Born of Fire: The Valley of Work: Industrial Scenes of Southwestern Pennsylvania (The Westmoreland Museum of American Art)

160 pp. "This is the first book on the Westmoreland Museum of American Art's extensive collection of paintings, watercolors, drawings, prints, and photographs of the Big Steel Era in Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania. These images express the immense energy, power, wonder and force of the vast industrial complex that took shape in the mid-nineteenth through the early twentieth-century, a time when Pittsburgh became the nation's foremost center of iron making and mass produced steel." Includes 141 works of art, 51 of which are illustrated in color and 141 in black-and-white reproductions. "The people, rolling mills, pump houses, pig iron, and slag of Southwestern Pennsylvania are presented in this book of images produced by the Westmoreland Museum of Art." "Born of Fire: The Valley of Work is a catalog of the Scenes of Industry collection of paintings, works on paper, and prints owned by The Westmoreland. The catalog will accompany an exhibition of the same name that will travel nationally and internationally through 2010. The catalog includes two essays: 1) about the art and artists by Westmoreland curator Barbara Jones, and 2) an essay entitled Pittsburgh's Industrial Corridors by historians Joel A. Tarr, Carnegie Mellon University, and Edward K. Muller, University of Pittsburgh. The catalog places the artwork in context with the history of industry in Western Pennsylvania."