The United States wasn’t so much settled, as it was speculated. So many of our ‘communities’ were created solely to service whatever speculative concern of a capitalist or group of capitalists embarked on. Clairton, Pennsylvania did not exist until it was made to house workers of new steel concerns in 1902, growing to almost 20,000 people in the 1950s. Most of the steel plants closed decades ago and today Clairton in polluted and impoverished with a population of 6,000.

‘Building a Town’ from The Weekly People. Vol. 12 No. 7. May 17, 1902.

THE WAY THINGS ARE DONE IN THIS PRESENT YEAR OF GRACE.

Capitalism Needs a New Settlement, So Orders It–As It Would Anything Else–All Complete Except Inhabitants and They Will Be Provided.

Pittsburg, May 11. Clairton, a town in the upper end of Allegheny County, on a hill overlooking the Monongahela River, is a novelty in industrial development. Clairton now has a population of a dozen. Probably 1,500 men are employed in the place. There is building a hotel to cost about $50,000. The town is putting down five miles of paved streets, and as soon as that much is done it will pave more. It has ten miles of sewers, as much of water and gas mains, an eight-room school-house is to be built, and plans are preparing for a Methodist church and for a United Presbyterian church.

By the time the farmers of Jefferson township are cutting their hay, Clairton will be in such a condition of municipal improvement, that it will be without many rivals among towns of its area in the world. The stranger, standing on the hill overlooking the shops and mills, and seeing the army of men at work on construction and on street improvement and building, would conclude here was a community of 6,000, but when the whistle blows the inhabitants leave the scene. Some of the men who work at Clairton live at McKeesport, some at Homestead, some in Pittsburg.

The underlying companies of the Crucible Steel Company are building at Clairton an enormous blast furnace plant, and have in construction gigantic mills for working up the product. The furnaces and mills will employ 2,000 hands, and probably more. It is a new plant, and being built on the farms of Jefferson township it was necessary to provide for the wants of the men who will operate the mills. This compelled a town, and the St. Clair Improvement Company came into existence to create the town. About 800 acres of land were bought. The improvement company organized, with W.H. Smith, president. A town was plotted on the tract, and a beginning was made last fall. Streets were surveyed and contractors went to work. Winter interfered with the job, but the return of spring has made Clairton lively for a place of its age.

It was decided to make Clairton a complete town at the start. The theory was that the employees to be cared for would be far more serviceable to the company if they could be tied down with a rag of property. The town at the start was proprietary. Lots are selling, and to that extent escaping the proprietary influence, but the streets and public conveniences are yet controlled by the improvement company. It is the intention to hold that control long enough to get most of the street paving and other public work completed, when a borough will be created, and the control of the place pass into the hands of the citizens absolutely. While the street improvement is going on, provision is made for sewers, gas and water for every lot sold. The man who comes to buy a lot and build a house, finds that all he has to consider is his house. The rest is provided. Through avenues of magnificent oak trees streets have been cut, and water mains and sewers penetrate the midst of the forest. Curbstones are set under the big trees, grades are completed, and in a month the groves will see paved streets as substantial as any that exist any place.

The St. Clair Steel Company is building 150 houses, many of which are nearly completed. They are of excellent design, with gas, water, both and sewers. The four-room cottage has its bathroom, as well as the more pretentious one. The company will build another 100 houses when the first lot is completed. Many contracts have been let for houses for individuals.

New York Labor News Company was the publishing house of the Socialist Labor Party and their paper The People. The People was the official paper of the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLP), established in New York City in 1891 as a weekly. The New York SLP, and The People, were dominated Daniel De Leon and his supporters, the dominant ideological leader of the SLP from the 1890s until the time of his death. The People became a daily in 1900. It’s first editor was the French socialist Lucien Sanial who was quickly replaced by De Leon who held the position until his death in 1914. Morris Hillquit and Henry Slobodin, future leaders of the Socialist Party of America were writers before their split from the SLP in 1899. For a while there were two SLPs and two Peoples, requiring a legal case to determine ownership. Eventual the anti-De Leonist produced what would become the New York Call and became the Social Democratic, later Socialist, Party. The De Leonist The People continued publishing until 2008.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-people-slp/020517-weeklypeople-v12n07.pdf