What’s Your History - May 2015

Our speaker for May 2015 for the “What’s Your History?” event at Barnes & Noble at The Waterfront is Elizabeth Williams. Elizabeth is a Pittsburgh native and the college archivist at La Roche College. She earned her BA in history with a minor in marketing from La Roche College in 2007, and her MA in public history from Duquesne University in 2009. She previously worked as an assistant archivist at Duquesne University. Her book, Pittsburgh in World War I, Arsenal of the Allies traces the remarkable story of Pittsburgh during the Great War. With over 250 mills and factories, the Steel City and Allegheny County produced half of the steel and much of the munitions used by the Allies. Pittsburgh gave more than steel-sixty thousand men went to war, and women flocked to the front lines as nurses. One of the first gas masks on the western front was developed at the Mellon Institute, while the city’s large Red Cross provided tireless support on the home front.