From the time of my arrival in Pittsburgh, I was drawn to the sillouettes of the steel mills against the city skyline. The lure these structures held for me was not diminished even after I worked in the USX Clairton mill for 5 1/2 years. It was only after the industry declined in 1981 and I was laid off that I was able to pursue documention of the mills as monuments, as work places and as sites of memory and history.

Crashin 'Out: Hard Times in McKeesport (1983) is the self published volume of the McKeesport Oral History Project and my first exposure to oral history. With a group of 16-year olds and funding from CETA, Beth Destler, Allyn Stewart and I interviewed and photographed 30 residents of Mon Valley mill town McKeesport about institutional responses to economic depression, comparing the 1980s to the 1930s. The resultant photo show and monograph gave us confidence to make WOMEN OF STEEL... and more.

For more about WOMEN OF STEEL - OUT OF THIS FURNACE - THE RIVER RAN RED - WIREWOMAN MEMORIES