David P. Demarest (November 9, 1931 – October 15, 2011) was an American academic and writer best known for his work on

organized labor A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and Employee ben ...

social geography Social geography is the branch of human geography that is interested in the relationships between society and space, and is most closely related to social theory in general and sociology in particular, dealing with the relation of social phenomena ...

, and US working-class literature.

Life and career

He was born in Englewood

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, grew up on 156 Jane Street, and graduated with a BA from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, a MA from the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

, and a PhD in English literature from the

University of Wisconsin, Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

. In 1964 he began a long and influential teaching career at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

. In the 1970s Demarest's research on the

social novel The social novel, also known as the social problem (or social protest) novel, is a "work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of a novel". More ...

Western Pennsylvania Western Pennsylvania is a region in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, covering the western third of the state. Pittsburgh is the region's principal city, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic ...

led to the publication of a pioneering anthology, ''From These Hills, From These Valleys'', and the re-publication in 1976 of ''

Out of This Furnace ''Out of This Furnace'' is a historical novel and the best-known work of the American writer Thomas Bell. It was first published in 1941 by Little, Brown and Company. Description The novel is set in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a steel town just ...

'' by Thomas Bell, an overlooked 1941

proletarian novel Proletarian literature refers here to the literature created by left-wing writers mainly for the class-conscious proletariat. Though the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' states that because it "is essentially an intended device of revolution", it is t ...

of the American steel industry that became a bestseller for the

University of Pittsburgh Press The University of Pittsburgh Press is a scholarly publishing house and a major American university press, part of the University of Pittsburgh. The university and the press are located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The press ...

. Demarest's play "Gift To America" brought attention in the 1980s to the Croatian-American artist

Maxo Vanka Maksimilijan "Maxo" Vanka (May 11, 1889 – February 2, 1963) was a Croatian-American artist. He is best known for the series of murals he completed in 1937 and 1941 at St. Nicholas Croatian Church (Millvale, Pennsylvania), St. Nicholas Croat ...

and his Millvale Murals at St. Nicholas Croatian Church. In the 1990s Demarest's work to document and preserve industrial landscapes resulted in a book and film commemorating the centennial of the Homestead Strike of 1892 and the historic restoration of the Pump House of the

Homestead Steel Works Homestead Steel Works was a large steel works located on the Monongahela River at Homestead, Pennsylvania in the United States. The company developed in the nineteenth century as an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a rai ...

, where agents of the

Pinkerton National Detective Agency Pinkerton is a private security guard and detective agency established around 1850 in the United States by Scottish-born cooper Allan Pinkerton and Chicago attorney Edward Rucker as the North-Western Police Agency, which later became Pinkerton ...

attempted to land their barges and re-take control of the mill for

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...

and

Henry Clay Frick Henry Clay Frick (December 19, 1849 – December 2, 1919) was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and played a major ...

from the locked-out workers. Demarest was also a founder of the nonprofit Battle of Homestead Foundation that promotes awareness of labor history. For years, too, he championed the restoration and preservation of the

Carnegie Free Library of Braddock The Braddock Carnegie Library in Braddock, Pennsylvania, is the first Carnegie Library in the United States. As such, the library was named a National Historic Landmark in 2012, following its listing on the National Register of Historic Places i ...

, the first Carnegie library in the US built in

Braddock, Pennsylvania Braddock is a borough located in the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. It is upstream from the mouth of the Monongahela River. The population was 1,721 as of the 2020 census. The borough is represented by the Pen ...

in 1888. His parents were David P. Demarest Sr., and Ruth Marsland Demarest.

Illness and death

Diagnosed with

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

, Demarest died at the Forbes Hospice in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 15, 2011. Burial arrangements were private.Kalson, Sally.
Obituary: David P. Demarest Jr./Helped preserve region's immigrant culture
" Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', October 20, 2011.

Books

* ''Legal Language and Situation in the Eighteenth Century Novel: Readings in Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, and Austen'', dissertation (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1963). * ''The Ghetto Reader'', co-editor with Lois Lamdin (New York: Random House, 1970). * ''From These Hills, From These Valleys: Selected Fiction about Western Pennsylvania'', (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1976). * ''Out of This Furnace'', Thomas Bell, Afterword by David Demarest (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1976). * ''The Homestead Strike of 1892'', Arthur Burgoyne, Afterword by David Demarest (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1979). * ''The River Ran Red: Homestead, 1892'', co-editor with Fannia Weingartner (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992).

Film

* ''Out of This Furnace: A Walking Tour of Thomas Bell's Novel'', with Steffi Domike, video, 1990, distributed by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

References

Sources

''Contemporary Authors Online''. The Gale Group, 2008.

External links

Obituary, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Battle of Homestead Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Demarest, David P. 1931 births 2011 deaths Princeton University alumni University of Connecticut alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni Carnegie Mellon University faculty Writers from Pittsburgh Writers from New Jersey 20th-century American writers