The Pennsylvania Department, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, wishes to thank Carolyn Speranza and Lisa Link for providing us with the opportunity to participate in and help facilitate this community-based project.
The Pennsylvania Department at the Main Branch of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh specializes in genealogy, the study of one's family roots, and in local history.
We are happy to have been able to share what amounts to only a handful of photos from the Pennsylvania Department's permanent and premiere collection of over 70,000 historic images of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania. And, aside from our photos, the Department has extensive historic materials such as World War II ration coupons which were also used in the End of the Line project.
The core of the collection is the Pittsburgh Photographic Library which documents the transition of Pittsburgh from the smoky city of the 1940s to the livable city that it is today. Nationally-known photographers represented are Esther Bubley, Harold Corsini, Clyde Hare and Richard Saunders among others.
It has been said that Pittsburgh must have been laid out by a billy goat. Its geography is the principal reason for its many bridges and one of the chief reasons for the unique character of its many neighborhoods and the proliferation of Carnegie Library branches throughout the city.
The technology of the digital scanner and of the internet now makes it possible to break down these borders and share the traditions, heritage and history that have accumulated over decades. Family and historic photographs now take on a new life when scanned, digitized and displayed on a cathode ray tube. With the ability to enhance images,
faces, words and details long-obscured and forgotten can now spring to life and what was lost can be reclaimed as the foundation of a Pittsburgh entering the 21st century.
The Pennsylvania Department, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, is happy to have played a part.

--Barry Chad, Assistant Head, Pennsylvania Department.