One Iron City steel magnate—and dedicated churchgoer—named B. F. Jones Jr., who ran the Jones and Laughlin mills, had difficulty facing fellow worshipers at Sunday service. J&L’s South Side works hugged the Monongahela, and the shanties that climbed up nearby Mount Washington were deplorable. With such a small plot of land convenient to the mill, landowners gouged their tenants, making grown men and families share tiny rooms in unsanitary conditions. To make ends meet, a typical man and wife with at least one child would share a two-room apartment with up to twelve other “boarders.” Each
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