Was Pittsburgh's Economic Destiny Set in 1815?
Was Pittsburgh’s Economic Destiny Set in 1815? EDWARD K. MULLER first read The Urban Frontier as a graduate student in historical geog- Iraphy many years ago. I naturally focused on the geographical impli- cations of Richard C. Wade’s thesis that towns emerged on the Ohio Valley frontier along with the earliest pioneers, “held the West for the approaching population,” and accelerated its transformation to a settled region.1 This critical insight into the settlement process anchored my dissertation.2 His view that “towns were the spearheads” and not the cul- mination of the settlement process, overturned the conventional Tu rnerian interpretation of frontier urbanization and spurred the work of many subsequent scholars.3 At the time of my initial reading, I paid little attention to Wade’s comparative methodology and comprehensive topical coverage. Returning to The Urban Frontier often in the ensuing years, I gained an __________________________ Edward K. Muller is Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh. Among his recent pub- lications is (with John F. Bauman) Before Renaissance: Planning in Pittsburgh, 1889-1943 (2006). 1Richard C. Wade, The Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities, 1790-1830 (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), 342. 2Edward K. Muller, “The Development of Urban Settlement in a Newly Settled Region: The Middle Ohio Valley, 1800-1860,” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1972); Muller, “Selective Urban Growth in the Middle Ohio Valley, 1800-1860,” Geographical Review, 66 (April 1976), 178-99; Muller, “Regional Urbanization and the Selective Growth of Towns in North American Regions,” Journal of Historical Geography, 3 (January 1977), 21-39.
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