Pittsburgh Labor Movement, Then and Now
2024-02-16 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Room 219-B in Langley Hall, Univ. of Pittsburgh campus (171 Tennyson Ave.)
The Staff Union of Pitt and The Battle of Homestead Foundation host a public presentation on “Pittsburgh Labor Movement, Then and Now” by labor historians Dr. Charles McCollester and Dr. Jacqueline Cavalier and USW District 10 Director Bernie Hall.
* FRIDAY Feb. 16, 6-8 p.m. at Room 219-B in Langley Hall, Univ. of Pittsburgh campus (171 Tennyson Ave.) … admission free, light refreshments provided!
* More Information? Contact staffunionofpitt@usw.org

BOOK TALK: "Rust Belt Union Blues" authors Lainey Newman & Theda Skocpol
2024-03-10 14:00 - 16:00 | First Unitarian Church of Pittsbrgh, 605 Morewood Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, United States
JOIN THE Battle of Homestead Foundation for an in-person program “BOOK TALK: Rust Belt Union Blues“ featuring authors LAINEY NEWMAN and THEDA SKOCPOL.
DATE: Sunday, Mar. 10, 2024 from 2:00-4:00 pm
PLACE: First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh, 605 Morewood Ave., Pittsburgh PA 15213
ADMISSION: Free but Eventbrite reservation required – REGISTER HERE

* Rust Belt Union Blues is published by Columbia University Press – get your copy here!

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LAINEY NEWMAN and THEDA SKOCPOL provide timely insight into the relationship between the decline of unions and the shift of working-class voters away from Democrats. Drawing on interviews, union newsletters and ethnographic analysis, they pinpoint the significance of eroding local community ties and identities.
Using western Pennsylvania as a case study, Newman and Skocpol argue that union members’ loyalty to Democratic candidates was as much a product of the group identity that unions fostered as it was a response to the Democratic Party’s economic policies. As the social world around organized labor dissipated, conservative institutions like gun clubs, megachurches and other Republican-leaning groups took its place.
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LAINEY NEWMAN is a J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School. She is a graduate of Harvard College and a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. THEDA SKOCPOL is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University. Her many books include The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism (with Vanessa Williamson); Upending American Politics (coedited with Caroline Tervo); and Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life.
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*** While this program is admission-free, you are welcome to make a monetary donation on the Eventbrite Ticket Page to offset expenses involved in producing our 2024 Program Series. The Battle of Homestead Foundation is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit. ***
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AN EVENING OF WORKING-CLASS POETRY (AND MUSIC)
2024-04-11 19:00 - 21:00 | Pump House, 880 E. Waterfront Drive, Munhall, 15120, United States
CELEBRATING National Poetry Month, the Battle of Homestead Foundation presents 4 Pittsburgh poets & 2 songwriters in AN EVENING OF WORKING-CLASS POETRY (AND MUSIC).
* Thur. April 11, 2024 ~ 7:00-9:00 p.m. Admission-free!
* Live and in-person at The Pump House, 880 E. Waterfront Drive, Munhall PA

FEATURING: Robert Walicki, Robert Gibb, Jason Irwin, Paola Corso, kelsey jumper, Danny Rectenwald
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Robert Walicki’s work has appeared in over 50 journals, including Pittsburgh City Paper, Fourth River, Chiron Review and Evening Street Review. A two time Pushcart Prize and a Best of The Net nominee, Robert’s latest full length collection, Fountain, was released from Main Street Rag Press.
Robert Gibb is the author of Sightlines (Poetry Press, 2021), his thirteenth full-length poetry collection, winner of the 2019 Prize Americana for Poetry. Other books include Among Ruins (Notre Dame’s Sandeen Prize in Poetry for 2017), After (Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize for 2016) and The Origins of Evening (Norton, 1997), a National Poetry Series selection. He has been awarded two NEA Fellowships, a Best American Poetry, a Pushcart Prize and Prairie Schooner’s Glenna Luschei and Strousse Awards. A 2023 book, Pittsburghese, won Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from Michigan State University Press.
Jason Irwin is the author of three full-length poetry collections and two chapbooks, most recently The History of Our Vagrancies (Main Street Rag, 2020). In 2022 he was a Zoeglossia Fellow and part of the Poetry Foundation’s Disability Poetics Project. His nonfiction has been published in Santa Ana Review, Panorama, The Catholic Worker and City of Asylum’s Pittsburgh Live/Ability: Encounters in Poetry and Prose Project. He grew up in Dunkirk, NY, and now lives in Pittsburgh.
Paola Corso is the author of seven poetry and fiction books set in her native Pittsburgh where her Southern Italian immigrant family worked in the steel mills. Her books include Vertical Bridges: Poems and Photographs of City Steps, The Laundress Catches Her Breath (winner of the Tillie Olsen Award in Creative Writing), Once I Was Told the Air Was Not for Breathing (winner of a Triangle Fire Memorial Association Award), Catina’s Haircut: A Novel in Stories (Sons of Italy National Book Club Selection), Giovanna’s 86 Circles and Other Stories (John Gardner Fiction Book Award Finalist on the Pennsylvania School Librarian Association’s Top 40 Young Adult Fiction List) and Death by Renaissance with archival and original photographs by George Thomas Mendel. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, Women’s Review of Books, Writer’s Digest, U.S. Catholic, The Progressive and numerous anthologies.
kelsey jumper is a multidisciplinary performing artist grateful to have worked with well-celebrated Pittsburgh theater companies including Pittsburgh Public Theater, Quantum Theater, Bricolage Production Company, Carnegie Mellon University Drama, Barebones Productions and Pittsburgh CLO. She’s been featured alongside the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, regularly at the Honky-Tonk Jukebox and with local bands including Ames Harding & the Mirage and Watererer. She’s played big league venues like Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, MoMA, The Studio Museum of Harlem and The Shed. Kelsey was granted the opportunity to bring the words of MacArthur Fellow, Claudia Rankine, to life under Ms. Rankine’s direction in White Card. Kelsey has held residencies at Kelly Strayhorn Theater and The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, been commissioned by Carnegie Museum of Art and received support from The Opportunity Fund, Advancing Black Arts, Cultural Trust and #notwhitecollective. She’s also choreographed for Point Park University, her alma mater, where she studied Musical Theater. She’s grateful to tether together an existence – a practice of expansion through learning and expression.
Danny Rectenwald is a composer and guitarist spanning classical, jazz, rock, Irish, bluegrass, tango and folk. He has two solo albums on Misra Records – Samadhi and Canyon – and has performed with Favorite Band, Bastard Bearded Irishmen, Robert Randolph & the Family Band, Jim Avett, Michael Glabicki, Jim Donovan, Liz Berlin of Rusted Root, The Clarks, Donnie Iris and The Commonheart. He has performed on the soundtrack for the mobile app Little Pizzeria created by Orta Interactive Studio, performed and composed music for the kids’ TV show Hello Humans and played on the Mid-Atlantic Emmy-nominated show Live from Nied’s Hotel.

Pennsylvania Labor History Society state meeting June 14-15
2024-06-14 08:00 - 2024-06-15 17:00
YOU CAN JOIN Pennsylvania Labor History Society and Lehigh Valley Labor Council in commemorating the 1849 Lehigh Canal Strike with a 2-day living history event June 14-15, 2024 in Bethlehem and Easton, PA. DETAILS HERE, including registration and nearby lodging.

Building a People's History Museum
2024-08-15 19:00 - 20:30 | Pump House, 880 E. Waterfront Drive, Munhall, 15120, United States
JOIN THE Battle of Homestead Foundation and West Virginia Mine Wars Museum for an in-person program “Building a People’s History Museum” featuring Executive Director Mackenzie New-Walker and Creative Director Shaun Slifer discussing the creation of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum in Matewan, WV
DATE: Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024 from 7:00-8:30 pm
PLACE: The Pump House, 880 E. Waterfront Drive, Munhall PA 15120
ADMISSION: Free – but Eventbrite reservation required … click here to register

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The West Virginia Mine Wars Museum sits at the site of a historic battle that erupted in Matewan in May, 1920 and set in motion a chain of events leading to a months-long battle between coal company operators and coal miners and their families — the largest armed uprising in the United States since the Civil War.

The museum offers the most extensive exhibition of Mine Wars history anywhere in the United States. Visitors experience compelling exhibits of archival photos and videos, first-person accounts, rare artifacts and replicas, and detailed timelines placing the events of the Mine Wars era in a global context.

On Aug. 15, New-Walker and Slifer will discuss how the museum was built from the grassroots, how artifacts are acquired, and the museum’s growing community work in the coalfields developing a series of public monuments to the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain.
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Stories behind the Stones: A Local History Evening with Homestead Cemetery
2024-09-26 19:00 - 20:30
JOIN THE Battle of Homestead Foundation for an in-person program “Stories behind the Stones: A Local History Evening with Homestead Cemetery“
FEATURING: Historians Kim Farrah, Kyra Mangold, Russ Firestone as they spotlight historic figures buried in Homestead Cemetery in Munhall, Pennsylvania
DATE: Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 from 7:00-8:30 pm
PLACE: The Pump House, 880 E. Waterfront Drive, Munhall PA 15120
ADMISSION: Free – but Eventbrite reservation required — REGISTER HERE

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WALK THROUGH the 34 pictureque acres of Homestead Cemetery along Main Street in Munhall, and you will see a snapshot of American life over the last 150 years.
Buried here are Civil War veterans, immigrants workers in the mills, strikers killed during the 1892 Battle of Homestead, Negro League baseball stars, young children who died of smallpox.
Homestead Cemetery is a testament and memorial to the great men and women of the Steel Valley who shaped the communities we live in today.
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Benefit for the Affected Families of the East Palestine Train Derailment
2024-10-25 19:00 - 22:00 | Homestead United Presbyterian Church, 908 Anne Street, Homestead, PA, 15120, United States
SPECIAL EVENT: 7:00 pm Fri. Oct. 25 — “A Benefit for the Affected Families of the East Palestine Train Derailment” at Homestead United Presbyterian Church, 908 Anne Street, Homestead, PA.

FEATURING: Actor/playwright Wali Jamal … musicians Mat Callahan and Yvonne Moore and Mike Stout & the Human Union

TICKETS: $25.00 (or whatever you can afford) … Reservations, contact Mike Stout today — miststout629@gmail.com or (412) 461-5650

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East Palestine Train Derailment: Consequences for Allegheny County & Western PA
2025-04-23 19:00 - 21:00 | Homestead United Presbyterian Church, 908 Anne Street, Homestead, PA, 15120, United States
TOXICOLOGIST DR. GEORGE THOMPSON speaks Wed. Apr. 23 at 7:00 p.m. on what toxic chemicals were released at the Feb. 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio and what the implications are for our area … present and future.

* Sponsored by Battle of Homestead Foundation, Breathe Project, Food & Water Watch and Izaak Walton League

LOCATION: Homestead United Presbyterian Church, 908 Ann St. Homestead PA 15120

* Free admission but please register at Eventbrite here – https://tinyurl.com/288zerjv

Geo-Fact — the East Palestine train derailment/chemical burn site is a distance of 39.289 miles (as the crow flies and the wind blows) to downtown Pittsburgh.

"Art of Labor: Off Our Walls"
2025-06-27 16:00 - 2025-10-24 19:00 | Bost Building, 623 E. 8th Avenue, Homestead, PA, 15120, United States
FRIDAY June 27 from 4-7 p.m. join the Battle of Homestead Foundation and Rivers of Steel for the opening of a rare collection of American art at the historic Bost Building, 623 E. 8th Ave. in historic Homestead.
The “Art of Labor: Off Our Walls” runs through Oct. 24, 2025 and features over 50 paintings, photographs and objets d’art from the collections of historians Joe and Delsa White, Steffi Domike and Rivers of Steel.
The exhibit runs through Oct. 24,2025, with related programs on Pittsburgh’s arts-and-labor heritage during the exhibit run.

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Meetup for 133rd Anniversary - Battle of Homestead Commemoration
2025-07-06 14:00 - 17:00
On Sunday, July 6, 2025, from 2:00-5:00 p.m., the Battle of Homestead Foundation presents an in-person program marking the battle’s 133rd anniversary and discussing the strike’s buildup and aftermath to current issues involving local unionization efforts in healthcare, retail, agriculture, industry and public service.
Featured Speaker: NEAL BISNO, Executive Vice-President, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) will speak about the lessons of the Battle of Homestead for the current moment in American labor.
The event takes place at the Pump House, 880 E. Waterfront Drive in Munhall. The program is free and open to the public. Picnic refreshments will be available, and attendees are welcome to contribute their own favorite foods and beverages. Musical entertainment by Pittsburgh Labor Choir and The Raging Grannies.
“The 1892 steel strike was a defining event in America’s ongoing struggle to ensure workplace rights,” says Battle of Homestead Foundation president John Haer. “Observing the anniversary lets us reflect on the role of organized labor in fighting the extreme economic inequality endangering our nation in 2025.”

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"Steel City to White City: Western PA and the World’s Columbian Exposition”
2025-09-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Pump House, 880 E. Waterfront Drive, Munhall, 15120, United States
JOIN THE Battle of Homestead Foundation for an in-person program “From the Steel City to the White City: Western Pennsylvania and the World’s Columbian Exposition“
Based on his recent book From the Steel City to the White City: Western Pennsylvania and the World’s Columbian Exposition, University of Pittsburgh archivist Zach Brodt explores Western Pennsylvania’s representation at Chicago’s 1893 World Columbian Exposition, a major step in demonstrating that Pittsburgh was a region of developing culture and innovation.
DATE: Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025 from 7:00-8:30 pm
PLACE: The Pump House, 880 E. Waterfront Drive, Munhall PA 15120
ADMISSION: Free – but Eventbrite reservation required … register here: https://tinyurl.com/3kwexwrc
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WHILE Pittsburgh’s most famous contributions to the 1893 World’s Fair — alternating current electricity and the Ferris wheel — had a lasting impact on the United States and the world, other exhibits provided a snapshot of the area’s industries, natural resources and inventions.
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“A must-read for all historians of the Steel City.” — Thomas White, Duquesne University
“A marvelous example of placing regional history in a broader national context.” — Robert W. Rydell, Montana State University
“A worthwhile addition to any social, environmental, or urban history scholar’s library.” — H-Net Reviews
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