Live by the sword, die by the sword. Pittsburgh was built on steel—and almost destroyed by it.
Pittsburgh’s vertically integrated steel industry was foundational in the growth of America, and it returned economic prosperity to the region for over a century. But when a myriad of domestic and global factors unsettled the local industry’s competitiveness, the city suffered through economic turmoil.
The city of Pittsburgh found unlikely heroes in their traditionally also-ran professional football team, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Reflecting the city’s tough, hard-nosed, working class citizens, the Steelers rose to prominence and galvanized the community to persevere against the challenges of its deindustrialization transformation. Built of steel, then crippled by steel, Pittsburgh was eventually saved by the Steelers.
Immaculate: How the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh weaves together the historical stories of Pittsburgh and its beloved professional football team like the linear strands of DNA—antiparallel, twisting throughout, and irrevocably connected together. Beginning with the history of the region, Immaculate weaves together the area’s early history with the Steelers’ origins, tracing the rise of the Steelers against the contextual backdrop of the steel industry’s collapse and the city’s unfolding crisis. The Steelers provided the foundational inflection point for Pittsburgh’s “New Economy” to emerge and prosper.
Immaculate brings to life the colorful stories and people that shaped a city and a team over the rich tapestry of profoundly different eras.
Author Biography:
Tom O’Lenic is an accomplished biotechnology executive, sports enthusiast and boutique winemaker, born in Donora, Pennsylvania and raised in Pittsburgh. His passion for competitive athletics was seeded in his youth in the Iron City, and fueled by his family—Tom’s father played minor league baseball, and his uncle was Baseball Hall of Famer “Stan the Man” Musial.
Tom is fascinated with history and how the past influences the future, or, in some cases, doesn’t. His experience with the steel industry collapse of the mid-1970s was deeply personal, as his father, an engineer at U.S. Steel, was one of the many thousands of employees who were adversely impacted by the declining business.
Immaculate: How the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh is a passion project for Tom, who has long held the opinion the community of Pittsburgh steeled itself through its deindustrialization transformation with the galvanizing presence of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Tom currently resides in Pleasanton, California.
Ray Hartjen is a content marketer, writer, musician and songwriter living in Northern California. In a professional career that has spanned parts of five decades, Ray has pivoted on many occasions, from investment banking to pharmaceuticals, from consumer electronics to SaaS software. One constant throughout his career path, however, has been storytelling.
Ray has been a frequent source for quotes from the national media on both the consumer electronics and retail industries, and he has spun his fair share of yarn as a contributor to a number of online outlets, including articles for Yahoo, where he published articles about the San Jose Sharks hockey team, and Salesforce AppExchange, where he writes about sales and marketing.
A cancer fighter every day of the week that ends in a ‘y,’ Ray periodically chronicles his experience as a multiple myeloma patient on his blog at memyselfandmymultiplemyeloma.com. And, with life’s soundtrack constantly playing in his head, Ray also tours and records with his two-piece acoustic band, the Chronic Padres.
