Historic Pittsburgh comprises a variety of primary and secondary sources from multiple partners about the greater Pittsburgh region, including a wide range of publications, maps, manuscripts, visual images, and audio-video materials, that support personal and scholarly research.
This diary, written by W.B. Austen, covers his four-month journey from Liverpool, England, to Mansfield, Ohio, between May-September, 1821; it covers events of his daily life, the weather, and many other details of his trip.
Contributor: University of Pittsburgh
Visual images depict the Pittsburgh floods of 1936 and 1937, and images of trains and scale models (1960s).
Contributor: University of Pittsburgh
Contains 49 plates that depict the original land grants that settlers of present-day Allegheny County received from the Commonwealth after William Penn and his descendants vested the land to the legislature.
Contributor: University of Pittsburgh
Records consist primarily of annual reports from the Western Pennsylvania Hospital (founded in 1848) and the the Department of the Insane, which was later relocated to Kilbuck Township and became known as Dixmont Hospital.
Contributor: University of Pittsburgh
The Western Pennsylvania Maps Collection is comprised of the following groupings of maps helpful for studying and tracing the physical development and changes of the Pittsburgh area landscape: City of Pittsburgh Geodetic and Topographic Survey Maps, 1923-1961; Darlington Digital Library Maps; Flood Commission of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1912; G. M. Hopkins Company Maps, 1872-1940; Warrantee Atlas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, 1914; and a varierty of individual assorted maps.
Contributor: University of Pittsburgh
Visual images of Westinghouse’s products, electric railroads, employees, factories, and exhibitions throughout the 1880s-1950s.
Contributor: Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center
Stock footage of various locations around Pittsburgh by Bill Beal, a Pittsburgh filmmaker active from the 1940s through the 1990s; the short clips have no sound.
Contributor: Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center
Visual images include Pittsburgh during the 1907 flood, the 1908 Pittsburgh Sesquicentennial parade celebration, and Pittsburgh's Luna Park (1907-1920).
Contributor: University of Pittsburgh
Visual images from the 1880s-1970s show the Homestead Steel Works plant and community activities, machinery, workers, strikes, safety and accident concerns, and social activities; also include images of World War II production, morale campaigns in the mill, and female employees during the war.
Contributor: University of Pittsburgh
Contains records about Fort Pitt, business transactions from 1752 to 1782, a list of names of some inhabitants at the fort, and some unrelated notes about William Darlington's observations of birds in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.
Contributor: University of Pittsburgh
Consists of letters sent from Pitt’s wife, Hester, to Alexander Hood and assorted documents detailing some of the political activities of Pitt as well his son, William Pitt the Younger.
Contributor: University of Pittsburgh
Photographs of the construction of the Civic Arena (later known as Mellon Arena) from 1958-1961.
Contributor: Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center
Collection contains a constitution and by-laws, a directory, reports, minute books, a membership roll book (1911), programs, memorabilia, and published histories regarding organizational operations and activities of the Woman's Temperance Union of Wilkinsburg from 1885-1955.
Contributor: University of Pittsburgh