Browse Exhibits (3 total)
Steel and Identity: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Lorain, OH
Located thirty miles west of Cleveland and situated on the intersection of Lake Erie and the Black River, the growth of Lorain, Ohio as an industrial city has in many ways mirrored that of Cleveland. Lorain is literally titled the "international city" because of its ethnic diversity, ranging from Russian to Hungarian, to Mexican and Puerto Rican groups. Most ethnic groups traveled to Lorain to take advantage of the abundance of work during the early twentieth century.
Specifically, the growth of the hispanic population in Lorain is directly related to the steel industry. This exhibit begins to explore that relationship. First Mexicans arrived in the 1920s to work at the National Tube Company, then Puerto Ricans came to work in the late 1940s.
Compare and contrast the Mexican experience and the Puerto Rican experience of arriving and adapting to the community in Lorain.
Steel and Identity: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Lorain, OH
Located thirty miles west of Cleveland and situated on the intersection of Lake Erie and the Black River, the growth of Lorain, Ohio as an industrial city has in many ways mirrored that of Cleveland. Lorain is literally titled the "international city" because of its ethnic diversity, ranging from Russian to Hungarian, to Mexican and Puerto Rican groups. Most ethnic groups traveled to Lorain to take advantage of the abundance of work during the early twentieth century.
Specifically, the growth of the hispanic population in Lorain is directly related to the steel industry. This exhibit begins to explore that relationship. First Mexicans arrived in the 1920s to work at the National Tube Company, then Puerto Ricans came to work in the late 1940s.
Compare and contrast the Mexican experience and the Puerto Rican experience of arriving and adapting to the community in Lorain.
Great Steel Strike of 1919 - A Cleveland Perspective
Over 350,000 steel workers went on strike in 1919 across the United States. On the heels of World War I, in the middle of a frustrating economic recession, and at the outset of the Red Scare striking workers demanded union recognition and wage increases. Although the strike ended unsuccessfully at the beginning of 1920, it planted the seeds for later union organizing during the 1930s.
Cleveland, an industrial center in the Midwest fueled in part by steel by 1919, saw over 18,000 steel workers join the strike. Sixteen of the city's eighteen steel mills became inoperable at the outset of the work refusal. Two of those, American Steel and Wire and Otis Steel, were the location of much conflict between management and labor. Two picketers were even shot outside of American Steel and Wire less than a month into the workers' campaign.
By January of 1920, however, Cleveland steel workers joined hundreds of thousands in going back to work without winning a single concession. Using tough tactics that included violence and replacement workers, the behemoth steel industry had won both nationally and in the city of Cleveland.
It would be a mistake to view the defeat of the steel strike in 1919 as a total loss from the perspective of rank and file workers though. One is hard pressed to imagine what life would have been like were steel workers not to mount some sort of organized push in a post-World War I economy wrought with hysteria about foreigners and communists. Viewed through the lens of these workers and citizens one can see the ability for everyday people to shape history in a city built, literally, with steel.
Great Steel Strike of 1919 - A Cleveland Perspective
Over 350,000 steel workers went on strike in 1919 across the United States. On the heels of World War I, in the middle of a frustrating economic recession, and at the outset of the Red Scare striking workers demanded union recognition and wage increases. Although the strike ended unsuccessfully at the beginning of 1920, it planted the seeds for later union organizing during the 1930s.
Cleveland, an industrial center in the Midwest fueled in part by steel by 1919, saw over 18,000 steel workers join the strike. Sixteen of the city's eighteen steel mills became inoperable at the outset of the work refusal. Two of those, American Steel and Wire and Otis Steel, were the location of much conflict between management and labor. Two picketers were even shot outside of American Steel and Wire less than a month into the workers' campaign.
By January of 1920, however, Cleveland steel workers joined hundreds of thousands in going back to work without winning a single concession. Using tough tactics that included violence and replacement workers, the behemoth steel industry had won both nationally and in the city of Cleveland.
It would be a mistake to view the defeat of the steel strike in 1919 as a total loss from the perspective of rank and file workers though. One is hard pressed to imagine what life would have been like were steel workers not to mount some sort of organized push in a post-World War I economy wrought with hysteria about foreigners and communists. Viewed through the lens of these workers and citizens one can see the ability for everyday people to shape history in a city built, literally, with steel.