the main Carnegie Library, all the branches, and the Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny shows that the old Mercantile Library had sunk into at best local relevance for the Hilltop neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, the theater in old Library Hall flourished for many more years as the Bijou, and then in a larger building on the same spot as the Lyceum. Most of its patrons probably forgot or never knew that a library had once been there.
The building will occupy a ground space of 120 feet front on Penn street by 160 feet deep along Barker’s alley. Its architectural style is Byzantine, with a Manzard roof. The front will be of dressed stone, the sides and rear of brick, with stone dressings. The town story will be divided into six compartments. That which is nearest to St. Clair street [Sixth Street today] will be occupied for the main entrance and staircase to the Library and auditorium. That on the east side will be arranged for a confectionary and restaurant for ladies and gentlemen, and the four intermediate, will be handsome store rooms extending back the entire depth of the building. At the northwest and north east corners will be additional staircases leading from the auditorium.
On the first floor (or second as we are accustomed to call it [that is, the floor above the ground floor]) in front will be the accommodations for the Library. The Library hall will be one hundred feet by forty, and forty-six feet high, with a gallery surrounding it at seventeen feet above the floor, the gallery to be ten feet wide and to have a handsome cast iron railing. It will be reached by ornamental iron staircases.
At the west end of the hall is a special reading room for ladies, forty by eighteen feet two inches, Including small dressing apartment. Over this room, and accessible from the galleries, is a room of corresponding size for gentlemen.
In the rear of the east end is the Librarians room 54 feet 4 inches by 17 feet 2 inches, which ls entered from the main floor and has also a door opening to the delivery room. Over the Librarian’s room is the Directors’ room of the same size, reached from the gallery. Both of these front on Barker’s alley.
Adjoining the north side of the library, and between the last mentioned rooms and the staircase, is the Book Delivery room, 79 feet by 84 feet four inches, which it is proposed shall be used also as the newspaper reading and for conversation. It will be lighted by skylights, and a part of the floor will be of slate glass, so as to convey additional light to the stores below.
In the rear of these apartments will be the Auditorium, 116 feet by 78, inches, [sic] inclusive of stage and foyer. It will be constructed upon the plan of a theatre, with a single gallery and will seat comfortably about 1,400 persons. The seats and all the arrangements of the hall are proposed to be of the most approved kind.
On the third or upper story, immediately over the auditorium, is a space 118 feet long by 68 feet wide and 17 feet high, which can be divided as may seem best for the uses to which it may be devoted, A portion of it will be required for a small hall for the ordinary meetings of the association, and it has been suggested that the north half of this space, or a part of it, would be admirably adapted to the requirements of the Academy of Design.
In the front part of the building, over the library, is a room 116 feet long by 40 feet wide, and 16½ feet high, which at some future time will be needed in connection with the library, but which until then may be devoted to other uses. It would make a very good gallery for the exhibition of pictures. By introducing the light from above (a modification easily made,) it would be particularly well suited for that purpose. The objection to a location on the upper story, which would be of force in other cities, would be more than counterbalanced in our dark atmosphere by the advantage of being free from any other obstruction to the light.
This building was probably put up shortly after the Great Fire of 1845, to judge from the fact that it appears in an engraving of the Diamond as it was before 1852. Few buildings from before the Civil War are left downtown, and this is almost certainly the largest.
The building in the engraving is not quite the right dimensions, but the engraver (at the firm of John C. Bragdon, Pittsburgh’s busiest engravers) was probably working from hasty sketches.
Note the volutes and incised decorations in the lintels over the windows, bringing the building up to date with the latest trends in Greek Revival style.
The front of this house in Mission Hills has changed very little since it was new. It was sold in 1930, probably when it was newly built, and the Sun-Telly printed its picture.
“Mission Hills Home,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, June 1, 1930, p. 48
Forgive the blurry microfilm reproduction of what was already a photograph reproduced in halftone on cheap newsprint; it is enough to show us that, except for the filled-in side porch, not much is different in front, although the tiny sapling in the newspaper picture is a major tree now. There appears to be an addition in the back, where it does not alter the impression the house makes from the street.
Pittsburghers know it as the Gimbels Building, because for most of the twentieth century it was the home of the Gimbels department store in Pittsburgh. But it was built for the Kaufmann & Baer Company, which Gimbels bought out a few years later.
In November of 1913, this colossal department store was still going up. But in the front of the directory that went to every telephone subscriber in Pittsburgh was this beautifully executed rendering, part of a full-page ad to build up enthusiasm for the store’s opening in the spring of 1914. The architects were Starrett & Van Vleck, specialists in department stores; the drawing is signed with a name that Father Pitt could not read, but he is fairly certain it was neither Starrett nor Van Vleck. Probably it was a draftsman in their office, and in old Pa Pitt’s opinion they could not have paid that employee enough. It’s a first-rate piece of work.
“The vast new building of the Kaufmann & Baer Company,” said the advertisement, “having a floor area of about 800,000 square feet (nearly 20 acres), will be opened for business in the Spring 1914. It will be not only the BIGGEST, but also the BEST and MOST MODERN shopping center in the city of Pittsburgh. Its stocks will be the largest and most varied; its prices, the lowest. It will be the store for ALL THE PEOPLE.”
It would not be possible to get a photograph from the same angle, either in 1913 or today, without picking up the Oliver Building and setting it aside somewhere. The closest old Pa Pitt could come to replicating the angle of the drawing with a photograph from his collection was this:
The Kaufmanns in the name, by the way, were a different branch of the same Kaufmann family that owned that other department store a block away.
