Customer Reviews

Eliza: Remembering a Pittsburgh Steel Mill

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Now gone, the Eliza furnaces of Jones and Laughlin once had a place on the Pittsburgh skyline. Prior to, and including their demolition, Mark Perrott snuck through the fences to record these pictures, which are some of the finest industrial photographs published in a long time. Some of the most moving photograph show the areas where men and women worked, and how ghostly those areas are when the workers have gone. In some photos, it looks almost like some sort of biological weapon or neutron bomb has killed off the workers; everything looks as though they just walked away, and the mill awaits their presence. But of course, they would never return, as the mill was turned into scrap, and probably fed into another company's steelmaking furnaces. Interspersed with interviews of some Eliza workers, this short book has a hard impact, showing the end of a mighty industry. Well worth it.

Interesting. I worked for two summers during college (1964 & 1965) at the Eliza Blast Furnaces. I thought the book would have more photos of the mill when it was working. My grandchildren think it's pretty cool that I worked in a steel mill but this book doesn't quite tell the story of the slag or the 2000+ degree iron that came out of the six furnaces. But overall it was an interesting read down memory lane.