David P. Demarest Jr., a retired Carnegie Mellon University English professor and tireless advocate for preserving the region's immigrant culture, industrial heritage and working-class stories, died Saturday at Forbes Hospice.
The cause of death was complications of Alzheimer's disease. He was 79.
Mr. Demarest, of Point Breeze, found his imagination captured by Pittsburgh's hard-scrabble character in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He was passionate about its labor history, art, libraries and the remnants of its mills and mines.
With his late friend and colleague Eugene Levy, he walked the region's hills and valleys tirelessly, leading tours of its industrial heritage and stopping to talk with local residents. He was also an enthusiastic photographer.
"He really appreciated the layers of history, immigrant stories and topography of the city," said his daughter, Elizabeth Demarest of Washington, D.C. "Our Sunday afternoon ritual was walking 10-12 miles. I've hiked up a lot of slag heaps in my life. I still walk to work every day because he taught me the importance of interacting with the landscape."
Mr. Demarest rescued from obscurity Thomas Bell's 1941 book, "Out of This Furnace: A Novel of Immigrant Labor in America."
He wrote a new afterward for its reissue by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1976 and played a major role in making it a must-read for anyone studying that era. In 1990, he co-produced a video, "Out of This Furnace: A Walking Tour of Thomas Bell's Novel," with filmmaker Steffi Domike.
He was also editor of the 1976 book "From These Hills, From These Valleys: Selected Fiction About Western Pennsylvania," and co-editor with Fannia Weingartner of the 1992 volume, "The River Ran Red: Homestead, 1892."
Instrumental in forming the Battle of Homestead Foundation to promote a people's history of the bloody 1892 labor conflict, he worked to preserve the property's Pump House, now the site of a poetry series that he organized, planned and produced.
In addition, Mr. Demarest was a champion of preserving Maxo Vanka's unique murals in St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale, mixing images of religion, war, poverty and inequality. He helped raise money for the restoration, and his play about the murals, "Gift to America," was performed at the church in 1981 and 2008.
"Dave was instrumental in bringing public attention to the murals as one of the world's great works of art," said Charles McCollister, a longtime friend and colleague.
He also was an early advocate of saving the Braddock Carnegie Library in the 1980s, when it was closed and near total ruin. That interest led him to become founder and longtime editor of the Braddock Fields Historical Society newsletter.
"He really helped the fundraising," Mr. McCollister said. "A lot of people worked hard to save the library, but it wouldn't be where it is today without Dave's constant advocacy."
Mr. Demarest grew up in Englewood, N.J. His father was a commercial photographer and his mother a former high school history teacher.
He graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in English in 1953, then earned his master's at the University of Connecticut and his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin.
He taught at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and Manitowoc, then Washington University in St. Louis, joining the faculty at Carnegie Tech in 1964, staying through its transition to Carnegie Mellon. There he was the longtime editor of Focus, the faculty newspaper, often printing pieces by university workers. He retired from the school in 1999.
"The best word to describe David among his students, faculty colleagues, CMU staff, social activists and friends is 'beloved,' " wrote Russell Brignano, a longtime friend.
"He was a familiar and distinctive figure on the CMU campus: mutton chops, informal dress, a cap or baseball-style hat, reading glasses dangling from his shirt pocket, for many years his dog accompanying him to spend its day in David's faculty office."
In addition to traditional literature and writing courses, he taught classes such as Reading the Built Landscape, Documenting the Visual, Re-presenting Pittsburgh: Text and Image, and Images of Steel: Labor, Memory, and the Cultural Work of Corporate Photography.
He published some poems early in his career and loved poetry all his life, said his daughter.
Mr. Demarest also worked with the Center for Constitutional Rights; championed the rights of African-Americans, Palestinians and death row inmates; and was a member of the Pittsburgh Humanities Council.
In addition to his daughter, he is survived by his wife, Marlene Sherman Demarest of Point Breeze; another daughter, Victoria Demarest of Flourtown, Pa.; a son, James Demarest of Newton, Mass.; a sister, Nancy Widmer of Bernardsville, N.J.; and two grandsons.
Burial will be private. A celebration of his life will take place Nov. 5 at 3 p.m. at Braddock Carnegie Library, 419 Library St.
The family suggests donations to the Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals (vankamurals.org) or Braddock Carnegie Library.
First Published: October 20, 2011, 10:45 a.m.
