Steel City is the story of a young man exposed to the turbulent world of 1890's Pittsburgh who confronts many of the same issues that we grapple with today: immigration, tariffs, unionism and income inequality. It has similarities in content and style to Lauren Belfer's novel, City of Light, and Roxana Robinson's fictionalized family history, Dawson's Fall. Like Mark Sullivan's Beneath the Scarlet Sky and Graham Moore's Last Days of Night, this historical novel depicts individuals navigating the great events of their day.