The 18th century discovery of coal deposits turned Pittsburgh into a steel-making hub. And he would do anything to maximise profits, even at the expense of his workers. Like most of the men who built America he was ruthless in his ambition to be the best and earn the most – and even if he was the nation’s biggest steel producer it was never enough. Carnegie sold his mills to the banker JP Morgan for the equivalent of US$360 million, He donated most of it to acts of charity and philanthropy.īut philanthropic Andrew Carnegie wasn’t an angel in his working life. Pittsburgh steel mill was destined to be the world’s biggest. He made a fortune by replacing unsafe iron with steel in railroad tracks. Pittsburgh created the Rust Belt’s next titan and robber baron – Scottish steel-man Andrew Carnegie. He joined forces with oilman John Rockefeller to fill his empty trains with cargo and suddenly the USA had light and fuel that could be transported across its vast nation. He was one of the Rust Belt’s original Titans.Ī tough ferry boat owner from New York who bullied his way to the top of the railroad ladder, Vanderbilt was the man who united America’s rail network which sealed America’s industrial revolution. JD Rockerfeller exploited the kerosene business in Cleveland like no other when he created one of the first corporations, Standard Oil, in 1870. Kerosene was the fuel that transformed America when it lit up homes and made gasoline after some diligent refining. Rock’n’Roll was coined here by DJ Alan Freed in a small record store and the city is now home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Known as “ The Mistake on the Lake”, a recession made Cleveland bankrupt in 1976.īut the wealth of a steel industry had already created a diverse cultural scene. The waterways offered a means to get to and fro and an industrial revolution equal to England’s own took off only a few years later. Together with the supply of coal from nearby Pennsylvania, this led to the creation of steel plants in the Rust Belt. Cleveland’s freight trade centered on iron ore, mined in Wisconsin. One hundred and ninety miles west across Lake Erie is Cleveland, in the State of Ohio. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries industrial millionaires lived here in 8,000 square feet mansions designed to their peculiar taste. Edison and Tesla were associated with the city which was the location of first power station to light up the Eastern seaboard. The Silo Rocks grain elevator, in Buffalo, was one of the first examples of mechanical engineering.īuffalo, located on the Canadian border next to Niagara Falls, became known as the ‘City of Light’. Transporting Midwestern grain became an industry in itself. Grain was the big produce at the heart of this trade. The Lake Erie Canal, opened up the Eastern seaboard to trade with the rest of the USA. New York to the West Coast was how America first got connected – with transportation of goods from the Eastern seaboard, across the Great Lakes onward by water and, by 1870, by rail.Įrie County, on the western side of New York State, was the conduit where this could first happen and, in 1825, Buffalo was the town that made it happen. Buffalo, New York StateĪ brutal Civil War had divided America and work and industry were to unite it. The region drew the greatest labour force in the western world – from European immigrants to African Americans fleeing the shackles of a slave south. The Rust Belt had the mighty reserves of what a great industrial nation needed to kick off: coal, iron ore, labour and inland waterways. Originally called the Rust Bowl – the press misquoted it and the name has stuck. The area we know as ‘The Rustbelt’ was coined by democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale in the 1980s in lament for the sad decline of America’s steel and manufacturing industry. Today, the Rust Belt is the economic region of the United States concentrated in the formerly dominant industrial states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
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