The Valley of Decision

Cover Art for 9780822958055, The Valley of Decision by Marcia Davenport
ISBN: 9780822958055
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 28 July, 1989
Format: Paperback
Language: English

On the eve of World War II  writer Marcia Davenport, best known for her biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, spent several years in Pittsburgh, her imagination caught by the drama of American industry.  In 1942, Charles Scribner’s sons published her Pittsburgh novel, The Valley of Decision.  It was an instant success, and its story of four generations of the Scott family - owners and operators of a Pittsburgh iron and steel works - has captured the imagination of three generations of readers.The story is absorbing and complex, chronicling the family fortunes from the economic panic of 1873 through the dramatic rise of American industry and trade unionism, though waves of immigration, class conflict, natural disaster, World War I, to Pearl Harbor.The first portion of the narrative covers the period 1873-83, when ironmaster William Scott, founder of the Scott Iron Works, marched with American industrial progress and died at the hands of union agitators.  The second section covers 1889-1929 and his son Paul, who inherits the mills and manages them well, embracing technology, the demands of the first World War, and an enlightened view of labor.  Part Three (1933-41) is the book of Claire, great-granddaughter of William.  Energetic, responsible, and worldy-wise, she fights to save the integrity of the family’s mills as they pass into the hands of corporation lawyers and bored Scott cousins.  It is also Claire who expands the story to Eastern Europe, w

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