History of Westinghouse Air Brake Company: Wilmerding, Pennsylvania
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The Westinghouse Air Brake Company was originally established by George Westinghouse in 1869. The products of the Air Brake plant made for improved performance and increased speed on the nations railways. The plant was moved to a new location in Wilmerding, Pennsylvania in 1889.1 Wilmerding is a small town about 14 miles outside of Pittsburgh which, at the time, was only inhabited by about 5,000 people. It was thought to be “The Ideal Town” for the company because of its location right along the Pennsylvania Railroad and its mainly blue collar population. The Air Brake Company employed as many as 3,000 workers comprised almost entirely of individuals from the immediate Wilmerding area.2
The stretch of lightly populated farmland known as Wilmerding developed around this industrially important company and was finally put on the map. A little under one third of its population was somehow related and and it was common for families to raise their children in the same home that they were raised in.
Working conditions at the Westinghouse Air Brake Company (WA&B) were progressive for the time. In 1869 it was one of the first companies to institute a 9-hour work day and a 55-hour work week.4 WA&B also got the reputation for being the first industry in America to adopt half holidays on Saturday afternoons. A series of welfare options were also instituted to better the working and living conditions of its employees.
By 1905 over 2,000,000 freight, passenger, mail, baggage, and express cars and 89,000 locomotives were equipped with the Westinghouse Air Brakes. The Westinghouse Company bought land, built houses and then sold those homes to its workers at a very affordable price. The company also offered educational and cultural activities, usually run through the local Y.M.C.A. To insure income to employees who might become unfit for work because of illness or injury, the company offered membership in an internal disability compensation program. Any employee under 50 was eligible of membership after a physical examination. The members contributed according to their job status, which was determined by the amount of money they made per month. Their contribution ranged from fifty cents to $1.50, which in turn in case of disability would entitle them to receive benefits for thirty-nine consecutive weeks.5 According to Wilmerding News during this time, about 76% of WA&B’s employees held a membership with this program.
The Westinghouse Air Brake company was still producing products up until around the year 2000, under several different managements over the years. The company had become significantly less important with the shedding of Pittsburgh’s industrial past, but continued manufacturing its products.6 Leaving a bustling, self built, strong blue collar town behind it.
[edit] Citations
1 Life in Wilmerding, “The Air Brake City” the Ideal Hometown. Wilmerding News, 2 September.4.
2 Life in Wilmerding, “The Air Brake City” the Ideal Hometown. Wilmerding News, 2 September.4.
3 Richard Shumaker, A View from Our Porch. George Westinghouse Museum. 1-3.
4 Life in Wilmerding, “The Air Brake City” the Ideal Hometown. Wilmerding News, 2 September.4.
5 “Inside an American Factory: Westinghouse Works, 1904.”<http://memory.loc.gov/collections/wes/history.html>(27 September 2006).
6 Laurent Belsie, "Westinghouse identity Shift Echoes Pittsburgh’s," Christian Science Monitor, 15 November 1996, 9.
