Immaculate: How the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh

Live by the sword, die by the sword. Pittsburgh was built on steel—and almost destroyed by it.

Pittsburgh’s vertically integrated steel industry was foundational in the growth of America, and it returned economic prosperity to the region for over a century. But when a myriad of domestic and global factors unsettled the local industry’s competitiveness, the city suffered through economic turmoil.

The city of Pittsburgh found unlikely heroes in their traditionally also-ran professional football team, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Reflecting the city’s tough, hard-nosed, working class citizens, the Steelers rose to prominence and galvanized the community to persevere against the challenges of its deindustrialization transformation. Built of steel, then crippled by steel, Pittsburgh was eventually saved by the Steelers.

Immaculate: How the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh weaves together the historical stories of Pittsburgh and its beloved professional football team like the linear strands of DNA—antiparallel, twisting throughout, and irrevocably connected together. Beginning with the history of the region, Immaculate weaves together the area’s early history with the Steelers’ origins, tracing the rise of the Steelers against the contextual backdrop of the steel industry’s collapse and the city’s unfolding crisis. The Steelers provided the foundational inflection point for Pittsburgh’s “New Economy” to emerge and prosper.

Immaculate brings to life the colorful stories and people that shaped a city and a team over the rich tapestry of profoundly different eras.