If You Ask Me / By Martha Knight

More than 200 years ago the economist Adam Smith wrote about “the invisible hand.” These days we hear about “the law of unintended consequences.”

Smith thought that by seeking our own gain, as people do, we bring about unintended good. Those incidental, accidental results of our selfish striving tend toward the common benefit.

But usually when we discuss unintended consequences we are remarking on something undesirable, with causes we think we can see, which has come about because of something humans have done without realizing that harm would result.

History at every scale and distance is full of those. The trick is to be more intentional, and to intend the general good. We resolve to learn from history. We must figure out what “they,” or even “we,” didn’t figure on. We must plan more carefully, foresee negative results, make allowances for error, head off disaster as much as is humanly possible.

The Pittsburgh Corning story would make a great movie, or maybe a Netflix or AMC series. There are plot twists galore, fascinating characters, links with broader history. There are machinations, epic struggles, heroes and villains.

We are coming up on 80 years since PC was born, right here, and we seem to be in an endless state of suspense about the state and the fate of this local industry.

Pitt-Corning decided to base its manufacturing operation here, back in the 1930s, when its two “parent” companies, Pittsburgh Plate Glass and Corning Inc. were looking for a place to raise their “child.” An alert businessman and farmer, “Chick” Miller, got to know the execs from the two companies as they traveled between Corning, N.Y. and Pittsburgh, over and over, scouting and planning.

Miller alerted local business owners, borough government and organizations. An ideal site was secured and made available to the fledgling company at unbeatable terms (basically, free).

Initially the company made Pyrex ware, but that was phased out in favor of glass block production. Different glass block designs and styles were developed right here. Few glass blocks were being made anywhere else, and none elsewhere in this hemisphere. Port Allegany was the glass block capital of the world.

Well into the 1940s glass blocks were made in vast quantities here, and were a very popular building and glazing material. They fit with art deco styling, and provided some insulating value, protection and privacy, while supporting considerable weight.

Local lore has it that foamglas was an accidental discovery. A ruined batch foamed and gave off sulfurous odors, but then the dark froth set up in a rigid, cellular, toolable material. Obviously those cells would have insulating and flotation properties.

The invisible hand was nudging events. World War II, even before the USA entered it, created a great demand for pontoons, and for war ships that needed insulation. Light and easily transported to fabrication sites, foamglas was in demand by our allies, and then by our own Defense Department. Glass block production was pushed aside in favor of “war effort,” and PC not only expanded locally to provide more foamglas, but set up a plant in Sedalia, Mo. to satisfy the demand.

Executives and engineers lived and worked here. R&D, product development and promotion were based here.

Those salaried personnel bought or built homes; they and their families settled down in the community. Sometimes people moved to Sedalia for a while, then moved back. New folks came from Sedalia. These salaried people took part in local government. Dr. A.H. Baker helped put the union school district together and was involved in planning two new schools.

Some of us believe things took a turn for the worse when PC decided its top management should be consolidated in Pittsburgh. Certainly a long sequence of poor decisions and policies dates back to that change.

PC had discovered that making insulation was highly profitable. The post-war building boom and resumption of making products for civilian use were factors in the decision to expand into more insulation, with corresponding decline of interest in glass blocks.

If cellular glass insulation was a popular product, wouldn’t Unibestos be another hot product? PC bought some patents and a plant in Tyler, Texas, and built Plant 8 here to provide more capacity for producing Unibestos.

This was before landmark Clean Air legislation, and pre-OSHA. NIOSH and other worker protection regs and many health laws didn’t have a full set of teeth among them.. But there were rules, and it was known that asbestos particles, if inhaled, could cause illness and even death. At least it was known at the top levels. That was where the fateful, and fatal, decisions were made, to stonewall on asbestos.

There was a tendency to pooh-pooh concerns about silicosis and hearing damage, about various carcinogens (such as tobacco smoke), asbestos, lead and mercury. If  some but not all people were provably harmed by a hazardous material, how bad could it be? And, there was the wickedly false choice presented to workers and communities: do you want jobs and prosperity, or do you want clean air?

Would the dreadful decisions made at the Pittsburgh headquarters have been made by the company if those decision-makers had lived here?

Would they have been so sanguine about the risks their own engineers learned about at Cape Asbestos in London? Would those who made the call have been so blasé about the odds faced by all workers sharing the air in and near the Port Allegany facilities, if their offices had been in or near those facilities?

PC’s record-long time in Chapter 11 was one unforeseen consequence. Further economic damage was wrought by the millions spent on a block-making machine which never did work as planned. The useless apparatus sits unused, a monument to denial. The key tank and stack approach their end of life. Will the company, building manufacturing capacity and hiring workers in other countries, invest in the necessary replacements?

What do you think?

Peace.