Critical thinking on labor, industry, and capitalism at the Frick Pittsburgh
This interpretive planning project came at a time of soul searching and transformation for the Frick Pittsburgh as it sought to truly serve Pittsburgh and attend to its history as a cultural institution founded through the wealth of Gilded Age industrialist Henry Clay Frick, whose fortune and the industrial progress it represented was built on the backs of steel workers, natural resource extraction, and public health consequences for multiple generations of Pittsburgh residents.
Michelle and I facilitated a year-long process of investigation, ideation, and prototyping with staff and advisors. We also provided professional development workshops, coaching, and capacity-building to the Frick Pittsburgh’s Learning & Visitor Experience team and trained Clayton tour guides in the new approach.
The new dialogue-based signature tour “Gilded not Golden” presents an accurate and multi-faced view into 1892 Pittsburgh, the Frick family, and the lives of Frick workers, offering visitors an opportunity to draw their own conclusions about the Gilded Age and its relationship to our society today. The project won a 2024 Award of Excellence from the American Association for State and Local History. These feature stories in the Pittsburgh City Paper and Table Pittsburgh provide an overview of the Gilded not Golden visitor experience.
"The tour was not romanticized; it was based on facts and reality. I really loved it. I have never been in a tour where the guide tells us exactly how things were during that time. We were so interested that we continued doing some research at home that evening.” —visitor Yesenia F.