ABSTRACT
The Columbia Steel Company (a subsidiary of US Steel) ran an advertisement in the 2 August 1943 issue of the Pittsburg (California) Post-Dispatch announcing the need for skilled labour in their mills. The advertisement centred around the availability of ‘New homes for workers in the Columbia Park Project’. Columbia Park was the first federally financed, publicly produced housing in the Pittsburg region, the first visible evidence of the struggles over housing for poor workers and the underclasses that had culminated in the landmark 1937 Wagner–Steagall Housing Act – an act which finally made public housing a national priority. When Columbia Park opened two weeks later it was obvious that the project was intended for skilled workers at Columbia Steel (with some space reserved for the nearby Pittsburg Army Cantonment) and was not intended to house the poor. The Post-Dispatch reported on 17 September that priority in housing assignments at Columbia Park was given to workers recruited by Columbia Steel, who were just arriving in town. In essence, then, Columbia Park was company housing in so far as hiring practices determined housing eligibility.
