Homestead: The Glory and Tragedy of an American Steel Town

Homestead, Pennsylvania, was the city Andrew Carnegie built to make steel. For a century it made its mill owners fortunes and armed America through two world wars. It became the site of a defining battle between management and organized labor and gave thousands of families a livelihood and a way of life. When Homestead died in 1986, it was because steel could be made more cheaply elsewhere — and because the logic of the time decreed that a town and the people who lived in it were as disposable as any other kind of industrial waste.

In this crucial, important book, Homestead’s story unfolds with galvanizing vividness and tragic depth. It is a blistering report on the fate of America’s backyards — a book that is dangerous to ignore and impossible to forget.