Vandergrift!

In the early 1890’s, steel tycoon George McMurtry, tries to produce a unique marriage between architecture and industrialism to build a workingman's paradise in southwestern Pennsylvania. But his goal is also to destroy strikers and keep compliant workers happy. He hires Frederick Law Olmstead, the Nation's preeminent architect, to design the town of Vandergrift, named after his partner. Ida Tarbell, who will someday expose J. D. Rockefeller, is intrigued by the idea and visits the town. She and McMurtry clash over his flawed idealism and her subconscious biases. She revisits the town four times over the next half a century, each time reexamining her own and McMurtry’s ideals as the Nation goes through wars, depressions, the New Deal, the Union movement, and the final collapse of the steel industry. McMurtry’s dream and Olmstead’s design live on despite the collapse of both the steel industry. But what happens to the town?