AN "INDUSTRIAL SELMA" AND OTHER STORIES - FINAL OF THE ARK OF COMMERCE SERIES

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics

Bruce Carlson

News, Politics, History

4.5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2025

⏱️ 92 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The idea of saving manufacturing jobs is front-and-center in American politics today. Examining the history of plant closings and job losses In the 70's and 80's provides an interesting contrast. "We ought to make stuff here, or we should try to keep this plant open." were radical stances, confined to political fringes, and usually left. In once case, a group of workers, residents and church leaders in a town try for what is called an Industrial Selma - a radical plan to reopen a plant led by an activist straight from the Freedom Summer civil rights fights and anti- Vietnam War protests. In the course of telling the story we look at the early American Rust Belt, we look at typical Rust Belt city (that happens to be Bruce's ancestors home). We look at alternatives to closing plants, and we hear a story about the Panic of 1873. This will be the final episode of our second-run of the Ark of Commerce series. This is one of the original episodes, and I'm pleased to provide to Patrons early. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:43.3	Get Adobe Express for free. Search for Adobe Express to find out more. Every night, the sky would glow orange.
1:10.0	I'm not sure it was good environmentally, but when the mills were booming, they lit up the sky.
1:19.6	So said a native of Youngstown, Ohio, Pat Ungaro, who worked in the steel mills in the 1970s.
1:26.6	And I always had a job in the summer, making big money in the mill or one of the other industries related to it.
1:33.3	I quit one job and take another.
1:36.3	I made enough money in the summer to pay for my school.
1:39.3	That's almost a fantasy world today. He was a city councilman representing the north side of the town and a principal at the South High School in Youngstown, and he'd go on to be mayor of the town.
2:14.2	And he was there for an incident that occurs in 1977.
2:19.4	Another worker who began working at Sheaton Tube in Youngstown said,
2:24.4	The overwhelming sights, I didn't know what I was walking into, cranes going overhead, flames, heat.
2:31.4	It was a scary thing for a while.
2:33.8	Eventually, you just grow into it.
2:39.8	One worker told his story, my wife and I moved here with $23 in her pocket. No checking account,
	...

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