Emma Gwilliam b1872 (1880 US Census) (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Thursday, January 31, 2019, 15:56 (2199 days ago) @ MPGriffiths

Hi M,
I'd hoped to be able to help out with the U.S. Census info, as in the past I've found them available free-of-charge on the American FamilySearch website. However to my surprise, and despite thorough searching for various members of the Gwilliam family, and using various spellings of their surname including Gwellian, I can't seem to find them on FamilySearch at all !. I presume that site doesn't have this particular Census ?.

The only record I can find that MAY be relevant is the September 1918 U.S. Army Draft Registration card for a William George Gwilliam, aged 41, born April 10th 1877 and a "native born US citizen". His "nearest relative" is given as Sarah Gwilliam, presumably his wife. He is a "Mill worker" at the "Superior Mill, Ale, Pa."
Ale, Pa = Allegheny County, as per your findings. The county seat is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Superior Mill was a steel mill in a small borough of Pittsburgh named after Scotland's Andrew Carnegie who was a major player in Pittsburgh becoming one of America's major heavy industrial regions, especially for iron & steel-making. Also key to the town's early success were the immigrant iron workers who arrived in the 1830s from Merthyr Tydfil after the violent rising of that time in response to that area's depressed iron industry. The Wikipedia entry suggests they were demonstrating against Merthyr's major ironmaster William Crawshay II (a well-known family name in the Forest of course), but in fact like many local employer's he'd supported their campaign for Reforms.

Nowadays the Superior brand-name still survives, but the industry is much-depressed as part of the so-called "Rust Belt". The old Superior Mill itself is now considered something of a wasteland as a result of it hot-rolling large amounts of uranium strip and slabs in the 1950s.

Here's images of the actual Draft card.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-91N1-1HQ?i=752&cc=1968530

Hope this is of some interest.
J.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie,_Pennsylvania
http://projects.wsj.com/waste-lands/site/445-superior-steel-co/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merthyr_Rising
http://www.angelfire.com/ga/BobSanders/MTRISING.html