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Modern Business Geography
1G. 167. Some of the foundries at Homestead, a typical *‘steel city.” Here many thousands of
iron, or in the steel plants where the smelted iron is made into steel, or in the
The great manufacturing cities of the Middle West. Four cities
of this third manufacturing district — namely, Chicago, Cleveland,
Pittsburgh, and Detroit — rank among the world’s greatest industrial
centers. Their advantages in the matter of transportation have
already been discussed (pages 217 to 221).
Chicago, with two thirds of the factory workers of Illinois, stands
first among the cities of the United States not only in wooden products,
but in slaughtering and meat packing, in foundry and machine-shop
work, and in making and repairing railroad cars. Almost everyone
knows of the Pullman cars, which are made in a Chicago suburb.
Cleveland, by reason of its favorable position on Lake Erie, finds
that it pays to bring coal from near Pittsburgh to meet the iron ore
that comes from the Lake Superior region. Its specialties range
from small articles like nails, wire, bolts, and hardware, to bulky ships
and bridges, — practically all of them products that use large amounts
of iron.
Pittsburgh is the center of a cluster of great iron-working commu-
nities, including McKeesport, South Bethlehem, Braddock, and Home-
stead. The growth of this cluster in just this area depends largely
on the fact that the meeting point of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers
happens to lie near a great seam of coal sixteen feet thick. The
cities stretch along the rivers more than twenty miles. Their growth
is helped by enormous quantities of petroleum and natural gas, which
supplement the coal in the steel industries. In early days the neces-
sary iron ore also was mined in the neighborhood. but this is now dis-
placed by ore from Lake Superior.
Detroit is an interesting response to a new industry. The location
of the city, as we have seen, is favorable; but in 1900 twelve cities
exceeded it in size and it was about the same size as Milwaukee. Then