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Contents
20th Century Context: Cramped Spaces and a Smoky City
An Alternative Framing
Eventually, the efforts of Pittsburgh’s early 20th century elites to bolster civic pride fell short and declined. However, when the Westinghouse Memorial was commissioned in 1926, the endeavor was still very much alive. The memorial, situated within this broader rhetorical project, could have leveraged its power as a natural memory place to make specific appeals for how Pittsburgh’s residents should understand themselves and their city. As we have seen, at the time of the Westinghouse Memorial’s commissioning, Pittsburgh’s business elites were experimenting with several ways to align the city more strongly with the progress and flourishing sides of the “Workshop of the World” narrative whereby Pittsburgh was conceived as spearheading the charge towards global advancement. According to Penna:
A logical implication in its claim to supremacy was that Pittsburgh had a two-fold mission-first "the conquest of nature by intelligent energy, . . ." and secondly, the production of "materials which add to the activity, comfort and happiness of millions of people ..... As a center of iron and steel, the city became a powerful, prosperous source for uplifting underdeveloped areas of the world. (52)
Powerful industrial figures such as George Westinghouse were embodiments of this “Workshop of the World” ethos, and therefore discourse surrounding such figures necessarily focused on their relation to industrial progress. Because of the power commanded by the image of industry, the city and the country sought to align themselves closely with a personage such as Westinghouse. Indeed, the Westinghouse Memorial’s unveiling in 1930 drew huge crowds, as well as the attendance and comments of several powerful political figures. Many made public statements about Westinghouse and the memorial which affirmed the importance of Pittsburgh's image as a city committed to the advancement of industry and humanity. Andrew Mellon, the Treasury Secretary, sent a statement to be read at the memorial which honored Westinghouse’s “contributions to the advancement of civilization,” (“The Memorial Story”). Former president Calvin Coolidge hailed Westinghouse as “one of the great benefactors of mankind” (“The Memorial Story”). The keynote speaker at the ceremony, James Frances Burke, claimed that Westinghouse “brightened the pathway and lightened the burden of God's children as they toiled” (“The Memorial Story”). In the early 20th century, George Westinghouse, and by extension Pittsburgh, was spearheading civilization’s progression from “toiling” and hardship to a new and brighter future characterized by industrial prosperity and human triumph. The Westinghouse Memorial, by memorializing Westinghouse in this way, espoused this image of Pittsburgh, both to residents themselves, and to visitors to the city.
Of course, by celebrating any one of its individual captains of industry, Pittsburgh was marking itself as part of an enduring and proud industrial tradition, one which would resonate with the city’s elites and the rest of the nation. However, as we have seen, many attempts to foster a similarly favorable view of the city and its industry among Pittsburgh’s industrial workers did not resonate in the same way. The feeling between employers and their workers at the time was often not one of affiliation but antagonism. Celebrating one such elite employer simply highlighted the separation between the workers and their city. But memorializing George Westinghouse in particular might have been different. George Westinghouse was a man who inspired love in his workers where many of his peers did not. Westinghouse had famously good relations with all his employees, skilled and unskilled laborers alike. Notably, unlike many other companies, the Westinghouse Air Brake Company never experienced a general strike (Miller 47). In fact, in the words of Samuel Gompers, the founder and president of the American Federation of Labor “I will say this for George Westinghouse. If all employers of men treated their employees with the same consideration he does, the American Federation of Labor would have to go out of existence” (qtd. in Miller 49). With Westinghouse, the boundary between employer and worker was not as starkly drawn. A skilled mechanic himself, Westinghouse would often spend time in the shop with his workers (Miller 47), who he related to with “man-to-man comradeship and good feeling…” (Prout 287). Westinghouse also took special interest in the welfare of his workers, setting himself apart from other employers by going out of his way to provide for their needs: from implementing a generous pension system and Saturday half-holiday (Prout 209, 295), to sponsoring updated and safe sewage, water, and recreational facilities in their town (Miller 48). At a conference commemorating what would have been Westinghouse’s 90th birthday in 1936, Thomas Campbell, a Westinghouse mechanic, remembered joining the company because “a man was considered lucky to get a job with the Westinghouse Company” (Campbell 19). In fact, Campbell has special significance when it comes to memorializing his beloved employer: “When they designed the Westinghouse Memorial in Schenley Park, I was the model to represent the mechanic; I hold a hammer and am proud of it. Since I retired, I have been receiving a monthly pension and am living comfortably with my son” (Campbell 20). Campbell is only one of the almost 60,000 Westinghouse employees whose many small contributions constituted the memorial’s funding (Gay and Evert 193). Therefore, when the City Council commissioned the Westinghouse Memorial in 1926, they chose to celebrate a figure beloved by both elites and industrial workers. The Westinghouse Memorial told a story of not just a proud and impressive industrial tradition, but also a kind and fair one: whose spoils are shared by elite and worker alike.
Besides celebrating industry and its captains in order to create a sense of identification with the city, Pittsburgh’s elites were also eager to harness the potential of natural sites such as Schenley Park to create a greater sense of community. Pittsburgh’s city park system began with Pittsburgh native Mary Schenley’s donation of 300 acres of land to the city in 1889 (Frick Fine Arts Library 1). The creation of the park system was inspired by the American park movement, begun in 1850 with the creation of Central Park in New York City (Frick Fine Arts Library 1). The undertaking, influenced by the European Romantic and American transcendentalist movements grew as a response to rapid industrial growth and social inequalities, as well as to the same cramped and unsanitary conditions that were by no means unique to Pittsburgh at the time. Conceptualized as escapes from the city, American urban parks of this era were constructed according to anti-urban ideals (Cranz 3), with their harmony, serenity, and seclusion serving as “a visual antithesis to gridded streets and rectangular houses” (Cranz 8). They were intended as relief for the city-dweller, who was to find respite in the contemplation of nature. Indeed, most notable park designers at the time tried to limit visitor’s encounters with anything that seemed man-made. In their designs, they often chose to hide park buildings behind trees (Cranz 46), and condemned the use of statuary such as memorials which “reminded the viewer of men’s handiwork, not nature’s (Cranz 55). To the chagrin of many such designers however, several cities insisted on the inclusion of statues in their commissioned parks (Cranz 56), believing in their power to foster civic pride (Frick Fine Arts Library 1). Indeed, as discussed in the previous section by Pittsburgh Survey writer Robert Woods, at the turn of the century, Pittsburgh saw great potential for Schenley Park and the surrounding civic center to create pride and identity among its alienated and indifferent residents. The Westinghouse Memorial, commissioned in 1926, was the city’s man-made addition to the wilderness escape of Schenley Park.
Even while it was in part defined by the natural beauty of its immediate surroundings, the materiality of the memorial was still connected to the built environment of the city. “The bronze of the memorial creates a striking visual contrast between the verdant pastoral setting and helps to establish a person-made sense of place” (“Historic Landmark Nomination Addendum” 14). This “person-made sense of place” within a natural space served as a cautious connection between nature and the built environment and therefore also between beauty and industry. This unconventional framing of industry invited residents to associate it with significance beyond the cramped living spaces and grueling hours that characterized their lives. But the memorial’s materiality is significant beyond creating a distinctively man-made sense of place. The bronze of the memorial also pointed to Pittsburgh’s industrial prowess through its interaction with the smoke of the city. As the article “Lily Pond Transformed” from The Carnegie Alumnus explains, the choice of bronze for the sculptures was “resorted to so as to permanently give the monument an interesting surface which will be enhanced by the smoky atmosphere of the city” (10). The bronze was visibly altered by the smoke of industry, making its connection to industry even more impossible to ignore. Even amidst Schenley Park’s relative seclusion from the city, the memorial’s gentle material reminders of connection to the built environment would have created an “intensified experience of existing both inside and outside at the same time” (Zagacki and Gallagher 175) for visitors to the site. The “inside” of the memorial could therefore transform the negative image of Pittsburgh’s smoky conditions (the outside) by incorporating them into the beauty of the space. The Westinghouse Memorial, by combining “Workshop” appeals with natural ones, served as a quiet reminder of the friendliness of industry for the serene and content visitors to the site.
There are notable points of overlap between late 20th century notions of nature’s ability to counter the consequences of rapid industrialization and a bioregional conceptualization of the ability of a bioregion to transform the industrial consciousness. On a bioregional reading, in tandem with the city’s rapid industrialization was a rapid loss of place for Pittsburghers who were becoming alienated from their natural environment. Bioregional scholars would assert that this alienation, as a symptom of the industrial consciousness, was an important contributor to the lack of civic pride that The Pittsburgh Survey had revealed in 1914. When Pittsburgh industrialized, its citizens no longer felt connected to their environment which had been transformed “to a mere space...for industrial development: a space for ‘growth’” (Iovino 102). In short, bioregional scholars would contend that when industrialization rendered the space of Pittsburgh as homogeneous and interchangeable with other industrialized spaces, residents no longer identified with the unique aspects of the land, manifesting in a loss of civic consciousness and pride. Indeed, the particularities and uniqueness of the natural world were rendered subservient to the impressive power of industry in much of the popular discourse surrounding “The Workshop” narrative, which hailed George Westinghouse and other captains of industry for their abilities to “bend the focus of Nature to the practical welfare of the people” (Batt 11). Bioregional scholars would argue that residents of late 19th and early 20th century Pittsburgh viewed their lives and the spaces around them through this goal-oriented and totalizing lens.
Spaces of the industrialized consciousness, to bioregional scholars, are interchangeable, ugly, and inert, while bioregions by contrast are infused with “aesthetic and ethical significance” (Ryan 81), The aesthetic effects of a bioregion come from the beautiful aspects of the natural world, which cause people to appreciate and identify with the land. Bioregional scholars believe that a re-identification with the land entails a transformation of people’s consciousness of it, as they appreciate it for what it is rather than what it can produce. Therefore, on a bioregional reading, any power the Westinghouse Memorial had to recuperate civic pride came from its ability to transform the industrial consciousness. One of the ways it sought to do this, which I will shortly discuss in more detail, was to utilize the natural beauty of its location in combination with a man-made celebration of industry to provide an alternative consciousness of the city’s image, or in bioregional terms “transform the imagination of the space.” In short, placing the memorial in a natural setting gave visitors the space to consider their city from an altered consciousness. In the midst of a secluded and quiet natural setting, Pittsburgh and its industry might not exclusively evoke images of interchangeably and predictably poor living conditions. The memorial would complicate and distinguish the notion of Pittsburgh and its captains of industry, by associating them instead with the unique and harmonious beauty of a natural setting.
On a bioregional reading, by foregrounding the aesthetic natural features of Schenley Park, the design of the memorial might have provided a mechanism by which “reinhabitation” might occur, allowing residents to combat their sense of placelessness and reaffirm their identification with the spaces around them. The memorial’s placement in a beautiful and secluded area of the park is one of the most important elements of its overall positive effect on observers. In October of 1930, the alumni newsletter of Carnegie Mellon University, which borders Schenley Park, announced the unveiling of the memorial, proclaiming that the lily pond which “has always seemed a part of our Campus, has been made into one of the most interesting and beautiful spots in the City of Pittsburgh” (“Lily Pond Transformed” 10). The natural area, described in the article as “the most charming in Schenley Park” (10), created a distinct sense of place. Such distinctiveness explains the particular power rhetorical scholars have noted that parks in general have to connect the “aesthetic function of scenery directly with the rhetorical function of influencing individual identity in collective ways.” (Zagacki and Gallagher 172). A bioregional scholar might add that this power of nature noted by rhetoricians arises because the way individuals experience themselves and their fellows in the expansive, private, and quiet atmosphere of the natural environment differs from their experience within the cramped, bustling atmosphere of a smoky city, where fellow citizens are just as interchangeable as industrial space. Indeed, in Pittsburgh at the time, the overcrowding was severe, and amounted to what survey writers called a “ruthless destruction of privacy” (Dinwiddie and Crowell 95). In such an environment, it becomes easy to view other people simply as inconveniences and obstacles, rather than as members of a shared humanity. A precisely designed experience of opposite conditions within the park, on the other hand, could relieve some of the pressure of the bioregionalist’s “industrial consciousness”, and transform the individualistic and hyper-local concern identified by The Pittsburgh Survey.
Apart from Schenley Park in general however, the memorial specifically was designed with the hopes of creating a specific aesthetic experience of the natural space. For example, the Carnegie Alumnus article explains how the paths of the monument prescribed very specific views of the memorial: “Its main axis is on the pond, but it will always be approached by the two side paths which lead around the front of the pond to the monument proper (“Lily Pond Transformed” 11). As an example of the effect of this prescription, the Alumnus explains how the statue of “The Spirit of American Youth” “…is approached from the side, and his pose was studied primarily with that in mind” (“Lily Pond Transformed” 11). Limiting the angles and approaches to the monument heightened the feeling of seclusion and separation from the built environment of the city already provided in part by the park more generally. The feeling of seclusion might have reminded “visitors that nature’s solitude is possible even within the confines of urban space, but a space that has been meticulously landscaped to create this experience.” (Zagacki and Gallagher 180). And meticulously landscaped it was. Each element of the monument was “considered of equal artistic importance”:
The building of paths, the setting of granite benches, the profuse planting all help to bring about a complete, artistic, interesting ensemble…To illustrate what it means to accomplish a monument of this character conscientiously, artistically, and perfectly, it has taken three years of concentrated work. The figure of the youth alone occupied Mr. French for a year. The execution in wax of the ornamental portions of the monument required nine months of Mr. Piccirilli’s personal attention. The cutting of the granite, building of foundations and the actual erection of the monument occupied so small a time that it is of no importance to consider. The landscaping took two springs of planting. The willow trees that dominate the pictorial beauty of that location have been carefully preserved, and the spot has been turned into the most luxurious natural spot in Schenley Park (“Lily Pond Transformed” 11)
Each detail of the monument, from the sculptures to the plants were intentionally crafted and placed. Every element of the space intensified the natural appeals of the park by emphasizing seclusion and natural “luxurious” beauty within its design.
The lives of many in Pittsburgh’s working class were dominated by working in dangerous conditions and living in polluted mill towns. The experience of the memorial, on the other hand, was intentionally characterized by tranquility, cleanliness, and harmony. Indeed, both architect Henry Hornbostel2 and sculptor Daniel Chester French3 utilized design principles from the popular Beaux Arts movement of the time in their work, a hallmark of which was its emphasis on creating harmony between several different elements of a piece. To do this, “symmetry, spatial hierarchy, sculpture, and classical detailing were paramount” (“Historic Landmark Nomination Addendum” 9). Such harmony and symmetry would have run counter to Pittsburgh as described by The Pittsburgh Survey, which described contamination and the asymmetry between expectations and realities of the space. For example, when describing Homestead, a mill town, the survey calls attention to the dissonance between the name and experience of the town, saying that the latter gives “a sense of the stress of industry rather than of the old time household cheer which its name suggests” (“Homestead Introduction”). The same section goes on to describe an asymmetry between what the space once was and what it had become, noting that “gray plumes of smoke hang heavily from the stacks of the long, low mill buildings, and noise and effort dominate what once were quiet pasture lands.” For mill workers steeped in the contamination and asymmetry of their homes, the aesthetic harmony of the Beaux Arts movement would have been a welcome change. According to architectural historian Leland Roth, Beaux Arts “was less about following strict architectural guidelines and more about creating an architecture of feeling” (“Historic Landmark Nomination Addendum” 9). In the minds of bioregional scholars, the “feeling,” or affect (to use the vocabulary of rhetorical scholars) created by the Westinghouse Memorial, as an alternative to the feeling/affect created by their homes and places of work, would have encouraged alienated and placeless mill-workers to respond to the space with a renewed feeling of affiliation.
But of course, the memorial’s rhetorical work did not end with the creation of affiliation. According to Dickinson et al., “affiliation, is, by definition, the principal affective modality of public memory.” However, “affect can never define, by itself, why things should matter. That is, unlike ideology and pleasure, it can never provide its own justification, however illusory such justifications may in fact be” (16). In other words, the affiliation created through the peculiar spatial experience of the memorial must have a clear target on which to rest in order to produce a response. For example, bioregional scholars hope that the affiliation people feel for the aesthetic aspects of nature land will be directed towards a conception of the natural world as being inherently valuable, leading to an ethical commitment to sustainable living. The Westinghouse Memorial’s complex symbolism on the other hand, channels the affiliation created by the aesthetic experience of the space towards a particular construction of Pittsburgh’s identity and its industry. Residents might respond by understanding themselves as part of an enduring and proud industrial tradition, united with their fellows by a shared civic pride.
[2] Though esteemed nationwide, Henry Hornbostel was closely and specifically associated with Pittsburgh. He was classically trained in architecture at Columbia University and worked on several projects in different cities, but over half of his work was done in Pittsburgh. As founder of The Carnegie Tech Department of Architecture, he was responsible for a large portion of Pittsburgh’s architectural landscape in the early 20th century, heading several iconic projects including Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in 1907 and Webster Hall hotel in 1926 (Shaw).
[3] Daniel Chester French was one of the foremost American classical sculptors during the early twentieth century. He was well-known and renowned and had worked on several famous sculptures by the time he was commissioned for the Westinghouse Memorial, the most notable of which was the acclaimed Lincoln Memorial. The Spirit of American Youth was one of his last works before his death in 1931 (“Daniel Chester French”).