One Man Can Make A Difference by Roldo Bartimole

photo: Cleveland State University

The pdf is here

One Man Can Make a Difference

By Roldo Bartimole

It took a single person’s act in 1979 to save Cleveland’s public electric light system.

And no, that man wasn’t Mayor Dennis Kucinich.

It was a Plain Dealer reporter. His name was Bob Holden.

Mayor Kucinich had been forced by political pressure to put the Cleveland Municipal Light System, commonly known as Muny Light at that time, on the ballot. The measure asked voters to decide whether to sell or keep the troubled electric system. Muny produced no electric power itself. The city’s system owed its origin to the progressive politics of Mayor Tom L. Johnson in the early 1900s.

Kucinich and his administration worked exhaustively to save Muny. But without Holden’s act and the ensuing revolt at the Plain Dealer, it would not have been sufficient.

A Jan. 23 poll showed the ballot measure would go down by a 70 to 30 vote. Cleveland voters were tired of the constant disputes of the Kucinich administration. The poll revealed the voter frustration. On Feb. 27, 1979 the voters, however, made their choice.

Historically, the era of the 1960s was ending or over. In Cleveland, however, Kucinich kept it alive. He espoused an urban theory that urged progressives to concentrate on economic issues, not social issues. Progressives flocked to his administration from around the nation. He even drew Ralph Nader into the drama.

The two electric power companies had been involved in explosive disputes – legal and financial – for years. The city was suing the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. (CEI) for anti-trust violations and dirty tricks. A federal case was pending. Cleveland also disputed unusual high charges for power provided to Muny by CEI. Meanwhile, CEI tried numerous underhanded methods to weaken and destroy the city’s system. The aim was clearly to put the city out of the electricity business. CEI now is an operating company of First Energy Company of Akron.

So how did Bob Holden do it? He did it by being kicked off the story of how CEI had purposely damaged Muny Light.

But Holden didn’t go quietly.

Here’s what happened.

As the reporter assigned to cover CEI, Holden was delegated to report about the dispute between the two entities. In early 1979 series of articles was planned.

Before he got started, however, CEI complained about him to the Plain Dealer. They didn’t want Holden doing the reporting. They figured him as too tough. They also knew that the proof of the company’s bad behavior was readily available. Holden would not shy from collecting the data and writing it.

The editors folded under CEI’s pressure. Holden was pulled from the story. The reason editors gave was that Holden “would be unfair.”  Not something reporters wanted to hear.

Since he hadn’t written a word how they determined bias was a mystery. How could they say that? The Plain Dealer editorial hierarchy was going out on a limb with that excuse. Reporters weren’t buying it.

At the time the Newspaper Guild, representing reporters, was strong and militant. Unlike today when reporters fear losing their jobs in a diminished newspaper business, reporters then were willing to fight management. The Guild voted to withhold bylines on articles and to picket the PD. This would reveal their displeasure about the censorship to the public. It would embarrass the editors. The Guild contract allowed reporters to withhold bylines.

Management buckled, though not totally.

These were tough times for media managers. In November 1978 WJW Channel 8 retracted a piece done by Bob Franken. Franken reported that a National City Bank Chairman Claude Blair wanted to deny refinancing city debt and force Cleveland into default to insure Mayor Dennis Kucinich’s defeat in the next mayoral election.

The station, under pressure from the bank, retracted the report. Ch. 8 news director Virgil Dominic read the rare retraction that said “We now find that all of the statements we made were inaccurate and there was absolutely no basis for the report.”

Franken resigned after the retraction was aired. He said, “I can only tell you that the story is not inaccurate. The story is 100 percent true. My sources, in this particular case, are incredibly good sources.”

“This in my mind,” he said, “was simply a matter of the power structure in the town getting its way.

Franken became an Emmy-winning reporter for CNN, covering the White House and Congress until he left in 2007.

Here’s how I explained the Holden situation in my newsletter Point of View in February 1979:

“The Guild followed by voting to withhold bylines and picketing the newspaper to call attention to the PD censorship. With TV coverage, particularly on Ch. 3, and radio, particularly on WERE, the entire community found out about the latest PD censorship.

“To get out of the spotlight, management agreed to meet with Guild members to hammer out a compromise.

“The two sides met for some eight hours at the Leather Bottel, a restaurant-bar, and an agreement was reached. It became the joint statement of the Guild and management:

“Plain Dealer reporter Robert Holden, for the month of February, will, as assigned, fill in for the vacationing book editor.

“At the end of February, he will report to the city editor as general assignment reporter under the usual PD standards.”

The two sides went a bit further.

They verbally agreed by handshake, reporters said, that Holden would spend the rest of the month of January on his utility beat.

But the deal broke down after Holden appeared on a television news show the same night he turned in an article about CEI. The article was not printed but ran later without his byline.

The Guild had been outmaneuvered. The written agreement, made in a bar with both sides drinking, said nothing of Holden returning to his beat.

Holden resigned in disgust.

His demise became a fulfillment of a warning made by a CEI public relation person more than a year before. The CEI spokesperson told Holden:

“CEI will be here long after Bob Holden is gone.”

However, Holden’s refusal to be censored and the reporters’ protests damaged the PD’s credibility. It put the newspaper in a vulnerable position. No newspaper wants to be seen as openly censoring itself.

Editors were forced to assign others to write the history of the dispute that led to the ballot issue.

The situation made it difficult for the PD to censor a second time. A team of reporters was assigned to the story.

The paper had no choice but to accept the articles the new team wrote after Holden’s resignation. The news room was in insurrection mode.

“We’d have gone crazy and we’d have gone crazy in public,” said one reporter asked what might have happened had the PD tried censorship again.

“The Saturday Night Massacre would apply,” he said, referring to the resignations during Watergate. It would have put the PD in the position of having no reporter who would take the assignment.

Dave Abbott, now head of the Gund Foundation and Dan Biddle, who became a Pulitzer Prize winner in Philadelphia, were assigned to write the series. Their articles revealed the hidden truth about how CEI tried to damage the city’s electric system. One headline on Feb. 11 revealed the tone: “CEI Objective: Snuff Muny Light.

The dramatic outcome of this battle between staff and management was revealed by the result of the vote. It flipped.

The early poll showed that Cleveland voters would elect to sell the city’s electric system to CEI by a two to one vote.

The dispute and Holden’s resignation allowed freedom to the two new reporters. Prompted by revelations they produced, the actual vote came in two to one to maintain the city’s electric power system.

It was a critical example of the power of information. It revealed that if you give people the truth, they’ll understand and make their decision. It also shows that when the news media hide the truth it distorts democratic decision-making.

The change in public attitude was striking.

I wrote in Point of View before the election: “The virtual blackout on Muny Light has been shattered. The Holden affair and the entry of Ralph Nader into the fight gave focus to the charges of the news media’s refusal to focus on the dispute in a meaningful way. The news media here were open to the charges of serious distortion of the news.

“But in the past week, the coverage in both the Press and PD broke the blackout and silence. Finally, in a realistic manner information has begun to flow.

“Whether it will be enough to offset the years of distortion and failure to report will be revealed by the vote.”

It was a game changer. The voters spoke decisively. The city retained its system. And does to this day.

Holden later left town to pursue an academic career. Today he is Dr. Holden, a tenured professor of Latin American history at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va.

In a recent interview he called that period in Cleveland, “A special time, a different time.”

He recalled that he somehow learned about the anti-trust charges by the city against CEI. It shocked him that the Plain Dealer hadn’t covered the issue. “We haven’t covered this,” he said he complained to editors. “How could we have missed this?” he asked them. Holden started to make telephone calls and cover it.

Actually, it wasn’t that much of a secret.

Two years before in 1977 I wrote a piece entitled: “U. S. Ruling Puts CEI in Jeopardy of Losing $325 Million Anti-trust Suit to Muny Light. Perk, Forbes Trying to Boot Away Opportunity.”

Here’s how I put it: “There’s a robbery in progress with the mayor of Cleveland, the Council President and the Cleveland news media accessories before the fact.

“The Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. (CEI) is still trying to STEAL Cleveland’s electric light plant (MUNY) from the city.

“The mayor knows it. The Council President knows it. The news media know it. And the public should know it.”

Holden now can’t remember how he discovered the anti-trust problem but says it may have been from Point of View, where the above appeared.

Ironically, Holden, after he left the Plain Dealer, went to work for Kucinich. He said he was assigned to the community relations department but actually he was a speech writer for the Mayor.

Holden, as a number of other progressives, became disenchanted with Kucinich during his re-election campaign. They particularly soured because of his use of racial politics as Kucinich tried to retain office. He lost in 1979 to George Voinovich.

The crucial issue of the ideological desire of CEI to rid itself of competition by a public agency was far from over. It was to play out in two federal court anti-trust trials.

The first trial ended in a hung jury as one juror held out in CEI’s favor. The city lost the second anti-trust trial.

But Holden proved an old adage that one man can make a difference.

Given the truth, the public also made a difference.

 

Books We Suggest

Dr. John J. Grabowski
Dr. John J. Grabowski holds a joint position as the Krieger-Mueller Historian and Vice President for Collections at the Western Reserve Historical Society and the Krieger-Mueller Associate Professor of Applied History at Case Western Reserve University.

Cleveland: A Concise History (Cleveland: A Concise History, 1796-1996) Carol Poh Miller, Robert Wheeler

The Birth of Modern Cleveland 1865-1930 (Miggins and Campbell, eds.) (The Western Reserve Historical Society publication) 1988

Identity, Conflict, and Cooperation: Central Europeans in Cleveland, 1850-1930 David C. Hammack (Editor), Diane L. Grabowski (Editor), John J. Grabowski (Editor) 2002

Alabama North
AlabamaNorth: African-American Migrants, Community, and Working-Class Activism in Cleveland, 1915-1945 Kimberley L. Phillips 1999

Cleveland: A Tradition of Reform
by David D. Van Tassel and John Grabowski 1986

Greg Deegan – Teacher Beachwood High School and Director of Teaching Cleveland Institute

A Ghetto Takes Shape:  Black Cleveland, 1870 – 1930, by Kenneth L. Kusmer 1978

Cleveland: The Best Kept Secret, by George Condon 1967

Horse Trails to Regional Rails:  The Story of Public Transit in Greater Cleveland, by James A. Toman and Blaine S. Hayes 1996

Tom Suddes – Professor of Journalism Ohio University/Practicing Journalist

The Western Reserve; the Story of New Connecticut in Ohio. Hatcher, Harlan. (Indianapolis, 1949)

The Confessions of a Reformer. Howe, Frederic C. (New York, 1925) (Frederick Howe link is here) (Tom L. Johnson chapter is here)

Point of View [newsletter]. (Cleveland, 1968 –  ). Edited by Roldo Bartimole.

The Life of Mr. Justice Clarke: A Testament to the Power of Liberal Dissent in America. Warner, Hoyt L. (Cleveland, 1959)

Progressivism in Ohio, 1897-1917. Warner, Hoyt L.  (Columbus, 1964)

Roldo Bartimole – Journalist

My Story. Tom L. Johnson, edited by Elizabeth J. Hauser 1912 (Tom L. Johnson link is here)

Promises of Power. Carl Stokes 1973

The Confessions of a Reformer. Frederic C. Howe. 1925 Tom L. Johnson chapter is here. Marcus Hanna chapter is here.

Silent Syndicate. Hank Messick 1967

Mobbed Up. James Neff 1990

They Call it a Game. by Bernie Parrish, former Cleveland Browns football player and someone who is still fighting for old time players. (for sports fans a real inside look about pro football with a special look at Art Modell & Browns) 1971

The Wikipedia Bibliography of Cleveland is here

Karamu House from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

From the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

The link is here

KARAMU HOUSE is a neighborhood settlement that became nationally known for its dedication to interracial theater and the arts. It was founded as the Neighborhood Assn. at 2239 E. 38th St. in 1915 by 2 young white social workers, ROWENA† and RUSSELL JELLIFFE†, with the support of the Second Presbyterian Church, but it soon was popularly known as the Playhouse Settlement. As an entry into community life, the Jelliffes began producing plays with interracial casts in 1917. Their affiliation with the church ended in 1919, when they incorporated as the Neighborhood Assn. In 1920 they sponsored the Dumas Dramatic Club, which was renamed the Gilpin Players, after the noted black actor Charles Gilpin in 1922. A theater was acquired adjacent to the settlement in 1927 and named “Karamu,” Swahili for “a place of joyful meeting,” a name adopted by the entire settlement in 1941. In the 1930s the Gilpin Players established a collaboration with Karamu alumnus LANGSTON HUGHES†, giving premieres of several of his plays. In 1940 a modern dance troupe from Karamu trained by Marjorie Witt Johnson won the praise of Lifemagazine for its appearance at the New York World’s Fair. Following a fire which destroyed the theater in 1939, Karamu was eventually rebuilt in 1949, through the aid of LEONARD HANNA, JR.†, and the Rockefeller Foundation as a 2-theater complex at E. 89th and Quincy. Facilities were also provided for Karamu’s noteworthy programs and classes in dancing and the visual arts. Led in the 1950s by such professional staff members as Benno Frank and Reuben Silver, Karamu gained a reputation as one of the best amateur groups in the country. With the rise of Black Nationalism in the 1970s, however, it embarked upon a controversial course which promoted theatrical presentations primarily by blacks about the black experience and its attempt to form a professional acting company in 1982 proved unsuccessful. In 1980 Marjorie Witt Johnson, together with Karamu artistic director Linda Thomas Jones, founded the Imani African American Dance Co., a troupe which danced to African drum beats, reminiscent of the original Karamu Dancers.

With the appointment of Margaret Ford-Taylor as executive director in 1988, Karamu attempted to return to its multicultural roots as a metropolitan center for all races while fulfilling its “unique responsibility” for the development of black artists. The Karamu’s Drama/Theater for Youth Project was cited for excellence by the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education in 1991 and in 1993 it won the first annual Anne Flagg Award given by the American Alliance of Theater in Education honoring outstanding work in the promotion of multicultural understanding. In May 1994 Karamu joined with BANK ONE to open the Karamu Community Banking Center within the Karamu complex.

As a community-based nonprofit arts and education institution, Karamu House has maintained its historic commitment to encouraging and supporting the preservation, celebration, and evolution of African-American culture. As a cultural institution, Karamu presented a regular yearly schedule of six plays ranging from serious dramatic plays to musical, and as an educational one, it provided classes in drama, dance, music, and art in conjunction with before- and after-school programming with acting instruction for youth. In 2008, the Department of Jusice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention awarded Karamu House $170,000 to increase digital arts classes for children who do not receive computer training at school.

Over its ninety years history, Karamu has cultivated a well-deserved reputation for nurturing African American actors. Among notable performers who refined their craft at Karamu and later found success on Broadway, in Hollywood, and at stages and concert halls throughout the world were Ruby Dee, Ron O’Neal, Robert Guillaume, and Imani Hakim. One of the most treasured of Karamu’s productions was the annual holiday presentation of “Black Nativity,” a play by LANGSTON HUGHES†. It also hosted an annual free Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration and encouraged a candid public discussion of relevant issues in “talk-back sessions” preceding select performances.

In 2009, Karamu House boasted three performing halls: 215-seat Jelliffe Theatre, 100-seat Arena Theatre, and 90-seat Anne Mae’s Theatre. It also operated a day care facility, a summer camp, and a community outreach program. Gregory Ashe, the former president of Boys and Girls Clubs of Cleveland, served as the executive director of Karamu House since 2007 and Terrence Spivey as the artistic director of the venerable organization since 2003.

Karamu House Records, WRHS

Russell and Rowena Jelliffe Papers, WRHS

Selby, John. Beyond Civil Rights (1966)


Last Modified: 04 Oct 2009 02:08:09 PM

History of Ohio Steelmaking

History of Ohio Steelmaking

From the Ohio Steel Council

The link is here

THE HISTORY OF STEEL IN OHIO

Ohio has a proud tradition of steelmaking. Its access to the Great Lakes, network of navigable rivers, and rich deposits of coal and iron literally helped to build a nation.

THE 1800s

Ohio‘s iron and steelmaking roots go back to 1802, the same year the state was admitted to the Union. In this year, the first blast furnace west of the Alleghenies was erected in Poland Township, near Youngstown. It averaged only two tons of iron a day.

 

During the first decades of the 19th century, ironmaking was a decentralized activity throughout the state. The abundance of low-grade iron ore in many regions of Ohio made the establishment of iron furnaces a relatively common occurrence, and there was a ready demand for the product by local blacksmiths, who turned the pig iron into farm and home utensils. Early furnaces used charcoal as fuel.


By mid-century, however, the picture had changed. The location of ironmaking furnaces became concentrated in southern Ohio, in Vinton, Jackson, Sciota and Lawrence counties. Of the 48 blast furnaces operating in the state at the time, 35 were located in this region. A secondary concentration of nine furnaces was found in the Mahoning Valley.

 

The iron industry had slowly switched its fuel source from charcoal to coke, a purified form of bituminous coal. The burning coke, when exposed to blasts of air (hence the name “blast furnace”), creates the high temperatures needed to melt iron ore for processing into ingots. These ingots originally were named “pigs” because of the molds’ resemblance to nursing piglets, and the name has stuck ever since.

 

Deposits of block coal, discovered near Youngstown in 1845, could be used in iron furnaces without being converted to coke. These coal deposits were a major catalyst for the growth of the iron industry in northeastern Ohio.

 

In 1850, Ohio was essentially rural, even though its major metropolis, Cincinnati, had become the nation’s third most important manufacturing city. But in these changing years, the roar of machinery and the smoke of the factory announced the coming of the Industrial Revolution. Cities grew, and railroads reached to the most isolated counties. Cincinnati, not well located with respect to iron ore and coke, watched as places like Akron and Cleveland became the industrial cities of the future. By 1853, Cleveland had rail connections with most eastern cities as well as with Cincinnati and Chicago. This technological advancement, combined with its coal and iron ore resources, transformed Cleveland into the third-largest iron and steel city in the country.

 

Yet, by 1880, more significant for the state’s industrial future was the rapid growth of little cities in the Cuyahoga and Mahoning valleys, like Akron, Canton and Youngstown. The Mahoning Valley was becoming one of the great iron and steel areas of the nation. Youngstown was a convenient meeting place for individuals looking for ore and coke. The first of the modern iron-clad blast furnaces was erected in Struthers in 1871, greatly expanding production.

 

STEEL: AN EMERGING INDUSTRY

The nation’s westward expansion increased demand for iron and guaranteed that Ohio’s iron furnaces would stay busy. Within the next decade, however, processes became widely available to produce large quantities of a new, superior product – steel. Steel is stronger and more flexible, making it better suited than iron for rails, beams and other products. The building of a vast national rail system after the Civil War made steel much more valuable than iron.

 

Ohio continued to be a pioneer in this emerging steel industry. The first Bessemer converter – the new device for steel manufacturers – was purchased by the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, which eventually was absorbed by U.S. Steel Corporation. In 1875, the first open-hearth furnace built exclusively for the production of steel was constructed by the Otis Steel Company in Cleveland, which became Jones & Laughlin Steel Company in 1942. During the 1870s and continuing into the 1880s, steel replaced iron as the primary metal produced in Ohio. By 1892, Ohio ranked as the second-largest steel-producing state behind Pennsylvania.

THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

In 1901, open-hearth furnaces began to overtake Bessemer converters as the primary method of making steel. The molten steel was poured into ingots, which were fabricated into rails, bars, wire, pipes, plates and sheets. Also, steel was structurally shaped in specialized rolling mills, often in separate establishments or forge shops.

 

Most steel companies in 1901 were not completely integrated, a term used to describe a steel producer that has ironmaking and steelmaking capabilities and can process finished and semi-finished steel products. Many companies operated only blast furnaces and sold their pig iron on the open market. Others combined ironmaking and steelmaking capabilities, but supplied fabricators that produced a single range of finished products.

TURNING POINT: U.S. STEEL

The formation of the United States Steel Corporation in February 1901 capped a merger wave in the 1890s. In Ohio, mergers included the creation of Republic Iron and Steel Company, a “rolling mill trust” formed by combining 34 small companies in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Alabama.

U.S. Steel, created by combining J.P. Morgan’s Federal Steel with Andrew Carnegie’s Carnegie Steel, was the first billion-dollar company in American corporate history. It consisted of eight major and many smaller firms and some 200 plants. The situation forced competitors to build or acquire mills and mines in order to become integrated steelmakers.


Armco also began integrating in this period, incorporating in 1899 as the American Rolling Mill Company of Middletown, Ohio. Youngstown Sheet & Tube was created in late 1900, with the vision of a large, integrated steel producer.

In 1910, Elbert Gary, who ran U.S. Steel, redefined the goals, behavior and attitudes of the steel industry. Fears of antitrust action by the government in response to U.S. Steel’s stranglehold on the market led to a search for stability. One of these elements was a pricing formula that eliminated the advantages of geography. This and other initiatives of Gary – and the American Iron and Steel Institute, which he formed – helped Ohio steel to remain competitive.

Within Ohio, the Mahoning Valley was the leading pig iron production region, with 39 percent of the Ohio total and 9 percent of the national total in 1920.

THE GREAT DEPRESSION

Like other American industries, Ohio steel was devastated by the Great Depression. Markets shrunk precipitously, except for light-rolled sheet products used in automobiles and home appliances. This shift hit producers of primarily heavy structural shapes, like pipe and rails, especially hard.

 

Youngstown Sheet & Tube was poorly situated in the light flat-rolled market because it had delayed improvements during the 1920s. The company did not build hot-strip mills until 1935 and 1939, and it struggled through the decade. Armco struggled against geography, paying higher transportation costs for ore and coal because its Marion mill was not located on the lakes or the Ohio River. However, Armco at least was strong in light-rolled steel. Another asset was its research laboratory, which introduced a new galvanizing technique in 1937 that permitted shaping the steel after the tin coating had been applied.

 

Republic Steel shared Armco’s disadvantages, but managed to do better because of the company’s light-steel capacity. After 1935, Republic’s management turned aggressive and acquired several new firms.

Ohio remained one of the major focal points of the steel industry. Most of the national steel corporations operated facilities in Ohio during the 1930-1970 period. These included Armco, Cyclops, Jones & Laughlin, National, Pittsburgh, Republic, Sharon, U.S. Steel, Wheeling and Youngstown Sheet & Tube. Three of these firms – Armco, Republic and Youngstown Sheet & Tube – had their national corporate headquarters in Ohio.

THE STEEL INDUSTRY AT WAR (1940-45)

One of the more amazing chapters in American industrial history was the performance of the steel industry during World War II. Firms that had struggled through the Depression operated at full capacity by 1942. Several major steel producers actually exceeded average annual capacities as the industry set new production records. Republic Steel hit 100.4 percent of its capacity in 1942. As a whole, the American steel industry produced almost 90 million tons of finished steel during the peak year of 1944, and 427 million tons from 1941 through 1945. 

THE POSTWAR ERA

Equally significant, however, was the opportunity that the steel industry faced in the immediate postwar period. U.S. producers had no real rivals and enjoyed unprecedented superiority. Almost two-thirds of the world’s steel production in 1945 came from the United States. Because steelmakers confronted so few competitors in world markets, quantity became the driving concern. The industry’s self-assurance also manifested itself in a reluctance to invest in innovation and new technology.

 

But many of the roots of steel’s later problems were not created by the industry itself. American mills located in the Ohio and Mahoning river valleys paid the penalty of higher transportation costs compared to mills on the Great Lakes. Government policies were also partly responsible for the industry’s later problems. When the country did not sink back into depression after the war, steel executives hoped to discard wartime controls quickly. The government did not agree.

Nevertheless, a massive steel expansion program in the 1950s pushed capacity from 100 million ingot-tons in 1950 to 148.5 million in 1960. The revenue from this increase mostly bought existing technology for established plants. Blast furnaces grew taller and output was increased. Ohio companies followed this trend.

NEW TECHNOLOGIES, NEW COMPETITORS

Two new technologies pioneered in the 1950s were the basic oxygen process and the continuous caster. Both innovations offered major economic benefits over existing processes. The basic oxygen furnace (BOF) uses a process that injects oxygen from the top into a vessel filled with molten iron and scrap, producing steel much more quickly than an open-hearth furnace. Continuous casting developed more slowly. Traditionally, steel ingots were transformed into shapes in several steps – first rolled into slabs or blooms, which were then rolled into beams, bars, pipe, wire, plates or sheets. A continuous caster produces slabs, blooms or billets directly from molten steel, saving time and energy. Republic Steel explored this process as early as the mid-1940s. But the industry as a whole was cautious and slow to integrate new technology, uncertain about the viability of the new procedures.

 

Smaller companies moved first to install both of these key innovations. “Big Steel,” for the most part, waited until the technologies were better developed. For oxygen furnaces, this had happened by 1963; continuous casting was proved by the end of the decade. In 1968, the first vertical caster in Ohio was constructed at Republic Steel in Canton.

 

The combination of limited profits, intense pressure for new technology and less-than-optimal installations was dangerous enough. But two other developments further complicated the Ohio steel picture. Foreign competitors began shipping significant quantities of steel to the United States. Imports rose from 5.4 million tons in 1963 to 18 million tons in 1968. This flood of imported steel prevented the industry from earning the capital necessary for investments in modernization.

In addition, another competitor had appeared on the domestic scene: the mini-mill. Initially, mini-mills were facilities with electric furnaces that melted scrap and produced up to 250,000 tons of steel a year. But the technological developments of the 1960s opened other avenues for enterprising small firms. By adding continuous casters and small bar mills to the electric furnaces, the mini-mills could produce reinforcing rods, small diameter bars and angles far less expensively than large firms could, using traditional technology.

THE 1970s AND 1980s

The mid-1970s and early 1980s represented a period of substantial change. Through the 1970s, the industry struggled. It has been argued that excessive wage hikes were a central factor in the loss of competitiveness by American steel. Certainly, foreign competitors had the advantage of cheaper labor. They also, in many cases, had more modern, efficient facilities than their U.S. counterparts. But foreign companies were often subsidized by their governments. In addition, foreign-produced finished consumer products made from steel were being imported at a substantial increase, which shut out a market that had been open to U.S. producers. Finally, the period saw the introduction of new materials that served as substitutes for steel – namely aluminum, plastic and composites.

 

Voluntary import restrictions worked for a few years; but, after 1973, a surge in demand permitted foreign industry to ignore the system. And in 1977, imported steel totaled 21 million tons.

 

U.S. steel found its production capacity well beyond the demand for domestic steel. Consequently, the most inefficient mills were closed. Mergers of existing firms took place, and new investors entered the industry to purchase selected operations. In 1977, Youngstown Sheet & Tube was merged with Jones & Laughlin Steel Company, a harbinger of things to come.

 

Double-digit inflation hit the industry hard. However, the problems of the 1970s paled against the difficulties caused by a recession in 1982. In 1975, 20 fully integrated steel companies operated 47 full-scale mills. By 1985, only 14 companies remained, with 23 mills.

 

During the 1980s, both employment and raw steel production in Ohio fell to roughly one-half their respective highest years of the 1970s. However, new investment continued, a trend that continued in the 1990s and paid off handsomely in increases in Ohio employment and production.

THE REVITALIZATION OF STEEL

Today’s Ohio steel industry has undergone more than 30 years of restructuring. During this period, many companies have closed or merged with other companies; union contracts and work rules have been revamped; and new technologies have been introduced as a result of millions of dollars that steel companies have invested in their facilities.

 

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Ohio mills invested in quality and cost improvement. During this period, the industry began reaping the benefits of increased continuous casting capabilities, high-tech galvanizing lines, revamped hot-strip mills and continuous processing lines.

 

By the late 1980s, the news media was reporting exciting rejuvenation in the industry. In the 1990s, the steel market was stronger than it had been in decades.

 

However, at the dawn of the 21st century, the steel industry again faced significant challenges. The most recent period of upheaval occurred between 1998 and 2003 when, in the wake of a flood of unfairly traded steel imports from Asia, Russia and Brazil, many companies were forced into bankruptcy and many steelworkers were laid off.

 

In response to this crisis, the steel industry consolidated and union contracts were renegotiated to allow greater flexibility in response to trends in the market place.

 

Today, steelworkers are trained to work in a number of positions, and they have greater latitude and authority in responding to the needs of the steelmaking facility. In addition, there are fewer steel companies in the U.S., which enables the industry to respond swiftly to market changes. Larger companies are able to shift resources from one operation to the next quickly and efficiently in response to demand. At the same time, smaller steel companies still do very well by focusing on niche markets and specialties.

 

As a result of these changes, Ohio’s revitalized steel industry has returned to profitability. In fact, Ohio steel companies today produce as much steel as they did before the imports crisis of 1998, even though they employ fewer people. Technology and a more versatile and highly skilled workforce have made up the difference.

 

Warszawa: The Development of a Polish-American Industrial Community 1882-1919

From Cleveland State

The link is here

WARSZAWA:
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A POLISH-AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY, 1882-1919
Chuck Kaczynski

On the morning of 3 June 1882 the Cleveland Leader ran a copy of a notice that had been posted by the president of the Cleveland Rolling Mill regarding the condition of the plant in light of the on going strike.

Cleveland Rolling Mill Company
Cleveland, O., June 2, 1882.

On Monday next, the wire mill, rail mill, new
melting furnace, and blooming mill will start
with non-union men, single turn. As soon as
practicable other departments will start, due
notice of which will be given.
(Signed) William Chisholm, President.

A large number of the men referred to by Chisholm were recent Polish immigrants who would come to settle in the area northwest of the rolling mill. Thirty seven years later, in the Fall of 1919, the Cleveland Rolling Mill was again hit by a major strike. By this time, however, Polish-American workings composed approximately fifty percent of the strikers who walked out in support of the twelve point demands of the Amalgamated Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers Association. What caused this shift?

This paper examines the causes of this change in attitude and the growing sense of permanency among the employees of the Cleveland Rolling Mill and their families. In order to understand this transition, one must examine the development of the Polish-American community of Warszawa, located on the southeast side of Cleveland, which experienced a fantastic rate of growth between the years 1882 and 1919. By examining this growth one can identify a shift in attitude among the Polish immigrants from viewing themselves as a temporary “colony” of migrants to a permanent “community” of Polish-American workers. It is this attitudinal evolution which accounts for this transition from strike breakers to strikers.

A number of factors are examined in this paper which illustrate this transition. Primary among these is the development of Saint Stanislaus parish which acted as a center of the community. A statistical analysis of baptisms, marriages, societies and confraternities, and school size illustrates the rate of growth of the Warszawa community. Along with this, the paper examines the development of mutual aid societies, savings and loans and banks, which supported the growing permanency among the residents of Warszawa.

 

The history of Poles in Cleveland can be traced back to 1848. Through the 1870’s the Polish population of Cleveland was composed primarily of skilled artisans who were either self-employed or employed for wages in small manufacturing plants. At this time, Cleveland’s Poles lived among the Czech community centered around Croton Avenue, three miles north of the Cleveland Rolling Mill. But, with the increasing number of Poles coming to Cleveland, a new settlement was sought. In the late 1870’s between seventy and eighty families left the Croton Avenue community and settled in farmland near the intersection of Fleet Avenue and Tod Street. It would be from this nucleus that the Warszawa community would grow. Along with their personal belongings, the Poles who moved to Warszawa brought with them a Roman Catholic parish, Saint Stanislaus, which had been created by the Cleveland Diocese in 1873. Lacking a permanent location, this community held its services at Saint Mary’s Church in Cleveland’s “Flats” district.

During the late 1870’s and early 1880’s, the Poles of Warszawa came to rely on the Cleveland Rolling Mill for a majority of their jobs. The Cleveland Rolling Mill was part of an industry which had existed in Cleveland since 1856. With the increased demand for iron resulting from the American Civil War, the Cleveland Rolling Mill hired a number of Czechs and Poles to bolster the output of the existing Welsh/Irish work force. Through the 1880’s, the Poles and Czechs came to fill a number of unskilled and semiskilled positions at the mill.

In May of 1882 the Cleveland Rolling Mill received new ownership which immediately enacted a series of wage reduction measures. On the morning of 10 May 1882 five thousand employees of the mill went on strike protesting the reduction in wages, working conditions, and the closing of the mill to labor unions. In that morning’s edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, President Chisholm explained his thoughts on the cause of the walkout. “Until within a few months ago the employes (sic) of our company have not been connected with the labor organization known as the Iron and Steel Workers’ Association. Latterly however, they have been gathered into this organization and the result has been discontent and trouble to the company. The question was not a matter of wages so much as whether the Amalgamated Association should control our affairs and dictate to us our method of doing business.

The strike continued until early June when strike breakers, including between 500 and 1,500 Poles, were brought into the mills. Chisholm continued his stand against the Amalgamated and its membership, stating that no union member would be given a postion in the mill. The lack of experience of the strike breakers soon became evident. One report indicated that approximately one third of the output of the rail-mill was “useless.” Due to the increasing number of strike breakers, and the disorganization of the Amalgamated, though, the strike was quickly broken.

The ineffectiveness of the Polish laborers who were brought in to break the strike can be explained by examining the source population of these workers. Known as the Stara Emigracja, “Old Emigration,” three fourths of the pre-1920 Polish immigrants were farm laborers, unskilled workers, or servants. Only three percent of this population possessed fifty dollars when they entered this country. One quarter of the “old emigrants” had their travel expenses covered by someone else. Many of these laborers were “birds of passage,” who left their wives and family back in Europe in order to find “good” jobs which would allow them to earn enough money to return to Europe and purchase land. Between 1820 and 1870 these laborers left at the rate of ten to twenty per one hundred new immigrants. This number increased to thirty three to forty per one hundred by the period between 1900 to 1914. Those that remained in Cleveland developed a hybrid system of allegiance, mixing Polish culture with American methods to create the permanent community of Warszawa.

 

In the years following the end of the 1882 Strike, Cleveland experienced a continuous growth of its Polish population. Even with the difficulties of tabulating Polish immigration into Cleveland, with the Polish immigrants regularly being identified as “German,” “Russian,” or “Austrian.” The number of Poles entering Cleveland was quite substantial. By the year 1890, 2,848 Poles were living in the city of Cleveland, making up 1.09 percent of the total population. It was this population which maintained the notion of the Okolica, the neighborhood, with its emphasis on material possessions (land, house and permanent material objects), personal abilities (individual skill and organizational honors), and family status, which came to characterize the Warszawa community.

Over a short period of time the Warszawa community exhibited qualities which indicated a shift away from the “birds of passage,” to a community of Polish immigrants who had been attracted to Cleveland by correspondence with family and friends already living there. This reflects a common immigration pattern among Poles during the late nineteenth century. This sense of purpose and permanency was displayed only three years after the 1882 Cleveland Rolling Mill Strike when a second, and more violent strike broke out. In July of 1885, in the face of a recession, Chisholm cut employee wages. Poles and Czechs, who had been recruited as strike breakers a mere three years earlier, led a “more massive and violent strike” which began on 6 July 1885. This strike was an attempt by the workers to preserve the gains that they had made since moving to Warszawa.

 

A prime indicator of this permanency in the Warszawa community was the development of the Saint Stanislaus parish. After the shift of the Poles to Warszawa, distance prohibited the use of Saint Mary’s in the Flats as a place of worship. It was in 1881 that the first permanent church building was erected at the intersection of Tod Street and Forman Avenue. Two years later the pastor of Saint Stanislaus, Father Francis Kolaszewski, unveiled plans for a church which would be the largest in the Cleveland Diocese. In 1887, a mere six years after building the first church at Tod and Forman, Kolaszewski’s plans became reality with the dedication of a two hundred foot long, on hundred and forty five feet high brick structure.

Kolaszewski’s grand plans ran into financial difficulties starting in the mid-1890’s. By the seventh of April 1906 the Bishop of Cleveland, Ignatius F. Horstmann, requested that the Franciscan Order take over the parish in order to solve the Saint Stanislaus’ financial problems. This task was made even more difficult when on 21 April 1909 a “cyclone” damaged the church and school buildings. The tall twin steeples of the south facade of the church collapsed during the storm, and were never rebuilt. The final total of the cyclone damage to the Saint Stanislaus property was $27,000. The financial strength and stability of the Warszawa community, however, was clearly exhibited, when only seven years later, the pastor of the church reported to the bishop that Saint Stanislaus was free of debt.

A better representation of the growth of the Warszawa community can be seen by examining the records of marriage and baptism ceremonies as they are recorded in the annual reports to the bishop. (See Graph A and Graph B) In 1882, Saint Stanislaus conducted twenty six marriage ceremonies and one hundred and fifty baptisms. Excluding a slight decrease in baptisms between 1884 and 1885, and marriages between 1883 and 1885, Saint Stanislaus showed a constant rate of growth through 1891/1892. The number of marriage ceremonies peaked in 1891 with 115 weddings, while baptisms reached its highest level one year later, totaling five hundred and thirty one.

Both baptisms and marriages fell drastically after 1891. Two factors played a role in the decreasing number of marriages and baptisms between 1893 and 1894. The United States at this time was suffering through an economic depression, which effected the earnings of the workers at the Cleveland Rolling Mill. But more significant to the Saint Stanislaus parish was the return of Father Kolaszewski from Syracuse, New York. One 8 June 1892, the bishop had replaced Kolaszewski, indicating that he had financially hampered the parish. Some members of the Saint Stanislaus community loyal to Kolaszewski clashed with those who called for his ouster, causing a split in the parish, which resulted in the bishop sending Kilaszewski to Syracuse, New York.

The annual report to the bishop for 1894 notes that Kilaszewski had returned to Cleveland, “…uncalled by the church authority to organize what he calls an independent church on 3rd day of May…” This schism resulted in the creation of a runaway parish, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which acquired property on Fremont Avenue, only six blocks south of Saint Stanislaus. It was the creation of this second Polish Church, in close proximity to Saint Stanislaus, which was the primary cause for the decrease in marriages and baptisms.

During the period from 1894 to 1905, there was little growth in marriages or baptisms. From 1905 to 1907, however, the number of marriages in the parish increased dramatically. The annual report to the bishop for 1905 indicated that seventy marriages were performed at Saint Stanislaus. By 1907, a mere two years later, this number had more than doubled, to one hundred and forty six. Exhibiting a delay factor of one year, the number of baptisms performed also grew dramatically during this period. The year 1905 saw four hundred and one baptisms performed at Saint Stanislaus. Three years later, six hundred and forty five baptisms were performed. The number of marriages and baptisms continued to rise through 1916. It was in this year that Saint Stanislaus reached its prewar peak in marriages with two hundred and thirty ceremonies.

A third indicator of the growth of Warszawa was the growing school population of Saint Stanislaus. (See Graph C) Great emphasis must be placed on this development, for the school was seen as a “new, concrete institutional bond between immigrants.” The parochial school was also seen as one of the first institutions to express a growing sense of community and self-development, which facilitated the shift from a Polish “colony” to a Polish-American community. The statistical data of Saint Stanislaus’ school clearly indicated that the bonds between “immigrants” who had settled in Warszawa developed into bonds between “neighbors.”

Diocesan records indicated that in 1882 two hundred and five students attended Saint Stanislaus school. Four years later, a new school building was opened at the cost of $1,500. By 1893, the school was attended by seven hundred and fifty students, with a staff of ten teachers. In response to a question regarding the number of students that did not attend the parish school, the pastor of Saint Stanislaus wrote: “Some (students) after their first communion attend public school to learn more English.” At this time all instruction was done in Polish. Ten years later, the annual report indicated that two hundred students did not attend Saint Stanislaus school because of the “lack of rooms in our school.” In 1906, the school population of the parish was one thousand two hundred and ninety seven students.

A new school building was completed in 1907, which contained eighteen classrooms, two basement offices and an auditorium. The building was erected at a cost of $9,300. Even with this massive construction project, the population of Warszawa outstripped any progress in the number of classrooms. As late as 1912 the annual report indicated that five hundred students were not attending the school because of the lack of space. At this time, Saint Stanislaus school had twenty four teachers instructing one thousand four hundred and eighty five students in eight grades. This upward trend continued through 1919, with Saint Stanislaus peaking at two thousand one hundred and thirty seven students, with an additional six hundred having to attend public school because of lack of space.

This dramatic growth in school population, along with the increases in marriages and baptisms indicated that by the middle of the 1890’s Saint Stanislaus had entered a third phase of development, one of self-generated growth. This reaching maturity is noted by William I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki: “Later when the community is definitely settled marriages and births–at first relatively insignificant–gradually acquire the predominant importance.”

A significant role in the development of Saint Stanislaus, and its school, was that played by the various confraternities and societies which developed between 1882 and 1919. These organizations performed two functions in the parish community, providing devotional support for the priest and economic and cultural support for the community. Taking the economic conditions which effected the parish into consideration, one can observe continuous improvement in the Warszawa community. Returning, once again to the 1882 annual report, one finds that Saint Stanislaus had only two societies. The number of confraternities and societies rose quickly, so that by 1887 Saint Stanislaus boasted five male societies, three female societies, and one children’s society. By 1894, the number of these organizations increased to fifteen.

An interesting situation developed in these societies with the outbreak of the First World War. The 1917 report to the bishop announced that seven military companies had been formed among the parishioners of Saint Stanislaus. Of the five hundred men who entered military service, two hundred and fifty had been drafted by the United States Army, one hundred and twenty five had volunteered for the “American” Army, while one hundred and twenty five volunteered for the Polish Army. This split allegiance was made reference to again in the 1918 annual report. On 24 March 18, Saint Stanislaus held a ceremony in which the pastor blessed the parish’s “service flag.” The flag was decorated with five hundred and fifty five stars, one for each man in the service of the United States, along with eighty eight stars for men serving in the Polish Army. This divided allegiance, as late as 1917-1918, reflects the merging of a “Polish” identity with the reality of making one’s home in the United States.

The years between 1882 and 1919 also saw the development of a number of social and economic institutions, which reinforced the permanency of the Warszawa community while maintaining the cultural traditions brought from Poland. This hybrid of Polish traditions and values with American institutions and methods was well illustrated in the evolution of the mutual aid societies into extraterritorial insurance federations. Initially, Polish immigrants tended to rely on the “wider social group” for assistance during periods of financial difficulty. “The immigrant has been accustomed to see the wider social group hold every narrower social group within its limits responsible for the behavior of every member; the village praises or blames the family as a whole for the activities of an individual, the parish does the same with reference to the village group, the wider community with reference to the parish or village.” It was this attitude which the Polish immigrants brought with them to the Cleveland Rolling mill and the Warszawa community. But over time, with the growth of the community, and the expansion of immigration patterns beyond “chain migration,” mutual aid tended to develop a more impersonal “Americanized” flavor.

Personal assistance among Polish-American communities tended to evolve from a system which functioned on a case by case basis to one of mutual insurance where the membership of an organization collectively insure themselves against accident. Over time, this idea dissolved into a system of self-insurance where individual policyholders protect themselves. “In the older and larger colonies the individual’s desire to be insured plays, therefore, perhaps even a greater part in the development of mutual insurance associations than this desire to insure others.” This personal focus which developed was further evidence of the “Americanization” of the community and its growing sense of permanence.

In Warszawa, the first fraternal insurance clubs were associated with Saint Stanislaus parish. For a low weekly premium, usually around twenty five cents, the individual was able to protect themselves against layoffs and accidents, provide funds for family burials, and have a source for low-interest loans.” The first of Cleveland’s mutual aid societies was founded in 1873 by Anton Dzieweczynski and Andrew Skonieczny, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. Seven years later, a Polish Roman Catholic Union lodge (P.R.C.U.) was formed at Saint Stanislaus.

During the 1880’s and early 1890’s, the Warszawa community organized a host of mutual aid societies and fraternal insurance organizations. One of the more unique organizations was the Polish National Alliance, which founded its first Cleveland chapter in 1886. “However, it (Polish National Alliance) did not have strong church ties (though membership was initially limited to Catholic Poles) and worked strongly for the reconstitution of the Polish state.” Considered by many in the Warszawa to be composed of “freethinkers,” and “socialist: the Polish National Alliance, after its 1895 national conference in Cleveland, was abandoned by many Warszawa Poles when the P.N.A. Constitution was amended to allow non-Catholic Poles to join the organization. This led to the splintering off of Group 143 which reconstituted itself first as the Alliance of Poles of Ohio, and after 1917 as the Alliance of Poles in America.

The popularity of these mutual aid societies and fraternal insurance organizations was exhibited by the number of policies opened each year. A survey of new applications was conducted for the P.R.C.U. Lodge of Saint Stanislaus for the years 1909 to 1919. (See Graph D) For the seven months of 1909 that it was recorded, the number of new P.R.C.U. policies increased by one hundred and twenty five. To find the first full year of new memberships, one must turn to the data from 1912, in which three hundred and twelve new memberships were opened. New applications increased again in 1913 with four hundred and twenty three policies being issued.

As a result of the economic depression of 1913, P.R.C.U. applications fell in 1914. For the ten months in which it was recorded, only three hundred and nineteen new policies were opened. The following year, however, new policies skyrocketed to five hundred and seventy five. By the time of the First World War, the organizations which started as societies which provided assistance to its members joined the ranks of national insurance organizations. This was part of a trend among Polish mutual aid societies which only late in their development “added insurance to provide themselves with a broader base and more working capital…” Once again, one observes the evolution of a tradition among Poles, community assistance during times of emergency, into an “Americanized” institution of federated insurance organizations which insured thousands of unrelated individuals.

Beyond the development of a parish community and the growth of mutual aid societies, the creation of a permanent community was best gauged by the geographic growth of the community and the degree of home ownership. For those individuals and families which claimed Warszawa as “home,” home ownership became a primary goal. Along with providing a sense of status, home ownership provided the Polish-American community with a greater control over their environment, an “enforced” form of savings resulting from the buildup of equity in their homes, and a second source of income. It was quite common for home owners to erect a second house on their property to use as a source of rental income.

In 1912, Warszawa was composed of one and a half, two, and two and a half story wooden frame houses with additional sheds or stables. Wooden frame storefronts were common along Tod Street and Fleet Avenue, which continued to be the major intersection of Warszawa. The southern geographic limit of Warszawa at this time was found at Worley Avenue, just south of Fremont Avenue. This area was known as the “Reid Estate Subdivision,” but no construction was indicated in the 1912 Plat Books. Ten years later this area was filled with two-family homes, and the church and school complex of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. By 1920, Poles in Cleveland controlled over twenty million dollars of property, a clear indication of the permanent nature of the community.

By the second decade of the twentieth century, Warszawa had expanded to the south to Harvard Avenue, where its expansion was limited by the northward growth of the Krakowa community, a second Polish-American community, on the west where it reached East 55th Street, on the east at Broadway Avenue by the growing Cleveland Rolling Mill complex, and on the north by the Morgana ravine. With improvements in public transportation, Polish-Americans soon moved out of Warszawa starting satellite communities. In addition to Krakowa, which had developed during the 1870’s, Polish-Americans created the Jackowa community around the Saint Hyacinth parish. By 1910, Polish-American families were moving south along Turney Road, “settling along the side streets lining Turney from just above Warner Road to immediately above Garfield Heights Boulevard.”

Related to this growth in home ownership was the development of community financial institutions. During Warszawa’s early history, its residents did not establish institutions for savings. This responsibility was undertaken by the individual family or through mutual aid societies and fraternal organizations. A second institution which played a financial role in the community was Warszawa’s foreign exchange and travel broker, Michael Kniola. Members of the Warszawa community would “deposit” money with Kniola. His success in this area led him to help found the Warsaw Savings and Loan Association of Cleveland. In the Fall of 1915, Kniola, along with B. Filipiak, C. Orlikowski, Michael Bauza, and S. Ciemnoczolowski organized the Savings and Loan in order to facilitate home buying among the members of the Warszawa community. The organization began operations of 16 September 1916, incorporating six days later. Initially working out of a room in the Sokol Polski Hall on Broadway Avenue, the Warsaw Savings and Loan sold stock subscriptions valued at one hundred dollars each. By the end of 1916, subscriptions were high enough to allow the savings and loan to make its first loan of $1,800.

The Warsaw Savings and Loan, however, was not the only Polish financial institution in Warszawa. Three years earlier, a former employee of Kniola’s, Stanley Klonowski, opened the Bank of Cleveland on the corner of Marcelline and Broadway. By the year 1920, Warszawa had two additional financial institutions, the Broadway Savings and Trust Company on the corner of Broadway and East 55th Street, and the Columbia Savings and Loan Company directly across the street from the Broadway Savings and Trust Company.

By the year 1919, the Warszawa community had developed from an intersection of two roads in the middle of farmland to a bustling, thriving, permanent Polish-American community. Workers from Warszawa played a major role in the 1919 Steel Strike which shut down “all 16 plants of the American Steel and Wire Co. and the plant of the McKinney Steel Co. and the Lake Erie Iron Co. and other independents…” One can easily see the shift of Polish-American workers’ attitude toward the Cleveland Rolling Mill and the Amalgamated Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers Association by examining a list of the members of the strike committee, and their nationality. John Bieski, Lakeside Lodge, Amalgamated Association, A. Bilowski, Fullerton Lodge, Amalgamated, Frank J. Owezarak, Warsaw Lodge, Amalgamated, and John M. Widlanski, Warsaw Lodge, Amalgamated were identified as members of the Cleveland Strike Committee.

In conclusion, when one examines the history of the Warszawa community in Cleveland, Ohio, one is struck by the steady growth of the community, and its fusing of traditions and values brought from Europe with “Americanized” institutions and methods. This growth, along with this mixture of “old” and “new” world created a sense of permanency and belonging. From its beginning as a “homeless” community the parish of Saint Stanislaus developed into one of the largest communities in the Diocese of Cleveland. The development of a parish school, the growth in the number of marriages, and baptisms, and the increasing numbers of confraternities and societies all point to the development of permanency among the Warszawa community. Besides the growth of the parish community, Warszawa, between 1882 and 1919, saw a growth and change in its mutual aid societies. All of these factors, along with the rise in the degree of home ownership and financial institutions indicates that over this period of time a change took place in the thinking of the residents of Warszawa, a change from perceiving themselves as a temporary “colony” of Polish workers to a “community” of Polish-Americans.


Iron and Steel Industry

Iron and Steel Industry From the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

The link is here

IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY. Location has been Cleveland’s potent metallurgical advantage since the mid-19th century, when its situation on Lake Erie at the convergence of numerous railroad lines made it an ideal meeting place for iron ore and coal. In 1858 an article in the CLEVELAND LEADER claimed that Cleveland enjoyed advantages even greater than Pittsburgh for the manufacture of iron: “With [the cost of] transportation added, iron can be made $7 a ton cheaper in Cleveland than made at Pittsburgh and brought here. . . . Would it not be wise to start blast furnaces in Cleveland?”

In 1860 just 374 men were working in 3 bar and sheet iron establishments in Cuyahoga County. Twenty years later, the primary iron and steel industry in Cleveland employed almost 3,000 (about 200 of these “children and youths”) in 10 establishments. By 1900 that number had more than doubled; Cuyahoga County, which produced 968,801 tons of iron and steel in 1900, ranked fifth nationally (behind Allegheny County, PA, Cook County, IL, Mahoning County, OH, and Jefferson County, AL) in iron and steel production. The industry’s foothold in Cleveland was assured with the discovery in 1844 of iron ore in the Lake Superior region of Michigan. Because the Lake Superior ore districts were geographically isolated, without coal or major markets nearby, iron ore could not be smelted to pig or bar iron and sold at a profit. The only profitable way to exploit the ore was to transport it in bulk to distant blast furnaces on the lower Great Lakes–to places like Cleveland, Chicago, and Ashtabula, OH. The opening of the Sault Ste. Marie Canal in 1855 marked the beginning of ore shipment in quantity, and the movement of this raw material is the same today as it was then: ore mined in the Lake Superior region is carried by rail to the shipping ports, then by ship to lower lake ports, where it is rehandled into railroad cars for the trip to the blast furnace.

Clevelander SAMUEL LIVINGSTON MATHER† (1817-90) is usually credited with opening the rich iron ore resources of the Lake Superior region, which brought Cleveland to its position of supremacy in the iron industry. Mather was the driving force behind the Cleveland Iron Mining Co., one of the most important early mining companies on the Marquette Range and one of two “parents” (the other was the Iron Cliffs Co.) of the CLEVELAND-CLIFFS INC. Cleveland-Cliffs was the leading iron mining company on the Marquette Range when it was incorporated in 1891, a position it still held a century later. Mather, together with other Cleveland industrialists at the helm of such companies as M. A. HANNA CO. and PICKANDS MATHER & CO., dominated the ore trade on the Great Lakes, controlling 80% of the ore vessels plying the lakes and massive tracts of ore-rich land.

The manufacture of iron products preceded the basic industry, with railroads providing the impetus for Cleveland’s early forges and foundries. The CUYAHOGA STEAM FURNACE CO., incorporated in 1834 by JOSIAH BARBER†, RICHARD LORD†, and others, was among the earliest of such enterprises; by 1853 its Ohio City works was turning out two locomotives each month. In 1852 WILLIAM A. OTIS† and John N. Ford established the Lake Erie Iron Works in Ohio City to forge axles for railroad cars and locomotives, and heavy shafts for steamboats. In 1853-54 the Forest City Iron Works erected a rolling mill on the lakeshore at Wason (East 38th) St., producing the first “saleable manufactured iron” (boiler plate) in May 1855. That year, the Railroad Iron Mill Co., established by Albert J. Smith in partnership with others, erected a plant in the same location to reroll worn rails.

HENRY CHISHOLM† (1822-81), an immigrant Scottish construction contractor, was Cleveland’s pioneer ironmaster. Chisholm, with , built a rolling mill in 1857 at NEWBURGH, 6 miles southeast of PUBLIC SQUARE, to reroll worn rails. Two years later, taking advantage of new transportation routes, including the Sault Ste. Marie Canal and the Cleveland & Pittsburgh Railroad, the firm invested in a blast furnace, feeding it with Lake Superior iron ore and coal from the Mahoning Valley (later Connellsville coke). Following an infusion of capital from Andros B. Stone, the enterprise expanded rapidly, reorganizing as the Cleveland Rolling Mill Co. in 1864. In 1868 the company installed a pair of Bessemer converters, the first such installation west of the Alleghenies and only the third successful one in the nation. Cleveland Rolling Mill became a major integrated producer of pig iron, Bessemer steel, and steel products, employing a work force of more than 8,000 at the height of its independent existence in the late 1890s.

Another important 19th-century Cleveland steelmaker was CHARLES AUGUSTUS OTIS† (1827-1905), whose father had established the Lake Erie Iron Works. Otis, who studied steelmaking in Europe, organized the Otis Iron & Steel Co. in 1873 and hired Samuel T. Wellman to oversee construction and serve as chief engineer and superintendent of its Lakeside Works on the lakefront at Lawrence (East 33rd) St. Wellman installed the first commercially successful basic open-hearth furnace in the U.S. (which soon eclipsed the Bessemer process) in 1886 and introduced mechanized charging, contributing to Otis’s rise as one of the nation’s most dynamic small producers.

By 1884, according to the annual report of the Cleveland Board of Trade, there were 147 establishments in Cleveland devoted to the manufacture of iron and steel and their products. Representing a combined capital investment of $21.5 million and an average work force of 14,000, these businesses produced products having a total value of $25.2 million. In addition to 11 manufacturers of iron and steel products (the primary industry) employing 5,665 workers, these figures included 30 establishments producing hardware and tools (employing 2,292), 4 producing sewing machines (1,110), 48 producing boilers and machinery (1,333), 13 foundries (1,217), and 9 producing nuts, bolts, and other fasteners (960).

By 1880 the annual output of the Superior mines had risen to almost 2 million gross tons. Cleveland’s strategic position as both a final destination and a transshipment point for iron ore underscored a vexing problem–how to unload it efficiently–that was solved by two Cleveland inventors. Until 1867 ore was unloaded entirely by hand labor. Between 1867 and 1880, portable steam engines were used to hoist tubs of ore out of the hold, but laborers still had the back-breaking job of filling the tubs by hand and wheeling the ore to the dock. In 1880 ALEXANDER E. BROWN† (1852-1911) developed a mechanical hoist consisting of 2 towers supporting a cableway; a steam-powered rope trolley suspended from the cableway traveled out over the vessel’s hold and carried hand-filled tubs of ore back to the dock. In 1899 GEORGE H. HULETT† (1846-1923) eclipsed Brown’s invention with his own. The Hulett unloader (see HULETT ORE UNLOADERS), consisting of a large-capacity grab bucket suspended from a stiff vertical leg mounted on a walking beam, did away with hand shoveling entirely. It drastically reduced labor costs and unloading times, and led to larger boats especially designed to accommodate the Huletts. By 1913 Hulett unloaders dotted Cleveland’s river and lakefront and could be found at almost every port on the lower Great Lakes.

Signaling the growing dominance of large firms, in 1899 the Cleveland Rolling Mill Co. was absorbed into the American Steel and Wire Co. of New Jersey, which was itself absorbed into J. P. Morgan’s giant U.S. STEEL CORP. combine when it was organized 2 years later. U.S. Steel substantially augmented its Cleveland facilities in 1907-08 with the construction of wire and strip mills on the OHIO AND ERIE CANAL south of Harvard Ave. Galvanizing and barbed fence departments were added later, and by 1932 the Cuyahoga Works was one of the largest wire mills in the country and boasted the world’s largest cold-rolling plant.

Two new plants established in the early 20th century would provide the foundation for the modern steel industry. In 1909 ore merchant Dalliba, Corrigan & Co. began construction of 2 blast furnaces on the east bank of the Cuyahoga River that became the nucleus of one of the nation’s important independent producers, the CORRIGAN-MCKINNEY STEEL CO. Between 1913 and 1916, Corrigan, McKinney built 2 additional furnaces and a steel works for the production of blooms, sheet bars, and billets. The problem of industrywide integration led the company to add merchant mills for the production of finished steel products in 1927. In 1935, under the aggressive leadership of chairman TOM M. GIRDLER† (1877-1965), the REPUBLIC STEEL CORP. acquired Corrigan, McKinney and moved its headquarters from Youngstown to Cleveland. Republic continuously enlarged the plant, making it the largest of the company’s 6 basic steelmaking plants and one of the 10 largest in the country.

Otis, meanwhile, greatly expanded its capacity with the construction in 1912 of a new Riverside Works on the west bank of the Cuyahoga River. (The plant was immortalized in 1929 when Otis hired a young photographer, MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE†, to document the drama of steelmaking for a company promotional book.) With the acquisition of the adjacent Cleveland Furnace Co. shortly after World War I, Otis became a completely integrated steel company, and on the eve of the Great Depression the company boasted a capacity of one million tons. In 1942 the Jones & Laughlin Steel Co. of Pittsburgh (see JONES AND LAUGHLIN STEEL CORP. (CLEVELAND WORKS)), eager to enter the Midwest market, acquired Otis. J&L invested heavily during the next 2 decades, adding a new blast furnace (“Susan,” largest in the Cleveland district), 4 new steel furnaces, and other facilities.

The American steel industry historically has had a volatile relationship with labor, adopting from the beginning a staunch antiunion stance. In the 1880s the Cleveland Rolling Mill Co. endured a series of violent strikes in response to wage cuts and recruited Polish and Czech immigrants to replace striking workers (see CLEVELAND ROLLING MILL STRIKES). In 1937 Republic’s irascible Tom Girdler proclaimed that he would shut down the company’s mills and “raise apples and potatoes” before he would recognize a union. The bloody LITTLE STEEL STRIKE that year left 12 dead at Republic plants in Chicago and Youngstown. Not until 1942, at the order of the War Labor Board, was the CIO successful in organizing Republic workers.

Thanks to pent-up consumer demand, the industry enjoyed a long period of postwar prosperity. But by the early 1970s Cleveland’s steelmakers, like those nationwide, grappled with the problems of inflation, record imports of foreign steel, increasingly stringent environmental regulations, lagging productivity, and rising labor costs. In 1979 U.S. Steel abandoned its historic Central Furnaces plant, established by the Cleveland Rolling Mill Co. in 1881 for the production of pig iron. Five years later, the steel giant closed 6 plants, including its Cuyahoga Works in Cuyahoga Heights, after the United Steelworkers of America rejected concessions demanded by the company. The city’s two remaining integrated producers, Republic and Jones & Laughlin (the latter a subsidiary of LTV following a 1968 takeover), faced difficult conditions in the early 1980s as economic recession and the decline of the domestic automobile industry caused steel demand to plummet. In June 1984 Jones & Laughlin merged with Republic to form the LTV STEEL, with headquarters in Cleveland. Two years later, LTV had run up losses totaling nearly $1 billion, forcing it to file for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code.

With increased demand for its products, especially flat-rolled steel supplied to the automotive, appliance, and electrical equipment industries, LTV rebounded. Since 1984 the company has made more than $1.1 billion in new capital investments at its Cleveland Works. The centerpiece of its modernization efforts is a direct hot-charge complex, completed in 1993, which enables LTV to convert molten steel to a coil of hot-rolled steel in a continuous process. In 1994, with 2 integrated steel mills (at Cleveland and Indiana Harbor, IN), Cleveland’s only remaining integrated producer ranked as the nation’s 3rd-largest steelmaker and 2nd-largest producer of flat-rolled steel. Working at 99% capacity, the Cleveland Works in 1994 produced 4.8 million tons of raw steel. With 7,100 full-time employees, LTV was Cuyahoga County’s 2nd-largest nongovernmental employer.

Exemplifying the massive changes that have swept the industry in recent years, M. A. Hanna, an old-line mineral resources company whose history is rooted in iron mining, has transformed itself into a company focused on rubber and plastics. In 1986, meanwhile, a new steel fabricating company bought the former Cuyahoga Works of U.S. Steel, along with rights to the historic “American Steel & Wire” name, and resumed production as a non-union shop. A unit of Birmingham Steel Corporation of Birmingham, Alabama, since 1992, American Steel & Wire makes rod and wire for sale to the fastener industry.

The iron and steel industry continues to be an economic mainstay of Greater Cleveland. In 1992, the primary metal industries in Cuyahoga County employed 14,690 while almost twice that number (27,978) were employed in the manufacture of fabricated metal products.

Carol Poh Miller

 

Paskoff, Paul F., ed., Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century, Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File, 1989.

Pendry, William R. “A History of the Cleveland District of the American Steel and Wire Co.” Cleveland: American Steel & Wire Co., 1937. Mimeographed.

Seely, Bruce E., ed., Iron and Steel in the Twentieth Century, Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File, 1994.

Wellman, S. T. “The Early History of Open-Hearth Steel Manufacture in the U.S.” Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 23 (1902): 78-98.

Henry Chisholm

From the Encyclopedia of Cleveland

The link is here

CHISHOLM, HENRY (22 April 1822-9 May 1881), known as the “father of the Cleveland steel trade,” was one of the leading iron and steel manufacturers in the United States during the nineteenth century. Henry Chisholm was born in Lochgelly, Fifeshire, Scotland, the son of Stewart Chisholm, a mining contractor, who passed away when Henry was ten years old. He attended school until the age of twelve when he became an apprentice to a carpenter. After completing his apprenticeship at the age of 17, Chisholm relocated to Glasgow where he worked for the next three years as a journeyman carpenter. In 1842, he immigrated to Montreal, Canada, where he became a leading contractor.

In 1850, at the age of twenty eight, Chisholm came to Cleveland to build a breakwater at the lake terminal of the Cleveland & Pittsburgh Railroad Company. After completing that project in 1853, he remained in Cleveland, building docks and piers along Lake Erie. His reputation as a technical genius and superb handler of men attracted the attention of DAVID I. AND JOHN JONES, owners of the Jones & Co., who built one of the first rolling steel mills in the Cleveland area in NEWBURGH. Chisholm officially entered iron and steel manufacturing in 1857, investing his modest fortune of $25,000 in the new firm of Chisholm, Jones & Co. and reorienting operations at the Newburgh mill toward rerolling worn-out rails. When Andros Stone, the younger brother of AMASA STONE, acquired an interest in the company a year later, the iron manufacturing firm was rechristened Stone, Chisholm & Jones Co. By 1858, the plant produced 50 tons of rerolled rails daily, with Chisholm personally managing the operations and finances. To preserve scarce cash, he offered company-owned housing and company-store benefits to the workers, whom he knew and regarded as important to the company’s success. Stone, Chisholm & Jones Co. erected two blast furnaces at the Newburgh mill in 1859 and 1860, the first in Northeast Ohio, and added new machinery for the manufacture of merchant iron. Chisholm also built a rolling mill in Chicago, managed by his oldest son, William, and two blast furnaces in Indiana, all supplied with iron ore from mines on Lake Superior and in Missouri.

On November 9, 1863, Chisholm along with Andros B. Stone, STILLMAN WITT, JEPTHA H. WADE, and HENRY B. PAYNE incorporated the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, which absorbed the existing operations of Stone, Chisholm & Jones Co. and acquired Lake Shore Rolling Mill on Wason (East 38th) Street. Deeming steel as the metal of the future, he sent his best ironmaster to learn the Bessemer process for the production of steel from molten pig iron. As a result, the Cleveland Rolling Mill Co. built the second Bessemer steel works in the United States in 1865, with an initial annual output of 20,000 tons. Annual output eventually reached 150,000 tons and included steel rails as well as tire, merchant, and spring steel. Chisholm diversified the operations of Cleveland Rolling Mill Co. to manufacture wire, screws and nuts, and tools. He purchased wire mills in Newburgh from the Cleveland Wire Mill Company in 1868 and organized the American Sheet & Boiler Company in 1866, the Union Steel Screw Company in 1872, and the H.P. Horse Nail Works Company in 1877.

Henry Chisholm married Jean Allen in Scotland and they had eight children together, only five of whom, however, reached adulthood: William, Stewart H., Wilson, Catherine, and Janet. Two sons, Henry and Stewart, and a daughter, Christina, passed away at infancy. Upon his death in 1881, Chisholm’s workers contributed generously for the construction of a monument for their boss in LAKE VIEW CEMETERY. His passing ended amicable labor relations at the many facilities of the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company. William Chisholm, who succeeded his father, provoked major strikes in 1882 and 1885 (see CLEVELAND ROLLING MILL STRIKES) and alienated William Garrett, one of the leading engineers in the nation who invented a new rod making process.

“John D. Rockefeller: The Cleveland Years” by Grace Goulder (4 Chapters)

A four chapter selection from “John D. Rockefeller: The Cleveland Years” by Grace Goulder, courtesy of the Western Reserve Historical Society

The chapters made available here cover the formation of the Standard Oil Company, the start of Rockefeller’s philanthropy, the creation of the South Improvement Company and the buy-out of most of Cleveland’s refineries who were competitiors with Standard Oil.

Chapters 16 and 17 are here

Chapters 18 and 19 are here

 

 

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