The economy of Youngstown, Ohio, United States, flourished in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with steel production reaching all-time highs at that time. The steel boom led to an influx of immigrants to the area looking for work, as well as construction of skyscrapers in the area. The city's population peaked at 170,002 in 1930, just at the onset of the Great Depression. World War II also brought a great demand for steel. After World War II, demand for steel dropped off dramatically, and industrial base of Youngstown began to see a decline.
Youngstown's economy has been impacted by a loss of the steel industry jobs which started on September 19, 1977, on what became known to locals as "Black Monday", and continued into the mid-1980s. While the loss of steel industry jobs in the region coincided with the general deindustrialization of Rust Belt cities such as Youngstown as well as the United States as a whole, Youngstown's economic struggles have been well documented. In the Mahoning Valley, where Youngstown is located, the population was halved, while non-industrial businesses were forced to close or relocate due to cascading effects resulting from Youngstown's deindustrialization.
Steel boom
Founded by John Young in 1797 in the Connecticut Western Reserve section of the Northwest Territory, Youngstown spent the first half of the 19th century as a small village, dependent on mostly agricultural needs, until the beginning of the Second Industrial Revolution. The discovery of iron ore along the Mahoning River, however, would make the city a viable and logical place to manufacture steel. The city sits roughly in between Cleveland and Pittsburgh—steel manufacturers in their own right—and halfway between New York City and Chicago. Youngstown Sheet and Tube and Republic Steel were among the region's largest locally owned steel companies, while U.S. Steel also had major operations in the region.
Endowed with large deposits of coal and iron as well as "old growth" hardwood forests needed to produce charcoal, the Youngstown area eventually developed a thriving steel industry. The area's first blast furnace was established to the east of town in 1803 by James and Daniel Heaton.Blue et al. (1995), p. 20. In time, the availability of fossil fuels contributed to the development of other coal-fired mills, including the Youngstown Rolling Mill Company, which was established in 1846.Blue et al. (1995), p. 42. By the mid-19th century, Youngstown was the site of several iron industrial plants, notably David Tod's Brier Hill Iron & Coal Company.Blue et al. (1995), p. 37. The iron industry continued to expand in the 1890s, despite the depletion of local natural resources. Numerous rail connections ensured a consistent supply of coal and iron ore from neighboring states.Blue et al. (1995), pp. 66–67.
At the turn of the 20th century local industrialists began to convert to steel manufacturing, amid a wave of industrial consolidations that placed much of the Mahoning Valley's industry in the hands of national corporations.Blue et al. (1995), p. 94. Shortly after the establishment of U.S. Steel in 1901, the corporate entity absorbed Youngstown's premier steel producer, the National Steel Company. One year earlier, a group of city investors had taken steps to ensure high levels of local ownership in the area's industrial sector. Led by local industrialists George D. Wick and James A. Campbell, they organized what became the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, among the nation's most important regional steel producers. The firm significantly expanded its operations in 1923, when it acquired plants in South Chicago and East Chicago, Indiana. This impulse to support local ownership surfaced again in 1931, when Campbell, as chairman of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, attempted to merge the firm with Bethlehem Steel, in a bid to create the nation's second-largest steel corporation. Other area industrialists blocked the move, with the financial backing of Republic Steel founder Cyrus S. Eaton, who feared the implications of a strengthened Bethlehem Steel.Fuechtmann (1989), p. 14.
In the late 1930s the community's steel sector gained national attention once again, when Youngstown became a site of the so-called "Little Steel Strike", an effort by the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, a precursor to United Steelworkers, to secure contract agreements with smaller steel companies. These firms included Republic Steel, Bethlehem Steel, Youngstown Sheet and Tube, National Steel, Inland Steel, and American Rolling Mills. Gus Hall, one of the committee's founding organizers, led strikes in Youngstown and Warren. On June 21, 1937, strike-related violence in Youngstown resulted in two deaths and 42 injuries. Despite violent episodes in Youngstown and Chicago, the Little Steel Strike proved to be a turning point in the history of the U.S. labor movement. Historian William Lawson observed that the strike transformed industrial unions from "basically local and ineffective organizations into all-encompassing, nationwide collective bargaining representatives of American workers".
In 1969 Youngstown Sheet and Tube merged with the New Orleans–based Lykes Corporation, and in 1979 the combined Lykes-Youngstown was bought by the conglomerate LTV.Williams, Robert Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company-Lykes Corporation Merger Letter, Libert-Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company-Lykes Collection, September 4, 1969 This brought decisions to the local economy out of the hands of the Youngstown area for the first time, although Republic Steel had moved to nearby Cleveland years earlier. LTV had discovered that the numerous mills in the area had not been upgraded in decades, and would not meet pollution regulations set forth by the United States government without an expensive upgrade. In addition, many steel manufacturers were outsourcing steel to developing nations, where the costs would be cheaper and with fewer pollution regulations.
Black Monday
Between the 1920s and 1960s the city was known as an important industrial hub that featured the massive furnaces and foundries of such companies as Republic Steel and U.S. Steel. At the same time, Youngstown never became economically diversified, as did larger industrial cities such as Chicago, Pittsburgh, Akron, or Cleveland. Though population levels remained flat for a few more decades, population had not grown since the Great Depression, though General Motors had opened Lordstown Assembly in 1966 to help offset some losses.Fuechtmann (1989), p. 16. Hence, when economic changes forced the closure of plants throughout the 1970s, the city was left with few substantial economic alternatives. The 1969 corporate merger between the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company and the New Orleans–based Lykes Corporation proved to be a turning point in the demise of the local steel industry.Fuechtmann (1989), pp. 41–43. The merger and subsequent takeover of Youngstown Sheet and Tube burdened the community's primary steel producer with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Further, the deal placed control of the company outside of the Mahoning Valley.
On September 19, 1977, it was announced a large portion of Youngstown Sheet and Tube would be closing. Although federal laws now require employers to give 60 days notice to its employees if they plan on doing mass layoffs, the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act was still eleven years from going into effect at the time, and Youngstown Sheet and Tube instantly put 5,000 workers out of work. The day is still known locally as "Black Monday".
Youngstown Sheet and Tube's announcement had a ripple effect in the area. In 1979–1980, U.S. Steel pulled out of the Youngstown area and started scaling back its operations in Pittsburgh before eventually merging with Marathon Oil and filing with bankruptcy. In the mid-1980s, Republic Steel also filed for bankruptcy.Bruno (1999), pp. 9–10. Attempts to revive the local steel industry proved unsuccessful. Shortly after the closure of most of Youngstown Sheet and Tube's area operations, local religious leaders, steelworkers, and activists such as Staughton Lynd participated in a grassroots effort to purchase and refurbish one of the company's abandoned plants in neighboring Campbell, Ohio.Fuechtmann (1989), p. 5. This project met with failure in April 1979. Youngstown State University professors Terry Buss and F. Stevens Redburn have concluded that the mill closings resulted from forces beyond the control of the community. Youngstown was simply just one piece of a national problem, and the area could not solve this problem alone. In 1982, Staughton Lynd wrote about the effects of the mill closings in Youngstown in the book, The Fight Against Black Monday. In the wake of the steel plant shutdowns, the community lost an estimated 40,000 manufacturing jobs, 400 satellite businesses, $414 million in personal income, and from 33 to 75 percent of the school tax revenues.Bruno (1999), p. 149. The Youngstown area has yet to fully recover from the loss of jobs in the steel sector.Linkon and Russo (2002), pp. 131–132.
The move had an effect on non-industrial businesses as well. Fast food chain Arby's, which at the time was beginning to make a national push, moved its corporate headquarters out of the Youngstown area. Idora Park, an amusement park in the area, suffered several fires before closing its doors in 1984. The Strouss department store would be consolidated into Kaufmann's by its parent company, May Department Stores, before its own consolidation into Macy's.
The city made attempts to attract another steel manufacturer, and even re-open Youngstown Sheet and Tube as a community-owned steel mill, but all these attempts failed.
After Black Monday The loss of industrial jobs has had a lasting impact in the Mahoning Valley region of Youngstown, as the city's population was cut in half as a result,Christie, Les (April 24, 2008). "The Incredible Shrinking City". money.cnn.com. Retrieved 2010-12-16. while non-industrial businesses were forced to close or relocate due to the ripple effect of the loss of the steel industry. Although some other Rust Belt cities such as Pittsburgh have since successfully been able to diversify their economic base, as of December 2010, more than a generation after deindustrialization, Youngstown has not recovered.Steven High | Capital and Community Reconsidered: The Politics and Meaning of Deindustrialization | Labour/Le Travail, 55. The History Cooperative. Retrieved on 2010-12-23. The deindustrialization of Youngstown has been well documented.Steeltown U.S.A . Kansaspress.ku.edu. Retrieved on 2010-12-23.
Alternate enterprises
A number of products and enterprises other than steel introduced in Youngstown during the manufacturing era became national household names. Among these is Youngstown-based Schwebel's Bakery, which was established in neighboring Campbell in the 20th century. The company now distributes bread products nationally. In the 1920s, Youngstown was the birthplace of the Good Humor brand of ice cream novelties, and the popular franchise of Handel's Homemade Ice Cream & Yogurt was established there in the 1940s. In the 1950s, the suburb of Boardman became the site of one of the country's first modern shopping plazas, which was established by Youngstown-born developer Edward J. DeBartolo, Sr.Blue et al. (1995), p. 176 The fast-food chain, Arby's, opened the first of its restaurants in Boardman in 1964, and Arthur Treacher's Fish & Chips was headquartered in Youngstown in the late 1970s. More recently, the city's downtown hosted the corporate headquarters of the now-defunct pharmacy chain store Phar-Mor, which was established by Youngstown native Mickey Monus.