''The Pittsburgh Survey'' (1907–1908) was a pioneering

sociological Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...

study of the city of

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, United States funded by the

Russell Sage Foundation The Russell Sage Foundation is an American non-profit organisation established by Margaret Olivia Sage in 1907 for “the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States.” It was named after her recently deceased husband, rail ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It is widely considered a landmark of the

Progressive Era The Progressive Era (late 1890s – late 1910s) was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States focused on defeating corruption, monopoly, waste and inefficiency. The main themes ended during Am ...

reform movement. The Survey is one of the earliest and most thorough descriptions of urban conditions in the United States. Some seventy investigators, including

Elizabeth Beardsley Butler Elizabeth Beardsley Butler (1884–1911) was a pioneering social investigator of the Progressive Era. She is best known for her contributions to The Pittsburgh Survey, a landmark study of social conditions in an American city. Life She was born i ...

, Margaret Byington,

John R. Commons John Rogers Commons (October 13, 1862 – May 11, 1945) was an American institutional economist, Georgist, progressive and labor historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Early years John R. Commons was born in Hollansburg, Ohio on ...

, Edward T. Devine,

Crystal Eastman Crystal Catherine Eastman (June 25, 1881 – July 28, 1928) was an American lawyer, antimilitarist, feminist, socialist, and journalist. She is best remembered as a leader in the fight for women's suffrage, as a co-founder and co-editor with ...

, John A. Fitch, documentary photographer

Lewis Hine Lewis Wickes Hine (September 26, 1874 – November 3, 1940) was an American sociologist and muckraker photographer. His photographs were instrumental in bringing about the passage of the first child labor laws in the United States. Early life ...

, and artist

Joseph Stella Joseph Stella (born Giuseppe Michele Stella, June 13, 1877 – November 5, 1946) was an Italian-born American Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America, especially his images of the Brooklyn Bridge. He is also ...

, began work in 1907. The research was first published in magazines, including

Collier's ''Collier's'' was an American general interest magazine founded in 1888 by Peter Fenelon Collier. It was launched as ''Collier's Once a Week'', then renamed in 1895 as ''Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal'', shortened in 1905 to ''Collie ...

, in 1908 & 1909, then was expanded into a series of six books (4 monographs and 2 collections of essays) published from 1909 to 1914. In the early twentieth century Pittsburgh was America's prototypical industrial city.

Immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

from Central, Eastern and Southern

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

poured in seeking jobs and escape from poverty. Large corporations such as

U.S. Steel United States Steel Corporation, more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an American integrated steel producer headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with production operations primarily in the United States of America and in severa ...

dominated local governments. Life for most Pittsburgh citizens was famously smokey and hardscrabble.

Progressives Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, techno ...

and urban reformers viewed with alarm

working-class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

and immigrant life, corporate industrialism, and the effects of

industrialization Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...

on the urban environment. Survey director

Paul Kellogg Paul Underwood Kellogg (September 30, 1879 – November 1, 1958) was an American journalist and social reformer. He died at 79 in New York on November 1, 1958. Life He was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1879. After working as a journalist he m ...

aimed to connect the reformist purpose with the latest methods of scientific inquiry. He hoped the results would alert the public about the social and environmental ills raging in

industrial America Manufacturing in the United States is a vital sector. The United States is the world's third largest manufacturer (after the People's Republic of China and the European Union) with a record high real output in Q1 2018 of $2.00 trillion (i.e., ad ...

and favorably influence policymaking, both corporate and government, in Pittsburgh and throughout the nation.

Volumes of the Pittsburgh Survey

* Volume 1 * Volume 2 and a
Google Books
* Volume 3 * Volume 4 and a
Google Books
* Volume 5 * Volume 6

References

* * *

External links

The Pittsburgh Survey; Findings in Six Volumes
History of Pennsylvania History of Pittsburgh 1907 in Pennsylvania 1908 in Pennsylvania Progressive Era in the United States Russell Sage Foundation {{socio-stub