Abstract
In the 1980s, Western Pennsylvania experienced a severe economic downturn as steel mills closed, corporate headquarters shut down, and the unemployed left to seek jobs in the Sun Belt. The local history community realized that an enormous amount of Pittsburgh's past was leaving the region, packed in the moving vans of the Pittsburgh diaspora or tossed in dumpsters by beleaguered corporations. Concerned historians, led by Jim Richardson of the Carnegie Museum, formed the Committee on Pittsburgh Archaeology and History (CPAH), and in November 1985 held a public conference to discuss the possibility of a city history museum to preserve and exhibit this material.
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