Since 1996, an organization called The Battle of Homestead Foundation has worked to commemorate Pittsburgh's labor history by bringing the public to the last remaining structure of the Homestead Steel Works, the Pump House.

The building, next to the Waterfront, was also the site of a violent clash between Pinkerton agents, townspeople and workers at the Carnegie Steel company in 1892. The Pump House is preserved as a historical site.

On Saturday, the foundation brought together three artists and academics in a photo exhibit and talk that focused on J&L steel company from the 1880s to the 1980s. In presenting their work, Courtney Maloney, Sandra Gould Ford and Mark Perrott demonstrated that Pittsburgh's steel history continues to be a rich resource for artistic and intellectual exploration.

Maloney, a doctoral candidate at Carnegie Mellon University, presented research from her dissertation titled "Looking Back: Workers and Photography at J&L Steel." While doing research at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, Maloney came across archives of J&L photography, "felt [I had] found a treasure," and wasn fascinated by the way the company represented workers in the mid-20th century.

While photos from corporate archives typically depict equipment and production, J&L's archives include close shots of workers.

"They represent an individualistic ideology," Maloney said. "You can see how different these worker portraits are from traditional industrial photography."

Contrasting with Maloney's presentation, artist Gould Ford's original photography highlights industrial still-life.

Working at J&L in Hazelwood in the late 1970s, during a time when the company was declining, Gould Ford began taking amateur photographs of her environment. "I loved the feel of the place," she said.

Throughout the years, her work began to focus on the concept of haunted places that, when deserted, suggest the memory of a human presence. Her subjects include industrial signs and staircases in the now-closed mill.

Perrott's work was a eulogy to Eliza, a closed mill on the Monongahela River. From 1979 until 1983, Perrott worked as a photographer for J&L. When he heard about Eliza shutting down, he decided to enter the property through a hole in the fence and photograph the mill every morning before sunrise and every evening after darkness fell.

"There is something nice about feeling the ticking of a clock and the pressure to perform," Perrott said.

In 1990, Perrott published his work in a book titled "Eliza: Remembering a Pittsburgh Steel Mill." "[The mill] is really a sacred Place," Perrott said. "It was our industrial muscle. We owned it."

Perrott said Pittsburgh today faced a "constant rebalancing" of what role the city's various neighborhoods serve in the changing city.

A discussion followed and the artists and some 40 people in the audience listed a shared disappointment that so many reminders of Pittsburgh's industrial history have been destroyed. Much of the historical landscape of Homestead, West Homestead and Munhall is now occupied by a sprawling commercial complex called The Waterfront.

The foundation, headed by David Demarest, hosts lectures, poetry readings and other cultural events. On Oct. 8 , "Exposure Assessment of Pennsylvania Communities Contaminated by Legacy Iron and Steel Industry" will be presented at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health in Oakland.

For more, contact Demarest at 412-782-0171.