"Industry in Art" examines the artists, contexts, and societal factors that influenced the depiction of Pittsburgh industry and labor from the early nineteenth century to the early twentieth century through a variety of art forms that include illustration, painting, and graphic art.

In the early nineteenth century, most fine artists avoided depicting industry, though David Gilmore Blythe and William C. Wall portrayed the environmental changes caused by industrial growth. By the last quarter of the century, however, national weekly magazines illustrated Pittsburgh's smoking industrial...