Sherry Lee Linkon  &  John Russo

STEELTOWN  U.S.A.
Work and Memory in Youngstown

(Cultureamerica) [Paperback]

296 pages
    University Press of Kansas

   ISBN-10: 0700612920
 
reviewed by Patrick Killough

(1) biblio.com  07/24/2010

Review title: Who are we?

Would you recommend this book to other readers?  Yes. * * * * *

review:

STEELTOWN U.S.A. is the collaborative product of two Youngstown (Ohio) State University Professors. They are Sherry Lee Linkon (English, American Studies, Co-director of the Center for Working-Class Studies) and John Russo (Management, Co-director of the Center for Working-Class Studies). I heard them live review their book and its eight-year history to date during a June 2010 conference in Boardman, a Youngstown suburb.

STEELTOWN U.S.A. is a visually attractive, much illustrated text. Merely to spend a quarter hour thumbing through its maps, photos, cartoons and banners gives an informed, gritty feel for a tough city, Youngstown, in northeastern Ohio, and its history since the early 1800s.

But there is much more: a generally Marxist, determinist theory of Youngstown's history as class versus class, rich versus poor, old versus new, official corruption, mob activities co-existing with active, often ethnic churches and parochial schools. The authors also believe that many people living in and near Youngstown in the early 21st Century either want to forget about their city's history or remain overwhelmed with shame, if they bother to remember history at all. According to Linkon and Russo, Youngstown's story is full of highs and lows and all of it must be remembered and understood if Steeltown U.S.A. is to have a sensible future.

In September 1977 "de-industrialization" descended like an angry cyclone on what was then arguably the most successful steel-manufacturing city in the world. The mills began to shut down. Within five years 50,000 people lost their jobs. The new growth industries were suburban shopping malls and four major new prisons (and some champion college football teams). 

People fled the city. Property values tumbled. New highways tore old neighborhoods apart. The authors lay out reasons for this history: starting with geography: water, coal and iron in abundance. Cheap immigrant labor helped. Local people who grew rich quickly and until around 1970 continued to live in the area and pour fresh capital into steel and related industries assured stability. 

There were stikes, successful labor union actions, Ohio State government repression of the poor, Federal government courts tending to side with the powerful owners. All this was the making of Steeltown U.S.A. People forget this history at the peril of the new, post-industrial Youngstown, still working to eradicate official corruption, mob-influence and to figure out: "Who are We?" 

 -OOO-


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(2) lunch.com  07/21/2010

name of review: When de-industrialization gutted a major American city


rating: * * * *

review:

By some measures, in the mid 1970s, Youngstown, Ohio, was the world's greatest steel producing city. Then in 1977 came Black Monday, September 19th. Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company announced that it was closing its works in Campbell, a Youngstown suburb. In a few months 5,000 workers lost their jobs. Within five years 50,000 people were displaced by shutdowns in the Youngstown-Warren area of northeastern Ohio.
 
What happened next in the once proud STEELTOWN U.S.A. is the subject of a nearly 300 page long year 2002 study by two professors of Youngstown State University: Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo. At a conference in Youngstown in June 2010, my wife and I were fortunate to hear these two scholars review their book before the annual convention of the International Association of Torch Clubs. (For Torch Clubs see http://www.torch org.) Thus, in writing this review of their book, I have the benefit of having just heard the authors respond to controversy about their disputed theses in the eight years since STEELTOWN U. S. A. was published.
 
In an historical sweep which begins in the early 1800s and carries into the early 21st century, Linkon and Russo lay out their vision of the past and future of Youngstown, Ohio. I recommend that you go to your library and spend a half hour leafing through STEELTOWN U.S.A. That should be enough to decide if you wish to invest another dozen hours or more into this generally attractive but sometimes numbing medley of photographs, cartoons, maps, interviews, history, geography, cameo biographies and selected interviews with workers, churchmen and others.
 
The book rejects Henry Ford's axiom that "history is bunk." It is a mistake in the early 2000s, argued Linkon and Russo, for some Youngstownians to refuse to remember Youngstown as a mighty steel town or to be ashamed of its later years when so many prisons were built in and around it. A city without a remembered history cannot have a future, they argue. Face the future bravely while remembering the past, warts and all.

The authors exhibit more than a faint air of Marxist historical determinism in their theorizing about de-industrialization. They claim to have noticed more than other scholars struggles of Youngstown poor versus Youngstown rich, of one ethnic group versus another and the role of post-World War II prosperity in driving newly affluent white steel workers to abandon the inner city for the suburbs.
 
To me the best part of the book is its convincing study of corruption and mob activity in Youngstown, especially during and after the boom years of big steel. Immigrants needed powerful local figures to protect them from a pro-business Ohio State government and a sometimes crusading Federal government disenchanted with gambling and tax evasion.

Whole layers of government and the courts were up for sale. In such a shady environment a loveable rogue like James A. Traficant, Jr. could be elected to Congress nine times before being expelled from the House for his criminal convictions. Traficant is newly released from prison and has announced, I have read, his intention to contend for his old Congressional seat. I would like to know where this populist local hero comes down on the current, populist Tea Party movement. He reminds of the legendary kind-hearted rascal, New Yorker Gentleman Jimmy Walker, "Beau James." As Sheriff, Traficant became a popular hero by refusing to evict unemployed workers from their foreclosed homes.

Youngstown made many super achievers, including the creators of the shopping mall. Read STEELTOWN U.S.A. for the details!
 
 
-OOO-


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(3) bn.com

title of review: "You've got to have somebody ... who can fight dirty, or you'll get nothing."

rating: * * * *

review:

Posted 7/28/2010:

STEELTOWN U.S.A. has grown on me. There were times when the Marxist-determinist class-struggle mindset of the two authors put me off. And generally speaking their thesis that remembering history is important, though often asserted, is only weakly argued for. I accept that thesis myself, but also see merit in Henry Ford's famous point that "history is bunk." Clearly, the world is divided into two camps on this issue.

Authors Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo are academics on the faculty of Youngstown State University in northeastern Ohio. She does English and American studies. He does Management. Together, they are Co-directors of the University's Center for Working-Class Studies.

In mid-June 2010 I heard them expound together and defend STEELTOWN U.S.A. eight years after its publication. I detected no major changes of view from what the book asserted. Then and now Linkon and Russo try to make sense of why, starting in September 1977, the decades old steel manufacturing industry of Youngstown, Ohio shut its doors and within five years cost the jobs of 50,000 workers. These reflections are embedded in a general geographical-historical narrative which takes Youngstown from around the year 1800 to the year 2000.

That is essentially prolog to a second question: how did the former steel workers and other residents of Youngstown and vicinity react to the closing of the mills -- and why?

A third question: does Youngstown conceivably have a good future? If so, can it be better created by people who deliberately keep alive the city's history or by people who deliberately close their minds to the past?

Youngstown became a great steel manufacturing center because it had coal, water and iron and local entrepreneurs who put those elements together -- as well as a steady inflow of workers.

The steel industry fell apart in Youngstown because it did not modernize. The old families whom steel made wealthy lost their spirit of boosterism, moved away and/or sold out to newcomers with no interest in the local community.

For years after 1977 there was post-industrial shock. People basically did not make a community-wide effort to rethink their future. Churches supported efforts of workers to buy abandoned mills. There was a rush to build prisons: four new ones. Organized crime moved beyond its older role in gambling and numbers into prostitution. City and county officials, including court officials and a member of Congress grew notably corrupt.

That is the basic line of march of STEELTOWN U.S.A. The book is well illustrated and includes posters, cartoons, poems, song texts, excerpts from interviews by the authors and others. There is far more content than the main line of argumentation just sketched would suggest. For one thing, two local families created and spread American's first shopping malls.

The treatment of crime and corruption in Youngstown is notably compelling. The ground for the rise of crime families associated with Pittsburgh or Cleveland was laid in the desperate need of earliest workers, mainly immigrants from Italy, Germany and elsewhere for strong local protectors, father figures willing to do battle for the little fellow against State and Federal officials initially in the pockets of big business. As one scholar asserted: "You've got to have somebody ... who can fight dirty, or you'll get nothing" (Ch. 4, p. 222).

I had to read this book slowly and carefully. It is sometimes obscure.

-OOO-


recommended reading: Upton Sinclair - THE JUNGLE.

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e/9780700612925/?itm=2&USRI=sherry+lee+linkon
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(4) amazon.com  07/30/2010

title of review: Does Youngstown, Ohio have a de-industrialized future?

rating: * * * *

review:

STEELTOWN U.S.A. does some things very well, other things less so. There are descriptions in this book that will appeal to many serious readers and theories that will likely disappoint. The following sketch is designed to help you decide whether and to what extent to read this history of the industrialization and de-industrialization of Youngstown, Ohio from around 1800 to 2000.

One way to tackle this multi-colored, varied descriptive canvas, also a sometimes daunting and dry theoretical study, is simply to open its pages and riffle through its many black and white maps, photos, statistical tables, ads, cartoons and other illustrations. Even without the text, you can sense that STEELTOWN U.S.A. is about steelmills, steel workers, photographers, artists in metal, labor unions, religion, local boosterism, a river, jails, geography and history.

In a sense, the rest of this 288 page paperback stitched together by two academicians of Youngstown State University simply fleshes out the illustrations. We are first presented a big chunk of land blessed with water, coal and access to iron ore. Northeastern Ohio, the easternmost Western Reserve, first attracts imaginative entrepreneurs and then thousands of immigrant workers. We see one of the world's greatest steel making cities rise as local capitalists invest and re-invest and then decline and nearly fall as those local-patriotism investor boosters move away and sell out to outsiders with no sentimental ties to Youngstown.

The authors also lay out other forces at work in Youngstown: including the religion of the capitalists and of the workers; the two local families that created the American shopping mall; the crooked Congressman iconic of many bent judges and local politicians, and on and on.

The big question tackled (without notable success) is about the unknown future of STEELTOWN U.S.A.

Will that future be built by local people who know Youngstown's past, who honor its glory days and weep over its cruelties but learn from and remember the past?

Or will future Youngstown be the product of people who deliberately ignore the past ("history is bunk") or if they know it, hate it and refuse to learn from their past?

The authors believe that local history and remembering history is important. So do I. But they do not, in my opinion, argue effectively or convincingly for their thesis.

At the level of general theory, STEELTOWN U.S.A. is a Marxist bust. As impressionistic ranging over a rich surface, the book is unusually good and evocative.  

-OOO-

tags:  youngstown, ohio, steel mills, shopping malls, james traficant, de-industrialization


http://www.amazon.com/Steeltown-USA-Memory-Youngstown
-Cultureamerica/dp/0700612920/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid
=1279707318&sr=1-1
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(5) epinions.com  07/30/2010

Review Title: Is Youngstown, Ohio doomed?

Product Rating: * * * *

aohcapablanca's Full Review: 

Pros: Brilliant, impressionistic ranging over rich two-dimensional surfaces: geography, history, steelmills, class struggles, art.

Cons: Unconvincing neo-Marxist probing of underlying economic and social forces. Need to remember history not proven

The Bottom Line: Riffle through the many black and white illustrations. If you begin to grasp Youngstown, Ohio from them, then read on. See a great city rise and decline. Ponder its future.

aohcapablanca's Full Review: 

The rise and fall of great cities is a favorite subject of historians from Edward Gibbon to Youngstown State Unversity academicians Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo. Gibbon we all know from THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Linkon and Russo co-authored a 2002 study of Youngstown, Ohio: STEELTOWN U.S.A. 

In June 2010 during a conference held in Boardman, a Youngstown suburb, my wife and I heard an hour and a half power point restatement by both authors of their descriptions and theories. 

Both are serious scholars.  They first lay out at great length a factual and impressionistic grid for their claim to intellectual respectability upon a wide-ranging multi-colored collage of interviews, illustrations, recollections, and two-dimensional sketches of geography and history.

But all that is mere prolog and buildup to their three-dimensional theorizing about how to build a good future for punch-drunk, de-industrialized Youngstown, Ohio.  

-- Should future Youngstown be built by local people who know and honor its rich history, warts and all? 


-- Or ought Youngstown go its way either with no plan at all or on the basis of planning that contemptuously ignores the city's past? Is history after all nothing but the bunk that Henry Ford declared it to be? 

We begin in Northeastern Ohio around the year 1800. We enter the eastern edge of Connecticut's Western Reserve of the Federal Government's onetime Northwest Territory.

Shortly after extinction of the last Indian titles, in the area around what became Youngstown, coal was discovered. Imaginative entrepreneurs settled there, developed coal, used it to make steel and attracted a workforce of thousands, mainly recent immigrants from abroad.

By World War II, Youngstown, Ohio was one of the world's greatest manufacturers of steel. Enriched descendants of the pioneering entrepreneurs stayed on in Youngstown. They built museums, parks, churches. They re-invested in the steel mills. Later arrivals created America's first shopping malls, fought the good fight for unionization, supported churches and ethnic parochial schools. Life was good -- though air and water were polluted -- well into the 1970s.

Then on "Black Monday" in September 1977 "de-industrialization" struck Youngstown. Steelmill after mill shut down. Within five years 50,000 workers had lost well paying jobs. Some workers, with support from churches, tried to buy the mills but in vain. Four prisons were built in and near Youngstown. Some businesses relocated to the suburbs. Town planners drove highways through old neighborhoods. Organized crime began to thrive. Murders soared. Politicians and leaders were proven notably corrupt.

How did Youngstownians and other Americans react?

-- The book's Introduction begins with eight lines from Bruce Springsteen's 1995 song, "Youngstown," including:

"Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name."

Throughout the book's four long Chapters and Epilogue you will encounter other poems and songs, including some fighting songs of militant workers and labor unions. YOUNGSTOWN U.S.A. is a lyrical, musical tale. 

-- Youngstown's glory days were celebrated by steel makers, real estate developers and artists. Churches displayed Saint Joseph with his arm on a worker's shoulders. YOUNGSTOWN U.S.A. is visual: recalling many efforts by poets and artists to keep the past alive. 

-- Youngstownians innovated. "In 1951, the DeBartolo Corporation opened its first shopping center, Boardman Plaza, south of Youngstown, offering a department store, an ice cream parlor, and and the area's largest grocery store as well as a twelve-hundred-car parking lot" (Ch. 1). This was the USA's first shopping mall.

-- Youngstownian politicians sinned publicly and almost joyously. I read with special care the lengthy treatment of local folk hero James A.  Traficant, Jr. (the sheriff who never enforced eviction notices against the unemployed steel workers, the last member of the U.S. House of Representatives to be expelled after conviction of a felony and before serving a prison term). Traficant is recently become a free man and says he will run again for his old seat. Traficant's name pops up regularly in July 2010 in news stories about the ethical troubles of Harlem Representative from New York, Charles Rangel.
The authors are convincing in their explanation of why workers liked, because they needed, tough, compassionate rogues as elected politicians. For these leaders protected the little fellow against an Ohio State Government and U.S. Courts strongly inclined to favor big business.

The weakest parts of YOUNGSTOWN USA are its most traditionally academic -- digging for deep causality. The authors, having spread Youngstown across a rich, colorful grid, then try to explain the city's past and present and predict the future. After hearing both of them speak last month about their book eight years after its publication and then reading the book slowly, carefully, at times benumbed, I have to conclude that Linkon and Russo stand by their theories, such as they are. Their views have not deepened. They toss together, geography, history, ethnic immigrant traditions, religion, economics, crooked politics, arts, work ethic into one big melting pot and come up with no theory that I can fathom that empowers people of good will to predict the future shape of Youngstown, Ohio and environs. 

The two authors assert that only those who remember Youngstown's past -- all of it, warts and all -- can intelligently create Youngstown's future. They clearly fear Henry Ford's unnamed disciples in Youngstown who proclaim anew, "history is bunk." They prove, however, nothing profound.

I cannot honestly claim that the duo does much more than create a very pretty quiltwork of impressions and images. And these are exciting, vivid, human, nostalgic by turns and generally depressing. Something there is for every reader. But depth? No. Alas.

I rate STEELTOWN U.S.A. 3.6 stars, rounding up to 4.0 for its honesty, color, its verve and its gritty surfaces.

-OOO-

Recommended: Yes.

http://www.epinions.com/review/Steeltown_USA_Work_and_Memory
_in_Youngstown_by_Sherry_Lee_Linkon/content_519649398404
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linkon_steeltown





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