Steeltown U.S.A.

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-

For those of us who left Youngstown before the Great Deindustrialization, this book tells us the rest of the story. It brought back many memories of growing up in a steel town and all that went with it.

Having live in Briar Hill in Youngstown, I found this book facinating. I read it in 5 days, & had a hard time putting it down! Youngstown, Oh has a proud history & has produced many sucessful people. I am passing the book along to all my local friends. Although Youngstown itself is very depressed, the sourounding area, Canfield, Poland, Boardman are equal to the finest comunities in the country. With the "working Class" mentality, many of us grew up with, there is nothing a "Youngstowner" can't accomplish.

Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo, Steeltown U.S.A.: Work and Memory in Youngstown (University Press of Kansas, 2003) You don't really think of Youngstown as a place that would inspire a great amount of social criticism. In fact, if you're like most people, you really don't think of Youngstown much at all. It is a good thing that you are not Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo, who do think of Youngstown as the kind of place that would inspire a great amount of social criticism. And then they went ahead and wrote Steeltown U.S.A. It shouldn't surprise you that people writing a book about the real-world effects of deindustrialization on an American city are going to be approaching the subject from a populist viewpoint; what should surprise you is that Linkon and Russo do so in a way that even most fiction writers are incapable of: instead of moralizing at every turn, they sit back and let the story of Youngstown get the message across by itself, realizing that the stark images of the effects of deindustrialization will do all the necessary work. And it does. There's little more that will tell you "deindustrialization is bad, mmmkay?" as the plight of Youngstown from 1977 to the present day. While it's been thirty years now since the first plant closings in Youngstown, there can be no question, in today's economy of outsourcing, that Steeltown U.S.A. is a timely book--perhaps timelier than it would have been, had it been released at any other time. It is solid, well-written scholarship, a piece of scholarly nonfiction that does its level best to read like its more popular counterpart, and succeeds more often than not. It will definitely get you thinking more, and harder, about Youngstown. One of the twenty-five best books I read in 2006. ****

What a superb book about a little known but renowned town known as Youngstown, Ohio. The text provides the history of this noble town from its founding to its growth to its impact upon the globe.Youngstown became the center of the Steel Industry between Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago where it help out building the modern world. It was at one time the largest producer of Steel. The authors explain how the town attracted people from all over the earth. How it became the cradle of middle class values created by the practice of hard work, smart thinking and support of family with the opportunities produced by the establishment of the steel and related businesses.It also depicts how Youngstown became the border town between New York and Midwest based crime families fighting over turf, gambling and other vices that affluence often attract. At one time, Youngstown was known to be an open town where anyone on the run could be protected if they knew who to pay for sanctuary without judgment of deeds. The money from Youngstown used to bet on local sports to college to pro sports actually contributed to building Las Vegas. The region was only second to gambling behind Las Vegas from 1940 to 1990.At the same time, the book explains how this great city and region was weaken with the subsequent loss of over 50,000 steel jobs. How it had to experience the loss of such jobs, tax revenues and opportunities. Yet, the town and people persevere in the face of such losses. In the 1950's two families in the name of DiBartolo and Cafaro were the largest builders of Shopping malls in America and based in Youngstown. Today, new businesses actually set up in Youngstown's suburb of Boardman before going national just to test the market place. What few know is Bruce Springteen wrote the lyrics to "Youngstown" based upon interviews in this book. I highly recommend you take the time to read this exquisite book written by two great authors and about a town and its people known as Youngstown, Ohio. A grand town because of its people and how they influence the world in so many ways explained in volume in this book.