The Cathedral of Leaning in Oakland,through one of the windows of the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Galleries in the Carnegie Museum of Art.
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Center for Sustainable Landscapes at Phipps
Phipps Conservatory’s new Center for Sustainable Landscapes will be open soon. Here we see part of it against a late-September sunset.
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Pittsburgh in 1816
The English reformer William Cobbett published the journal of his friend Thomas Hulme, who visited the western parts of the United States in 1816. Mr. Hulme began, of course, in Pittsburgh, the gateway to the West, and on June 4 and 5 took a tour of the city.
Took a view of Pittsburgh. It is situated between the mouths of the rivers Allegany and Monongahela, at the point where they meet and begin the Ohio, and is laid out in a triangular form, so that two sides of it lie contiguous to the water. Called upon Mr. Bakewell, to whom we were introduced by letter, and who very obligingly satisfied our curiosity to see every thing of importance. After showing us through his extensive and well conducted glass works, he rowed us across the Monongahela to see the mines from which the fine coals we had seen burning were brought. These coals are taken out from the side of a steep hill, very near to the river, and brought from thence and laid down in any part of the town for 7 cents the bushel, weighing, perhaps, 80 lbs. Better coals I never saw. A bridge is now building over the river, by which they will most probably be brought still cheaper.
This place surpasses even my expectations, both in natural resources and in extent of manufactures. Here are the materials for every species of manufacture, nearly, and of excellent quality and in profusion; and these means have been taken advantage of by skilful and industrious artizans and mechanics from all parts of the world. There is scarcely a denomination of manufacture or manual profession that is not carried on to a great extent, and, as far as I have been able to examine, in the best manner. The manufacture of iron in all the different branches, and the mills of all sorts, which I examined with the most attention, are admirable.
Price of flour, from 4 to 5 dollars a barrel; butter 14 cents per lb.; other provisions in proportion and mechanic’s and good labourer’s wages 1 dollar, and ship-builder’s 1 dollar and a half, a day.
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Mellon Institute
Old Pa Pitt has mentioned before that the columns surrounding the Mellon Institute in Oakland are supposedly the tallest monolithic columns in the world. But how big are they? For perspective, here is a woman sitting in front of them and talking on a cell phone. Can you spot her? Click on the picture to make it much bigger.
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Modern Chivalry, by Hugh Henry Brackenridge
The first “Great American Novel” came, not from Boston, or from Philadelphia, or from New York, but from Pittsburgh, where Hugh Henry Brackenridge published the first part of his Modern Chivalry in 1792.
Yes, we have a literary tradition 220 years old, and when it comes to the Great American Novel we have Boston, Philadelphia, and New York beat. From the ordinary reader’s point of view, it’s a rambling shaggy-dog tale that goes nowhere and has a great deal of enormously clever fun getting there. From the historian’s point of view, it’s an unrivaled view of life as it was lived in western Pennsylvania in the early years of the Republic.
Brackenridge kept adding to his book until at least 1815, and made numerous corrections throughout his life. This first posthumous edition is thus probably the closest to what he intended the thing to be, although in spite of its the printer’s “great pains to expunge” the mistakes of previous editions, this one has more than its share of errors.
Modern Chivalry: Containing the Adventures of a Captain and Teague O’Regan, His Servant. By H. H. Brackenridge, late a Judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh, 1819.
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Billy Baxter’s Letters
In the late nineteenth century Pittsburgh had a thriving publishing industry, nourishing some writers who would make names in the world. Mr. William J. Kountz, Jr., might well have become one of America’s most popular humorists, except that he died at the age of not quite thirty-two, having written only enough to fill a little book of less than a hundred pages.
But that little book of Billy Baxter’s Letters went everywhere. It was distributed as a promotion by the Duquesne Distributing Company of Harmarville, a maker of liver tonics, or what Pittsburghers today would call “pop.” Father Pitt himself has two copies, and Project Gutenberg has helpfully digitized the book here:
Billy Baxter’s Letters (Project Gutenberg)
A good scanned copy of the book can also be found at Google Books:
Billy Baxter’s Letters (Google Books)
The sketches are in the form of letters from “Billy Baxter” of Pittsburg (so spelled in those days) to his friend Jim. Mr. Baxter writes about the ordinary things that might happen to a Pittsburgh gentleman of 1899, such as getting drunk and spending a good deal of money:
Yesterday at 2:30 I had a hundred and ten dollars; this morning I’m there with a dollar eighty, and that’s the draw out of a two-dollar touch. If there is any truth in the old saying that money talks, I am certainly deaf and dumb to-day. Besides I have a card in my pocket which says I’ve opened up a running account of thirty-two forty at George’s place. I wonder if this George is on the level, because I’ll swear I don’t think I was in there at all. I’ll bet he stuck the forty on anyway. You know me, Jim; I am one of those bright people who tries to keep up with a lot of guys who have nothing to do but blow their coin. I stood around yesterday and looked wise, and licked up about four high-balls; then I kind of stretched. Whenever I give one of those little stretches and swell up a bit that’s a sign I am commencing to get wealthy. I switched over and took a couple of gin fizzes, and then it hit me I was richer than Jay Gould ever was; I had the Rothschilds backed clear off the board; and I made William H. Vanderbilt look like a hundred-to-one shot. You understand, Jim, this was yesterday.
Looking at the Google Books version, Father Pitt turned up a strange anomaly. Several good illustrations are included in the book, all in the same style. Here’s one:
This is from the Google Books copy. Father Pitt’s copy has this illustration:
Why a new illustration? All the others are the same in both editions. In fact the only other difference is that Father Pitt’s copy has a letter, missing in the Google Books copy , from Admiral Dewey, thanking the publishers for the book, along with this notice:
We also sent a copy to His Royal Highness, Albert, Prince of Wales, and, having heard nothing from him, it now looks as though Al were going to snub us. Under the circumstances, when he runs for King we can’t be for him.
The change in illustrations is a mystery; both are good, and there was no reason to abandon one for the other. The only explanation Father Pitt can come up with is that perhaps the original plate was damaged, and the original artist was not available to replace it.
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Sidewalks of Allegheny West
It may be that old Pa Pitt will offend every resident of every other street in Pittsburgh by saying so, but he believes that Beech Avenue in Allegheny West is the most beautiful residential street in the city.
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Stained Glass in the Union Dale Cemetery
This gorgeous Pre-Raphaelite window is at the back of the George J. Schmitt mausoleum in the Union Dale Cemetery, where the rich and influential of Allegheny City went to slumber in eternal style. Its Grail imagery seems to combine two forms of the Grail legend (the Grail as cup of the Last Supper and the grail as mystical jewel). The legend below reads, “Unto thee O Lord do I lift up my soul.”
Anyone worth knowing in the Union Dale cemetery has stained glass in his mausoleum. In fact, for a while in the early 1900s, it was fashionable to have a portrait of the deceased rendered in glass.
Here, for example, is Mr. William H. Walker (1841-1904), who was apparently a proud Shriner. His portrait has deteriorated a little, but not so much that you would not recognize him at once if you met him in the street.
Mr. William H.Teets (1845-1906; perhaps stained-glass portraits were offered only to men named William H.) has also deteriorated a little, but the portrait is still lifelike enough that you can almost feel the macassar oil.
Cherubs and lilies adorn the mausoleum of the McLain family. The cherubs’ faces seem to be executed with a degree of skill that the rest of the composition lacks; perhaps they were ordered from a catalogue.
The Enlow-Schwer mausoleum, built in the late 1930s, affects a more abstract symbolism.
Finally, a Good Shepherd window, which could probably be ordered in standard sizes from national dealers, adorns the Short mausoleum.
There are some who would question the wisdom, or the taste, of building an extravagant monument to the memory of the deceased. Father Pitt would like to suggest, however, that money laid out on art that is still giving us pleasure after a century is hardly misspent.
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What Mr. Carnegie Did for You
The name “Carnegie” is everywhere in Pittsburgh: four museums, libraries everywhere, a great university, among other things. Just how much did Andrew Carnegie spend on gifts to the people of Pittsburgh? A 1915 guide to the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon) tallies it up:
It sounds like quite a bit of money. But how much was that worth in 1915? The same guide gives us an interesting point of comparison:
