Providing Access to Collections Documenting the History of the American Steel Industry

A Project of the Western Reserve Historical Society Cleveland, Ohio

In April 2004, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded WRHS a $252,330 Challenge Grant for the project The project was also designated one of ten “We The People” national initiatives. These projects “encourage and strengthen the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture.”

Background of the Collection In 2002, as LTV Steel was ending operations, the company donated over 3,800 cubic feet of documents, photographs, audio and video tape to the Western Reserve Historical Society

This collection is one of the largest steel-related archival collections in the United States The chronology of the collection runs from the 1850s until 2002 The geographic scope of the collection includes Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Alabama, and New York.

Included in the collection are operational records for steel mills, coal mines, iron ore mines, steel processing and fabricating companies, lake and ocean shipping companies, and shortline railroads.

In addition to LTV Steel Corporation records, the collection also contains records from LTV predecessor companies, including Jones and Laughlin, Republic Steel, Youngstown Sheet and Tube, and their predecessor companies

What’s In the Collection?

The materials in the collection will allow researchers to explore a number of themes central to the study of American industrial History

The company records in the collection cover a variety of areas: Operations and finances Labor relations Ethnic, racial, and gender diversity in the workplace Engineering and technological change

Operations and Finance Beginning with 19th century ledgers from ironworks in Ohio and Pennsylvania, the operational and financial records in the collection will provide researchers with valuable information about the business cycles in the American steel industry, as well as the broader implications of economic growth and decline in the US economy.

Some of the company ledgers date back to iron furnaces in the 1850s; many focus on production levels, and others focus on pay, like this 1935 payroll ledger for the Bessemer/Open Hearth department at Jones and Laughlin’s Aliquippa Works

Also included in the company records are a variety of annual reports, employee publications, and advertisements

Labor Relations Records The records in the collection document the lives of steelworkers over a century and a half. Records include unionization attempts in the 1930s, and arbitration files into the late 1990s.

Among the materials are files relating to the labor struggles of the 1930s in the “Little Steel” companies, like this 1937 vote tally by workers at Jones and Laughlin, who were finally able to unionize after a long struggle

Also included are thousands of employee records, like this one for an Italian worker who hired on at J&L in 1919, originally under a more “americanized” name

Ethnic, Racial and Gender Diversity Records Contained in the records are thousands of files dealing with affirmative action, EEOC reports, consent decree reports, and charge case files

Engineering and Technological Change Records Included in the collection are a variety of photographs, blueprints, plant layouts and other documents showing the engineering and technological advances that occurred in the steel industry throughout its history

Dating from the early days of the industry, such as this letter from pioneering steel engineer Alexander Holley to the directors of Jones and Laughlins, this portion of the collection will appeal to those interested in the history of technology

Industrial archeologists will delight in what the collection holds as well; layouts and diagrams of plants long gone, like the Brier Hill Steel Company of Youngstown, whose main plant in 1922 is detailed on the above map

There are also layouts for plants that are still in operation, like this map of the Steel and Tube Company’s Indiana Harbor plant, which was later bought by Youngstown Sheet and Tube, then became part of LTV Steel, and today is operated by ISG, Inc.

The collection stored at WRHS, awaiting processing Processing Plan The collection stored at WRHS, awaiting processing

Part One The first priority for WRHS staff members is to divide the collection up by the individual companies Then the records will be separated by various departments Once the sort has been completed, the materials will be organized logically and refoldered and reboxed in archivally-sound containers

Participating Institutions Part Two Once the collection has been processed, it will be broken up geographically and shared with regional archives and libraries, to be more accessible to researchers Participating Institutions Western Reserve Historical Society Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania Ohio Historical Society Indiana University Northwest Northern Michigan University Essex County (NY) Historical Society Iron Range Research Center (Minn.) Illinois State Historical Library University of Alabama Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society Detroit Public Library Brooklyn (NY) Historical Society

Current WRHS website online steel exhibit Final Product Once the processing has been completed and the collection dispersed, a central catalog for the entire collection will be created, available in both paper and electronic versions, and on a central website accessible to all Current WRHS website online steel exhibit