{"id":40213,"date":"2018-07-03T14:00:56","date_gmt":"2018-07-03T21:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/soulofamerica1.wpengine.com\/?page_id=40213"},"modified":"2020-11-26T16:54:38","modified_gmt":"2020-11-27T00:54:38","slug":"pittsburgh-history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.soulofamerica.com\/us-cities\/pittsburgh\/pittsburgh-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh History"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Freedom

Freedom Corner Memorial, important to the Pittsburgh Civil Rights Movement<\/strong>; (c) Soul Of America<\/p><\/div>\n

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Pittsburgh History<\/h2>\n
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Pittsburgh History is incomplete with an account of the African American community. Black folk came en route to freedom and later in search of economic opportunity. As early as 1750, both French and British forces seeking control of America\u2019s waterways to the west sheltered fugitive slaves. The city was founded in 1758. One of the nation\u2019s first free black communities took hold in Pittsburgh in the aftermath of British victory and its claim of the point of land situated at the confluence of three mighty rivers: Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio. In the years to follow, Pittsburgh became a focal point of the western frontier, moving goods and people into the Mississippi Valley, making it a natural stop on the Underground Railroad.<\/p>\n

The Monongahela and Allegheny river fronts teemed with the flow of commerce, and nowhere was the activity greater than the since demolished Monongahela House. At the time one of the city\u2019s finest hotels and a center of antislavery activity, its staff included 300 free blacks that had daily contact with wealthy Southern businessmen visiting with their entourage of enslaved people. A few blocks away on Third Street, African American businessman John Vashon operated a barbershop and Underground Railroad station.<\/p>\n

Martin Delaney, a writer, scientist, army officer and physician, who founded Pittsburgh\u2019s first African American newspaper, The Mystery<\/em> (1843-1847). Delaney, the first black Major in the U.S. Army and among the first African Americans admitted to Harvard Medical School, was famous for a number of heroic efforts including his fight against Pittsburgh\u2019s cholera epidemic of 1854. Today, visitors can find a historical marker at Third Avenue and Market Street near the site where The Mystery<\/em> was first published.<\/p>\n

A century later jobs in the heavy metal industry made Pittsburgh a key destination for African Americans moving North. The Monongahela River became strategically important as the first titans of American industry used Pittsburgh\u2019s waterways to move raw materials and float the finished product down the Ohio River.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh metro area developed into one of the nation\u2019s leading industrial regions generating many good paying blue-collar jobs. By Civil War end, African American population grew from 1,000 to 20,000, as many began to find employment in the iron, steel, aluminum and glass industries. A limited number of African-Americans were welcome due to the labor shortage caused by European-American males who lost lives or limbs in the Civil War. In only a few years, that welcome became restrictive while opening he door to more European immigrants.<\/p>\n

Cumberland Willis Posey, Sr., the son of a slave, left his family\u2019s farm to apprentice as a steamboat operator. Posey became the first African-American to receive a license as Chief Engineer. After moving to Homestead in 1892, invested his money and expertise in the manufacture of coal boats. He started the Diamond Coke and Coal Company in 1890, the largest African-American owned business in the region, which at its peak employed 1,000 workers. His son, Cumberland Posey, Jr., forever shaped America as owner of the Homestead Grays baseball team. His was clearly the exception, since the unions prevented most African-Americans form moving up in the crafts and limiting the number of African-American men who could work there at all.<\/p>\n

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