I am 67 yrs. old now, as a young man i worked in the open hearth @ the U.S. Steel Ohio Works. I only worked there 8 yrs. when it closed. A bye gone era. I am proud to say I was a part of it.
I am 63 years old and I worked every job in this video at US Steel. Five different plants in four different states. The work was hard, hot and dangerous but gratifying! I retired after 44 plus years service to the Union and the Steel Industry. Hoping and praying it survives another 100 years!
@@plasma3211 Been at Inland, now Arcelor for 11 years. Minimum of 19 more to go. You and I both hope that it lasts. Unfortunately, it won't. The way they run things now is a shame. The companies refuse to buy quality parts and we're forced to use cheap junk that routinely breaks (but hey...they saved money on paper). And anymore there are nearly more contractors on site than there are people. It's disgusting. At this point, I'm just along for the ride.
@@mephInc I hear you brother and you have my sympathy! I retired Jan 2018 from USS and they are doing everything you described above. When I started in maintenance they took our apprentice program from four years to two. When I left they were fast tracking people at 6 months. We had people who could not weld, burn, rig or do any layout! I tried to voice my concerns and was shut down from Union and Managers! We had IronWorkers do millwright work, we then had to go and correct the repair. Vendors are ripping off the company with cheap parts like you said. Unfortunately management is clueless as to how to run the business. They would not listen to experienced workers and pushed managers into retirement who protested.
@@plasma3211 I'm in maintenance myself, and I'm even pushing to bring back some kind of apprenticeship program. All I had to do was pass some baloney test and suddenly I'm a mechanic. Fortunately, I've worked with my hands my entire life. But as you said, we've got guys that don't even know what a pinch bar is. And yeah, bottom of the barrel contractors that we routinely follow behind to fix their screw ups. Hell, they hired a company to hang doors plant wide...at $10,000 a door. All they want is us to be parts changers, even when we ask to learn and do the work in house. They'll spend thousands of dollars on safety stickers, but I'm stuck using Chinese pipe wrenches that snap in half. Now they want to strip us of our insurance, lower our pay, cut vacations, and lower the pension. At least USS got a decent contract this time around. We're still on the verge of a strike.
The Steel they made for the railroads at the time stood the test of time. Im a Track Welder and on our rails we still have rails from 1915. Crazy. Much respect!
@@josephtraverso2700No. Our rails aren't CWR (Continously Welded Rails) but bolted together. I weld and rebuild switches, frogs and areas on rail that need more metal.
I work a rail yard in Toledo! Some of the track is bolted and some of it is thermite welded! Pretty cool to watch that process! I don’t know why it’s done either way. Maybe welding is done for high speed rail.
It's like the videos filmed of 100 year old folk during the 1920s talking about their grandparents from the 1700s while talking about growing up in the 1800s, watched in 2020 on a cellphone instead of some newsreel.
I am 63 years old and I worked every job in this video at US Steel. Five different plants in four different states. The work was hard, hot and dangerous but gratifying! I retired after 44 plus years service to the Union and the Steel Industry. Hoping and praying it survives another 100 years!
thanks for all you have done. my grandpa was retired in 1969 with 40 years service for USS @ campbell works. before working there, he helped run the steam trains at the carbon limestone quarry in hillsville, pa.
My grandfather fought in WWII and worked in the same mills before and after. He said many times that the steel workers were the real unsung heroes of the war.
a lot of them served. depending on the job classification- a woman or junior worker could be trained- and drafted workers could return to the their jobs later.
@Xcrysis slaves with more money than the ones today. These workers probably had more dignity and self respect than the workers of today. They hold peoples hands now flipping fake meat while they pay for an electric car they can’t afford. Uber eats delivery is literally fetching someone’s food. Fuck that I’m working on steel.
Мой дед тоже воевал в ВОВ, закончил свой путь в Германии в 1945 году. Когда выгнали немецких оккупантов из Сталинграда. Он так же мне рассказывал, как во время войны получил ранение и после восстановления его не брали на фронт еще целый год, но этот год он упорно трудился на сталелитейном заводе в Ленинградской области России, рассказывал, как близко он взаимодействовал с расплавленным металом) а сейчас я живу в Кливленде, с 2021 года, так как в России власть устроила беспредел и мне пришлось сбежать в США, мне 35 лет, но я вынужден начать новую жизнь и мне страшно от того, что я ни когда больше не смогу обнять моих маленьких дочек😢❤️
I'd say the real heroes in this matter are the housewifes and kids who collected all the scrap metal. Without them, the steel mills wouldn't be as productive.
All that steel and iron to build the mill that builds more steel! The manufacturing process is mind blowing. I can't imagine the heavy equipment and the engineering that put together the mill itself.
I am 72. I worked in the Plate Mill at the Brier Hill Works of Youngstown Sheet & Tube the summer of 1969. My father was a Cold Strip Roller for 42 years at the Campbell Works at Youngstown Sheet & Tube
@Robert R One of the reasons we are not a N0 .1 nation anymore in a lot of different areas!! Don't get me wrong it is good that we have different cultures, but lately it is getting out of hand!! Don't get me wrong, it is
@@geoffreydevore9503 What has multiculturalism done for us? All I see is our Senate and congressional houses being filled up with Africans who claim Whites are the biggest terrorist threat to America.
Yea no doubt OSHA comes in and ruins everything. I miss the old days when the majority of men had a finger or two missing or maybe even an ear. Ahh the good old days.
The part where they are literally just tossing bags of alloy in had me dying, weren’t they worried about it splashing back up everywhere? I imagine someone at some point lost their balance and fell in. Pretty crazy.
I work in a modern steel mill and this is so cool to watch . We definitely have made lots of progress in the past decades. It is so much easier and safer now
@@furtim1 Combination of automation and better safety standards. Automation has made it much safer. Now a days most of the work can be done from inside a pulpit like they showed the guys making the slabs before the hot strip mill. Even then the amount of input needed from the operators now is minimal. When you have to go on the floor you have to wear ppe. Hard hat, safety glasses, ear protection, and fire retardant slacks/shirt are the minimum. Any job dealing with the molten metal/sparks adds additional ppe, face shield, gloves, additional suit rated for molten splashes. Primary is still a little dangerous. I worked as an engineer in finishing on a hot dip galv line. 90% of my line was automated. Operators sleeping in the pulpits while the line runs is a regular thing.
My great grandfather worked in those mills. He came from Sweden to Youngstown. ..would walk down into the valley from Briar Hill with his lunch and a pail of beer. I remember visiting my great aunt in the 70's when some of the mills were still running...they would blow a big whistle before they let the smokestacks open so you could get your laundry and yourself inside before a coating of red dust covered everything. My grandfather worked many years as paymaster for U.S. Steel.
I was born & raised in Pittsburgh, and worked for Earl Scheib Auto Painting, "Any Car Any Color $29.95", in 1967. The most popular color was called "ruby maroon". It was a dead match for the reddish stain that iron oxide precipitation from the mill stacks made on the top surfaces of everyone's car. I suspect that when I pass and am autopsied, my lungs will also be reddish stained inside....!
Steel making was incredibly dangerous work. Men were frequently injured and yes, they did occasionally fall into the vats. We owe them and the unions they formed thanks for the cities many of us live in today. All that is gone now, moved where taxes and labor were cheaper. The new plants are smaller and mechanized, and much safer. But those men, from the black and white past, look like giants to me.
Did you ever consider that labor union greed was the primary reason for the decline and fall of the US steel production? Ten weeks paid vacation and ruinous work rules led to the loss of this bed rock American industry.
Smaller hell, more efficient and productive. Unions destroyed Youngstown. Maybe if they'd have fought for more modern equipment instead of ridiculous benefits, the mills would have stayed. Obsolete open hearth furnaces and antique equipment + hostile labor = black monday.
Randy Magnum the failure to modernize is on the CEOs and board members, not the unions. Europe has strong unions but OWNERS also invest back into the companies. The American way is run something until it can't go any more, then patch it up and send it in for another round. That's on the companies, not the unions.
Andrew Nardo, ha! They wernt going to invest in mob run Youngstown, with hostile labor unions, where every pellet of ore had to be hauled in. They modernized, but not in youngstown! If the unions would have fought for capital reinvestment instead of crazy benefits and 13 week vacations, the dumb mill hunkys would still have jobs, instead of whining on the radio every day. But, they didn't care as long as they were fat and dumb, screw the next generation, right?
Randy Magnum you're delusional. Even Pittsburg had to haul everything in. Same with Cleveland and everywhere else. The unions didn't help their situation but what killed the mills was outsourcing and micro mills. Same with every other ounce of manufacturing in this country. The companies ran off. They would have even if the unions weren't the way they were.
This the time my grandfather was working his way up as a tool and die maker, through shops during the war. Now I continue the tradition as a blacksmith/metal sculptor/fabricator.....when I am not doing stonework. He is still and always has been my hero. He's 95 and still here.
I was a intern safety man at a steel mill in NW Indiana. Still in college. We had to get blood tests for the guys for heavy metals and lead every two weeks. You really appreciate the green of the trees and grass after you get out of the plant at the end of your shift.
Great video worked in a steelmill in PA in the 70's when they had electric arc furnaces.While it was a good paying job safety was poor and the working conditions worse with many injured and killed on the job and later from the heavy metals and the widespread use of asbestos in the air.While in a millwright gang we would makeup rolls of asbestos right on the picnic table we ate off lunch time take a broom sweep off and sit down and eat never knowing the danger.Glad i got out after 10 years.
I am in Youngstown area and this brings back memories for sure. Ytown is kinda dried up now, most of the factorys are gone now and its kinda sad to see it now (2021)
@@jonbon8403 It has nothing to do with quality of the recording, just errors have been made digitizing/converting, it is super easy to have only one channel of original audio and making sure it is used for both left and right channels when converting to a stereo format.. or at least noticing this after, and fixing it. Maybe imagine that? ;
It seems that someone needs these houses .. You talk about these houses as if they were of 300+ meters. The standard of living is low, why breed a bunch of low levels?
@@ИмяФамилия-ц6д We had blacks move up from the south. They called it the Great Migration. It destroyed every city they went to in any numbers and the people that ran those companies wouldn’t put up with their crime, so they left.
My Grandfather was the first African American to work at this steel mill, he was an electrician. My Father use to work here also, I can still remember my mother, my brother and myself waiting for him to come out to the car after work.
@@staywhite6332 maybe cuz around these times they couldn’t even attend the same universities, he’ll even drink out the same fountain?? So ofc it’s an achievement if he was the first to do it- how are you so wilfully ignoring that??
I feel extremely lucky to be able to watch these old films and get a small feel for how people lived back in the day, without having to go through the hardships they did. God bless America🇺🇲
This is my hometown, born 1971! My dad was born in 1944 and worked in the mills during the 60s and 70s. One would be aghast to see what the city has become from where it was back then. Youngstown was affluent, bustling, and economically sound back then. It's literally become a shell of itself present day 2023 as part of the "Rust Belt". That industrial age economy was snatched away from thousands of working families in the late 70s and sent overseas for cheaper labor and more productivity. This choice to move production overseas literally decimated the spirit and morale of the middle class working ppl in Youngstown. When the economy failed some people were wise enough to relocate while they could. Many others who remained and couldn't leave due to financial constraints basically became the remnant products of a failed system.
It's politicians and big companies failure to not adept in time. Some people even now still think there is a future for US steel, coal and oil industry, that's why those people will be left jobless wondering how it could all come to and end...
@@olivieraleman People have been saying that since the 90s. A Japanese company bought the plant my dad worked at and closed it down. He had hopes. Never happened. Until the government subsidizes steel like they do milk and grains, there are zero financial reasons for companies to manufacture steel in the states like they used to. Labor costs are too high. I knew a janitor that worked at Delphi near Youngstown that made $28 an hour in the 90s. He literally pushed a broom all day. That's it. Thank you unions.
@@-_-John-_- Isn't it terrible that we live in a world where working people asking for decent pay gets them put out of a job? It's not the fault of the unions, it's the system we've built for ourselves that's rotten.
Amazing video! Pure History! I work in a Brazilian Steel Mill Nowadays...I have been to Yongstown-OH in 2010, visiting a supplier, and I can say that you still can feel the Steel legacy there!!
I’m commenting through my sons account. My father immigrated from Mexico. He was a scarfer in the 40” finishing dept at Ohio works In Ytown. I worked in the mill after I graduated from Hubbard High (1966) and when I was in Law School. Made me appreciate how hard my Dad worked to educate me. Thanks Pops.
That last quote is what I’ve been saying forever. So much money, time, young minds and bodies to fight each other in war. If only we could all get along the amazing things we could all accomplish together. We’d be traveling the stars by now.
Im 47, my Dad worked at the mills. He used to bring me a HUGE chunk of coal everyday. As a kid Id wash it and treat it as a Jewel lol. When we'd go pick him up, I always pictured him fighting some BEAST coming out the Mill all covered in soot and Coal dust.
During a shut-down of my home division, I worked on a temporary assignment on the pouring floor of the blast furnace at Lone Star Steel (now US Steel) during the Texas heat wave of 1980. We tapped the blast furnace, routed the slag to an outdoors cooling pit and the molten iron through sand-lined brick ditches to torpedo cars. After the furnace was emptied we stood on boards on top of still red-hot remains of iron and slag in the ditches, cleaning them with shovels and wheelbarrows and adding a new layer of dry sand to protect the ditches used to carry the molten iron to openings in the floor to the torpedo cars on a lower level. As soon as were were done, it was usually time for another tapping of the furnace. My additional duty was to take the temperature of the molten iron with a long road and thermocouple. We didn't have any fancy silver suits and face shields, just green fire retardant denim jeans and jackets and cotton gloves. It was unforgiving, punishing work. I was so glad to get back to my home division of the plant when that line came back up. I can't imagine doing that for 20-30 years. The 1940's era blast furnace was disassembled back in the 80's and sold, along with related equipment like the coke ovens. Those jobs are gone forever. Show less REPLY
I did pretty much the same jobs at a 50's era Blast furnace at Algoma Steel. A tough job on the best of days, but it could get a lot worse. We were tapping the furnace one day when the drill got stuck. Only way to get it free was to use an oxygen lance. About 40ft of copper pipe screwed together with pure oxygen fed in one end. The driller repeatedly rammed the lance into the drill hole ( eye of the monster), two summer students (I was one) were behind him helping to hold the pipe as we repeatedly rammed it into the hole. The oxygen burned everything, the drill the fire mud and the copper lance, which got shorter as you went. The pipe got shorter and shorter until we were so close that the driller could hold the pipe by himself, and waved us away. The old driller had a face shield that was so distorted from the heat that he kept it up, held the lance in one hand, and used his other arm to protect his face from the heat. Right when the pipe was so short that the driller was within a few feet of the furnace the thing popped like a balloon. Molten iron sprayed across the room , the driller disappeared in the shower of iron. We ran for our lives, I thought he was dead. He ran out after what seemed like an eternity, his eye brows and mustache had been burned off his face. He sat down on the bench beside me, and started to cry. He said, 'Marco, I hate this a f'n joba, I gotta three more years, Marco stay in a school!'. Best lesson I ever had. Went back to school and finished my engineering degree!
I did the same thing at Sharon Steel Corp, Romer Works, blast furnace in the 1960's it was very similar as you described it, I worked mainly on the cinder side but remember standing on the the smoking boards working in the troff and skimmer taking turns with a sledge hammer driving huge bars to breakup iron build up and clinkers. Shovels and Wheelbarrows were the main tools!
we used to play around the tracks near my grandma's house in Hubbard. What was neat was seeing the P & LE ingot cars (ladle cars, too) on their way to Struthers glowing at night- you could feel the heat they put out hundreds of feet away. never forget that....
You will make America great, and America will not pay attention to you, because America is not a territory, but people .. Why make other people great who don't give a damn about you? Make yourself great better.
@@franciscodelbarrio2101 oh please man, there were tons of people back then drinking themselves to death being lazy pieces of shit. If you want to work to work in America you're just as able as you were then, I'm 26 with no college education and I've never had trouble finding honest work. Those rose tinted glasses are blinding you, the 40s wasn't some magical time.
I've watched quite a few of these videos over the years; this narrator is by far the best one. He's one of the only ones I've heard that actually talks like a human being
Amazing how much things have changed . Modern steel making is alot safer and efficient now days. Thanks to these pioneers that built this country with blood sweat and tears !
I was only a small kid when it all came crumbling down but the thing I remember most was how massive and intimidating all of it was. Driving over the Center Street Bridge, you could get a peak at some of the action sometimes (at least what I could remember). There is little left now to define the industrial landscape. A few buildings here and there but nothing reminding you of how giant it all was.
My family is from Youngstown. My grandparents grew up in Briar Hill on Calvin St right by the ITAM bar. They are Italian American and loved growing up there. I remember going to visit them and walking up to St. Anthony's to get a Briar Hill pie. Good memories
My home town was Rawmarsh in UK . Worked on Open Hearth furnaces exactly the same until 1968 (19th century technology and work practices in the 20th). Hot dirty dangerous work.
I do concrete construction and it's hard work but this makes what I do look like a cake walk! I have a lot of respect for the men who did jobs like this! Cool video by the way!
I grew up in Buffalo, a city that was supported by a giant steel industry. I knew people who worked at these plants... it was hotter than hell! 120 degrees F was the ambient temperature. When they opened the furnace, it was unimaginably hot. Only a few people could stand the work. They had permanently burned skin, and drank "boiler makers" on the way home.
Amelia Elizabeth Voss I work in metal foundry and can confirm your statement! I'm the youngest guy on the melt deck currently. They hired 6 men in a 3 month period for my job before I came along and stayed. The last guy hired before me walked out after an hour. It ain't easy work, but I like the pay and enjoy the science! The senior crew taught me the trick to staying on your feet is to drink at least 2-3 gallons of water/gatorade per shift. Otherwise you'll become dehydrated and collapse. It's not for everyone, but a few of us wierdos enjoy it! Haha
I can certainly identify I was a slag and metal tapper for FMC in Pocatello, Idaho from 1989 up until the plant closed in 2001 The furnaces weren't the open type because the product we made was phosphorus, captured as a gas from the molten ore...the gas then went through electrified precipitators, then condensed down into a sump as elemental phosphorus. The tapping floor was as you describe "hot" especially during summer where your sweat soaked your shirt, then clung to you form literally doing nothing but standing there watching your tap. Each furnace had a tapping shed equipped with an air conditioner which sometimes worked depending how fast maintenance could get to it. Sometimes it was cooler outside in 100+ degrees where at least mother nature provided a draft. Sometimes your furnace got sick when the feed combination of ore, coke, and silica were not right you would be at the tapping hole burning multiple burn pipe, spilling over because you couldn't get a decent flow or even plugged, the slag therefore would build up and then you'd have to jackhammer it off the runner and turn box, then start all over. Fuck I remember those days, some were shitty fucked up stressed out days, but ironically I had some of the best and weirdest times of my life there. And by weird I literally seen ghost workers there dressed in their regalia of their time. I thought I was hallucinating at first from sleep depravation from the graveyard shifts, so I didn't tell anyone until I asked another co worker/ friend of mine if he had seen these ghost and he confirmed it as he described them to a " T " as wearing the same clothing and vintage hard hats the same that I saw in the same location as well. It added a whole new meaning to the term 'graveyard shift.
C D Kennedy chills down my spine. Spiritual sensitive here with a few encounters from the other side. I know many sailors in the USN speaking of seeing either workers of former sailors in odd places throughout the boats. Let us pray that we all one day see the light and to be carried by the Holiest of Hollies.
1973 Colorado Fuel & iron, Pueblo, CO 3:18 I started as common labor in the Open Hearth by chipping clinkers. 3 weeks later I was a Motor Inspector (mill electrician) and worked in most of the mills such as 10 inch rolling, central shops, and so on. Sears made tools nearby Canon City and would bring steel drums of broken tools to be inserted into the open hearth to be melted down. There was also the largest steam engine west of the Mississippi River there, rated 22,500 hp I was told. It was interesting to see it roll steel; interesting facts were that it could reverse direction instantly and had max torque at stall with the crank at 90 degrees and I watched it snap a steel fuse.
Millwright here - been in and around and every which way with those rollers at 8:30 Amazing pieces of machinery. Ancient, but still moving and grooving here at the Gary Works like they're brand spanking new. Dangerous stuff out here, but equally as cool to watch!
I remember driving past the Stubenville Iron plants on my way out to California in the mid 80's...The size of those plants was staggering...I had never went to U.S steel in Bethlehem so I had no idea how big those plants were...When you see a business that stretches for a mile or more; you know you're seeing a grand enterprise...:)...Thanks for the upload.
Earl Strong a man who blessed our community. Rip and thank you for all you did! My Uncles James King and John Copeland both worked at the Steel Mill in Youngstown
Been working in foundries since 2000 and we've come a long way!! I work in centrifugal casting! A very cool process!! Great video much appreciated and why I'm having a rough day I'll think of these guys and how much harder it was!!!
Even in 1944, they knew hard times would come in the future. It's sad when towns that depend on a single industry begin to crumble when the plants close one by one. I remember a line from Coal Miner's Daughter, "You got 3 options. Coal mine, moonshine, or roll on down the line." When there's no opportunity left in town, you have to move on down the line to find it elsewhere.
I was on a film crew that covered the story of the closing of the mills in Youngstown. The unions tried to save the mill, but somehow financial manipulations made it more profitable on Wall Street to shut the mills. What a pity ....
Iwas like "This look like one of factories in my country (Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia) and than I hear this: 5:34 I wasnt expecting that :D Thank you markdcatlin for such great video!
Every person in that factory looks like they take their jobs very seriously. No smiles, no clowning around, just good quality steelis the goal. Good video, one year till the war is over...
My Grandfather worked there for years sad the bottle and women were more important than feeding his family. Left here as a little girl and came back almost 6 years ago cost of living is very cheap. But the poor choices that have been made throughout the years is why this place is still suffering. Sad place
Had a friend who's job it was to vacuum up firebrick. Once got his foot caught in the vacuum, took several men to free him. He died of cancer, slowly suffocating until death.
9:24 there is no smoke in the skies now sadly! I live in Akron and I can remember the city smelling like burning rubber in it's heyday. My Dad use to say smell that boy, that's money! Only good thing now is the air..
I worked for about 5 years at the Mount Isa Copper Smelter in Queensland, Australia. Some of the best years of my life.. hard work but great guys to work with, and I'm still really proud of what I did there. The process is very similar for copper, a little more complex than what they showed here, each metal is different.
Back then, we were the number one producer of steel, and had the best industry in terms of steel fabrication, science and technology. After the war, we didn't continue the science and focused on things other than steel production while our former enemies rebuilt their steel industries into technologically superior systems. Now we don't really make steel in the USA. It's too dirty, too energy intensive and polluting. We don't like to get our hands dirty anymore and let those in our Nation who don't speak the language do all the hard, manual labor like pulling steel in a foundry. We've gotten soft. Watch how average Americans just a generation or two ago did it. See ourselves now, a service-oriented commerce all about sitting around at a computer. Yet the steel's still needed everywhere, in our cars, trains, buildings, bridges, computers and yes, even in our cell phones. It's time for American's to roll up their sleeves and get to the dirty work again and start making things here, not importing them from there.
divisioneight Most of the people who worked in these mills spoke little to no English. My grandfather came from Poland and spoke primarily Polish. My other grandfather said many he worked with also didn't speak English. Plus the United States has no national language. You don't need to speak it.
Give me a break. We have a national language, and have had a national language, and it has always been english. Cultural changes occurred later, leading up to the point we are at now, where most people simply consider themselves americans, and you can bet money that those people speak english. You are also a bit confused about the setting of this video, there were certainly recent immigrants in ohio at that time, and in that town, but it was no where near "most". Just wow..
There's a lot more to the decline of our steel industry that this. Steel company managements refused to innovate and only promoted from within, leading to the stagnation you mentioned. In 1958 the USW went on strike for 116 days because management wouldn't give them a long overdue wage increase while profits were at record levels, leaving an open door for imported steel materials and products to come onshore and gain a strong foothold. The pendulum swung the other way, and by 1964 the USW was getting their workers 13 weeks vacation each year, at a cost that wasn't sustainable. In the 1970's new environmental regulations added to the problem, as companies were forced to spend countless millions retrofitting their equipment with pollution controls, preventing them from spending on newer, more efficient equipment. During the same decade OPEC quadrupled the cost of gasoline almost overnight, and consumers started buying cheap, small, energy efficient Hondas, Toyotas and Datsuns (now Nissans), while Detroit gave us the Pinto, Vega and Gremlin to compete with them - junk. By 1980 overall quality from Detroit was almost non-existent. As the big 3 American automakers lost market share the steel industry lost orders and continued t down-size. The large, integrated steel companies also faced a new domestic competitor, the low-overhead and efficient minimills, who took away more market share. Eventually there were more retirees than active employees, and Big Steel couldn't afford the legacy costs for the retirement pensions and medical benefits. The golden goose that almost single-handedly helped us win WW2 was dying, as steel companies went bankrupt. Steel is now a global market with global suppliers. Domestic suppliers had to find niche markets for specific products. Youngstown OH and Bethlehem PA and many other cities are ghost towns compared to what they were 50 years ago. Believe it or not, there is a resurgence in both the auto and steel industries in the US, as import brand automakers are building assembly plants here, but most of them and the new steel mills to support them are being built in the southern states, where taxes, regulations, labor and utility costs are lower than the rust-belt states.
Everything has its time, in the 1400's Venice was the center of the world for trade with Asia, then came the discovery of America, that set the beginning of the end for Venice's heyday and it started its long and painful decline.....change is the only constant in the universe.....You can see the rise of the new world power as we speak in the far east
CRAIG LAUGHLIN the unions are not necessarily needed now. At one time yes, but when you have a very large manufacturer come into an area and voluntarily give all the benefits and pay scale of union jobs then why have a union? The unions want that income they get by having members. Birmingham, Al was at one time the second largest steel producing centers in the US. When we started losing in the production race us steel laid off over 6000 employees in under 2 years. Now our largest employer is UAB medical center. Excluding nothing we have the perfect setting for the production of pig iron and steel, iron ore, coal limestone, and water.
Crazy watching this seeing how the blast furnace looked and operated to how it looks and operates now,,I work on blast furnace , seeing a guy manually operate the snort valve is just crazy to me in 2020, definitely took more man power to make steel in the 40's , computer operated hydraulics is the way it's done now, definitely took many jobs from hard working people..
I live in northeast ohio,after all this industry left nothing really came to replace it. There's a reason it's called the rust belt, most of this places are just left abandoned.
i just noticed something, in newer documentaries you would be hearing all about how hot, heavy and dangerous this is, but in these old ones they talk in a way that lets you see how impressive this is
These were real men.. No girly boys today could last 1 shift in the Mill. Once they started crying the men would kick there asses ( that was called human resources)
@@yyeetmax2849 What are you 15... Trans boy... What offended you.. The fact that real men built this country... Because I guarantee no little sissy brainwashed punk built it. Smartasses like yourself is exactly what's wrong with this country. Wtf is YYEETMAX HIDING BEHIND WORDS.
Edit: seems like youtube removed half of this mans comments @@lawrencelitterini4973 1 i am 21 and a craftsman, a jeweller to be exact, though i like knifemaking as a hobby 2 being trans is not an insult anymore 3 you actually seem way more offended than i do 4 i do not live in America 5 i was not talking about how manly men from that time are, i am talking about how much of a shame it is that we do not appreciate modern engineering marbles and how we prefer to talk about dangers or inconveniances 6 i do not think i am hiding anything, though the fact you went there seems like you are still stuck in the cold war era
My brother-in-law told me the first time he was in the slagging line (4:00), when his turn to pitch the slag into the furnace came up, it was so hot he pitched slag and shovel into the furnace. After that, I think he decided to work other jobs in the mill.
Mike Day: My siblings, and I, used-to do-that, too. My dad caught-us doing it, once; let's-just-say that "he wasn't pleased." One reason was that his-own father got hurt, as a kid, while playing near some railroad-tracks.
Haha I put a quarter on the rail tracks once in new Jersey and I went inside after panicking it would derail the train! When I came back, much to my disappointment and relief, someone had picked it up before it got nailed by the train. It was a poor area.
I've been to places like this when I was young, Unbelievable & it's great to honor some of these guy's by mentioning their names. They endured this to house & feed their families (& win the war), my hat's off to them, they are better men than I !!
My father worked at Youngstown Steel Door from '67- '80 when the bottom fell out. He also worked at Cambell Steel for a while too. I'm very proud of him and all the men and women who worked steel in Youngstown. Sad to see it go away, but it has been building back up!!! Steel Door made armor plate during the war.
Youngstown Steel Door was my first job right out of High School in 1973 operating presses. Standing joke was that if you lost a finger, they made you a supervisor and the general forman who passed out the payhcecks only had 2 fingers on one hand. Moved to a job across the street to WEAN 6 months later.
I like how they name all the workers and explain their jobs
magic broccoli u rite, u rite
So they know what to put on their grave stones
Paul Mckenzie b
Paul Mckenzie 66m
@@arthurfrezza2964 ?
I am 67 yrs. old now, as a young man i worked in the open hearth @ the U.S. Steel Ohio Works. I only worked there 8 yrs. when it closed. A bye gone era. I am proud to say I was a part of it.
American pride.
I am 63 years old and I worked every job in this video at US Steel. Five different plants in four different states. The work was hard, hot and dangerous but gratifying! I retired after 44 plus years service to the Union and the Steel Industry. Hoping and praying it survives another 100 years!
@@plasma3211
Been at Inland, now Arcelor for 11 years. Minimum of 19 more to go. You and I both hope that it lasts.
Unfortunately, it won't. The way they run things now is a shame. The companies refuse to buy quality parts and we're forced to use cheap junk that routinely breaks (but hey...they saved money on paper). And anymore there are nearly more contractors on site than there are people. It's disgusting. At this point, I'm just along for the ride.
@@mephInc I hear you brother and you have my sympathy! I retired Jan 2018 from USS and they are doing everything you described above. When I started in maintenance they took our apprentice program from four years to two. When I left they were fast tracking people at 6 months. We had people who could not weld, burn, rig or do any layout! I tried to voice my concerns and was shut down from Union and Managers! We had IronWorkers do millwright work, we then had to go and correct the repair. Vendors are ripping off the company with cheap parts like you said. Unfortunately management is clueless as to how to run the business. They would not listen to experienced workers and pushed managers into retirement who protested.
@@plasma3211
I'm in maintenance myself, and I'm even pushing to bring back some kind of apprenticeship program. All I had to do was pass some baloney test and suddenly I'm a mechanic. Fortunately, I've worked with my hands my entire life. But as you said, we've got guys that don't even know what a pinch bar is. And yeah, bottom of the barrel contractors that we routinely follow behind to fix their screw ups. Hell, they hired a company to hang doors plant wide...at $10,000 a door. All they want is us to be parts changers, even when we ask to learn and do the work in house. They'll spend thousands of dollars on safety stickers, but I'm stuck using Chinese pipe wrenches that snap in half. Now they want to strip us of our insurance, lower our pay, cut vacations, and lower the pension. At least USS got a decent contract this time around. We're still on the verge of a strike.
The Steel they made for the railroads at the time stood the test of time. Im a Track Welder and on our rails we still have rails from 1915. Crazy. Much respect!
How do you weld railroad tracks? Is it all thermite welding?
@@josephtraverso2700No. Our rails aren't CWR (Continously Welded Rails) but bolted together. I weld and rebuild switches, frogs and areas on rail that need more metal.
@@legitdrumsticks215 cool! I’m taking manufacturing course and my prof used rail tracks to explain thermite welding
@@legitdrumsticks215duh. What idiot doesn't know RR tracks are bolted together😂
I work a rail yard in Toledo!
Some of the track is bolted and some of it is thermite welded! Pretty cool to watch that process! I don’t know why it’s done either way. Maybe welding is done for high speed rail.
Films like these are our time machines.
We get to look into the past.
What a great video.
Tesla would like to have a word with you.
It's like the videos filmed of 100 year old folk during the 1920s talking about their grandparents from the 1700s while talking about growing up in the 1800s, watched in 2020 on a cellphone instead of some newsreel.
Comments like these are time machines.
We get to look into the past.
What a great comment.
Conan568 hi
Never forget what was stolen from you.
I am 63 years old and I worked every job in this video at US Steel. Five different plants in four different states. The work was hard, hot and dangerous but gratifying! I retired after 44 plus years service to the Union and the Steel Industry. Hoping and praying it survives another 100 years!
thanks for all you have done. my grandpa was retired in 1969 with 40 years service for USS @ campbell works. before working there, he helped run the steam trains at the carbon limestone quarry in hillsville, pa.
Ever work on the Missabe range?
I did about 19 years on a blast furnaces in UK , yep hot, dangerous, hard graft , but satisfying ,kept me fit. Just drunk pints of water .
all dead, even the mighty rouge facility.
but why you fake cunt
Respect to all the guys who did this grueling work to make the world what it is today, and the ones who are still doing rough warehouse jobs.
😁thank you sir
make america what it is today, not the world. the imperial forces made sure ROW stays behind.
🤡
@@A.J.1656 clown
@@VIPK9
Dog.
My grandfather fought in WWII and worked in the same mills before and after. He said many times that the steel workers were the real unsung heroes of the war.
a lot of them served. depending on the job classification- a woman or junior worker could be trained- and drafted workers could return to the their jobs later.
slaves
@Xcrysis slaves with more money than the ones today. These workers probably had more dignity and self respect than the workers of today. They hold peoples hands now flipping fake meat while they pay for an electric car they can’t afford. Uber eats delivery is literally fetching someone’s food. Fuck that I’m working on steel.
Мой дед тоже воевал в ВОВ, закончил свой путь в Германии в 1945 году. Когда выгнали немецких оккупантов из Сталинграда. Он так же мне рассказывал, как во время войны получил ранение и после восстановления его не брали на фронт еще целый год, но этот год он упорно трудился на сталелитейном заводе в Ленинградской области России, рассказывал, как близко он взаимодействовал с расплавленным металом) а сейчас я живу в Кливленде, с 2021 года, так как в России власть устроила беспредел и мне пришлось сбежать в США, мне 35 лет, но я вынужден начать новую жизнь и мне страшно от того, что я ни когда больше не смогу обнять моих маленьких дочек😢❤️
I'd say the real heroes in this matter are the housewifes and kids who collected all the scrap metal.
Without them, the steel mills wouldn't be as productive.
All that steel and iron to build the mill that builds more steel! The manufacturing process is mind blowing. I can't imagine the heavy equipment and the engineering that put together the mill itself.
classiclarry88 my thoughts as well. How did they manufacture the first press?
Amazing. It’s hard to imagine how they do everything.
Look up the Boilermakers Local 169 they're the ones that build the furnaces the boilers the big stuff
@@ryanstucke7811 that's the classic .. the chicken or the egg
It is and was amazing
I am 72. I worked in the Plate Mill at the Brier Hill Works of Youngstown Sheet & Tube the summer of 1969. My father was a Cold Strip Roller for 42 years at the Campbell Works at Youngstown Sheet & Tube
"learn to work together..."
or move it all to China...
Ha!! What a concept!!
Americans are too far divided to work together!!
The elite like it that way!
"keep em divided, poor, and uneducated"
@Robert R
One of the reasons we are not a N0 .1 nation anymore in a lot of different areas!!
Don't get me wrong it is good that we have different cultures, but lately it is getting out of hand!!
Don't get me wrong, it is
Where its mostly automated anyways... it was bound to happen.
@@geoffreydevore9503
What has multiculturalism done for us? All I see is our Senate and congressional houses being filled up with Africans who claim Whites are the biggest terrorist threat to America.
The decline of US stell industry was on the way well before China exports any significant amount of steel.
Anyone want to play a rousing game of "Count the modern-day OSHA Violations"?
Back in those days men were men and dying 100 times more frequently while making someone rich. Good old days. Of course, to whomever survives
Yea no doubt OSHA comes in and ruins everything. I miss the old days when the majority of men had a finger or two missing or maybe even an ear. Ahh the good old days.
@@billcoley8520 Ok boomer
OSHA doesn't exist in China and that's where the jobs went. Sure a lot of people died back then, same as China today.
The part where they are literally just tossing bags of alloy in had me dying, weren’t they worried about it splashing back up everywhere? I imagine someone at some point lost their balance and fell in. Pretty crazy.
I work in a modern steel mill and this is so cool to watch . We definitely have made lots of progress in the past decades. It is so much easier and safer now
1978 to 2010 I saw many changes, thank God for SAFETY
@@danielmota1095 Safety is for sissies.
Like ear protection? Ventilation? Tags? Can you give some examples?
@@furtim1 Combination of automation and better safety standards. Automation has made it much safer. Now a days most of the work can be done from inside a pulpit like they showed the guys making the slabs before the hot strip mill. Even then the amount of input needed from the operators now is minimal. When you have to go on the floor you have to wear ppe. Hard hat, safety glasses, ear protection, and fire retardant slacks/shirt are the minimum. Any job dealing with the molten metal/sparks adds additional ppe, face shield, gloves, additional suit rated for molten splashes. Primary is still a little dangerous. I worked as an engineer in finishing on a hot dip galv line. 90% of my line was automated. Operators sleeping in the pulpits while the line runs is a regular thing.
My great grandfather worked in those mills. He came from Sweden to Youngstown. ..would walk down into the valley from Briar Hill with his lunch and a pail of beer. I remember visiting my great aunt in the 70's when some of the mills were still running...they would blow a big whistle before they let the smokestacks open so you could get your laundry and yourself inside before a coating of red dust covered everything. My grandfather worked many years as paymaster for U.S. Steel.
I was born & raised in Pittsburgh, and worked for Earl Scheib Auto Painting, "Any Car Any Color $29.95", in 1967. The most popular color was called "ruby maroon". It was a dead match for the reddish stain that iron oxide precipitation from the mill stacks made on the top surfaces of everyone's car. I suspect that when I pass and am autopsied, my lungs will also be reddish stained inside....!
I live for these films. Chow.
I live near brier hill ! He really took beer to work? haha !!!!
That's dope
That day would fly by...lmao @@khrisdominguez3825
Steel making was incredibly dangerous work. Men were frequently injured and yes, they did occasionally fall into the vats. We owe them and the unions they formed thanks for the cities many of us live in today. All that is gone now, moved where taxes and labor were cheaper. The new plants are smaller and mechanized, and much safer. But those men, from the black and white past, look like giants to me.
Did you ever consider that labor union greed was the primary reason for the decline and fall of the US steel production? Ten weeks paid vacation and ruinous work rules led to the loss of this bed rock American industry.
Smaller hell, more efficient and productive. Unions destroyed Youngstown. Maybe if they'd have fought for more modern equipment instead of ridiculous benefits, the mills would have stayed. Obsolete open hearth furnaces and antique equipment + hostile labor = black monday.
Randy Magnum the failure to modernize is on the CEOs and board members, not the unions. Europe has strong unions but OWNERS also invest back into the companies. The American way is run something until it can't go any more, then patch it up and send it in for another round. That's on the companies, not the unions.
Andrew Nardo, ha! They wernt going to invest in mob run Youngstown, with hostile labor unions, where every pellet of ore had to be hauled in. They modernized, but not in youngstown!
If the unions would have fought for capital reinvestment instead of crazy benefits and 13 week vacations, the dumb mill hunkys would still have jobs, instead of whining on the radio every day. But, they didn't care as long as they were fat and dumb, screw the next generation, right?
Randy Magnum you're delusional. Even Pittsburg had to haul everything in. Same with Cleveland and everywhere else. The unions didn't help their situation but what killed the mills was outsourcing and micro mills. Same with every other ounce of manufacturing in this country. The companies ran off. They would have even if the unions weren't the way they were.
“Hey Mac! Your hat is on fire”
“What?”
This the time my grandfather was working his way up as a tool and die maker, through shops during the war. Now I continue the tradition as a blacksmith/metal sculptor/fabricator.....when I am not doing stonework. He is still and always has been my hero. He's 95 and still here.
hey dude is your grandpa alive
@@havakuvvetleri2.anajetussu534 95 + 13 = 108. If he is, he'd be a very small demographic of men!
@@assassinaria Fuck his grandpa, you know damn well a 108 year old man is a maga loser.
@@ablueairheadablueairhead3215 Uh, okay?
The boys would be amazed how steel is made now a days with continuous cast, atomized spray and electric arc furnaces
Yep made in China thanks to Trump
@@altestic9436 *Obama
@@altestic9436 Whaaat?
@@altestic9436 Steel has been foreign made long before Trump. Ask a welder. They know.
Al Testic China does make like half of the steel in the entire world.
One of my grandfathers worked in one of those mills his whole life until he retired. Absolutely grueling and extremely dangerous work.
I was a intern safety man at a steel mill in NW Indiana. Still in college. We had to get blood tests for the guys for heavy metals and lead every two weeks. You really appreciate the green of the trees and grass after you get out of the plant at the end of your shift.
Gary Indiana doesn't have trees or grass. It's a burned out cinder full of toxic waste.
wow that's actually pretty intense
@@EnragedEagle yeah, fkn' ugly price of 'progress', eh.
I live in Northwest Indiana. Did you work at Gary or SDI?
During the early 80s. I worked in the Ingot Mold Foundry at Inland Steel. Plant 2.
Great video worked in a steelmill in PA in the 70's when they had electric arc furnaces.While it was a good paying job safety was poor and the working conditions worse with many injured and killed on the job and later from the heavy metals and the widespread use of asbestos in the air.While in a millwright gang we would makeup rolls of asbestos right on the picnic table we ate off lunch time take a broom sweep off and sit down and eat never knowing the danger.Glad i got out after 10 years.
Shit dude I hear that man.
That is absolutely fucked.
Imagine that you never knew the danger of that smoke exactly. Northeast Ohio is the worst with cancer . !!!
The dangers of asbestos is over hyped.
@@Vicus_of_Utrecht I personally know of someone who got lung-cancer as a result of not using proper PPE while on an asbestos removal job.
Good ol' Johnny Chonco, always on the spot with that snort valve!
I am in Youngstown area and this brings back memories for sure. Ytown is kinda dried up now, most of the factorys are gone now and its kinda sad to see it now (2021)
Yes, I started visiting the Youngstown area in 1971, I have family there. Big difference between then and now
Bunch a lazy adults, grab those bootstraps and give em a hard yank lol!
Pull real hard and see where ya get
Youngstown is a shit hole now
@@ctsvblk anyone who lives in northeastern Ohio will understand.
@@Gmoonw every part of Ohio, really
The good old days: when a man could fall into a furnace of molten iron, and no one would bat an eye.
KillerSugar hahaha 😂 they would put up some sort of scoreboard to remind them of four finger joe
@Patrick Ancona ok boomer relax
@ . they'd be shocked (hopefully); yet, it's metal: you'd mostly be pushed to/near the surface, as you spin for moments, and disappear.
@Tyson ok Coomer
Simpler more wholesome time.
These people built this great country. Hard working honest men.
@Denis Zhurov Its a great country though.
How do you know they were honest
@@VeeTwoPointOhwhy would they do this if they weren’t ? Wouldn’t it be easier to be a criminal and not work there?
my right ear enjoyed this documentary
@imjustsaying tho he's deaf from one ear dickhead 🤣
Imagine complaining about the audio quality of a documentary made in 1944.
@@jonbon8403 It has nothing to do with quality of the recording, just errors have been made digitizing/converting, it is super easy to have only one channel of original audio and making sure it is used for both left and right channels when converting to a stereo format.. or at least noticing this after, and fixing it. Maybe imagine that? ;
absolutely made my day!
Use mono setting
At one time Youngstown held the distinction of having the most owned homes in the states. Now half are gone
@@ИмяФамилия-ц6д Тоже самое и у нас
It seems that someone needs these houses .. You talk about these houses as if they were of 300+ meters. The standard of living is low, why breed a bunch of low levels?
Full of crack a POCs that wont work. I SEE IT EVERYDAY. SAD AS SAD CAN GET.
@@ИмяФамилия-ц6д We had blacks move up from the south. They called it the Great Migration. It destroyed every city they went to in any numbers and the people that ran those companies wouldn’t put up with their crime, so they left.
@@NoahBodze Racist much???
My Grandfather was the first African American to work at this steel mill, he was an electrician. My Father use to work here also, I can still remember my mother, my brother and myself waiting for him to come out to the car after work.
Why did you mention his race?
Oh, right.
Blacks literally only think about race, at all times.
Almost forgot for a second, there.
@@staywhite6332 maybe cuz around these times they couldn’t even attend the same universities, he’ll even drink out the same fountain?? So ofc it’s an achievement if he was the first to do it- how are you so wilfully ignoring that??
That’s really cool, thanks for sharing that!😊
@@staywhite6332 WHITES always to downplay our accomplishments
@staywhite6332 0 upvotes
Boy can leave steel, but the steel never leaves the boy. Y town for life!
That’s true, the coke and steel vapour are in our lungs forever!
This is where my great grandfather worked. And immigrant from Poland. Amazing!
I feel extremely lucky to be able to watch these old films and get a small feel for how people lived back in the day, without having to go through the hardships they did. God bless America🇺🇲
These are the men that made America
African Americans built America
Stop being antisemitic
I'm a 4th generation Youngstown steel worker. V & M Star / Brier Hill Works - we all worked in the same building(s).
I just saw this video. I did automation work at the pipe mill at VMStar 5 years ago. My favorite mill of all of em.
This is my hometown, born 1971! My dad was born in 1944 and worked in the mills during the 60s and 70s. One would be aghast to see what the city has become from where it was back then. Youngstown was affluent, bustling, and economically sound back then. It's literally become a shell of itself present day 2023 as part of the "Rust Belt". That industrial age economy was snatched away from thousands of working families in the late 70s and sent overseas for cheaper labor and more productivity. This choice to move production overseas literally decimated the spirit and morale of the middle class working ppl in Youngstown. When the economy failed some people were wise enough to relocate while they could. Many others who remained and couldn't leave due to financial constraints basically became the remnant products of a failed system.
gotta love globalism , rip youngstown, theres some cool old houses there, used to work there
Former steelworker here, friend….I believe it’s going to come back.
It's politicians and big companies failure to not adept in time. Some people even now still think there is a future for US steel, coal and oil industry, that's why those people will be left jobless wondering how it could all come to and end...
@@olivieraleman
People have been saying that since the 90s.
A Japanese company bought the plant my dad worked at and closed it down.
He had hopes. Never happened.
Until the government subsidizes steel like they do milk and grains, there are zero financial reasons for companies to manufacture steel in the states like they used to. Labor costs are too high.
I knew a janitor that worked at Delphi near Youngstown that made $28 an hour in the 90s.
He literally pushed a broom all day.
That's it.
Thank you unions.
@@-_-John-_- Isn't it terrible that we live in a world where working people asking for decent pay gets them put out of a job? It's not the fault of the unions, it's the system we've built for ourselves that's rotten.
Amazing video! Pure History! I work in a Brazilian Steel Mill Nowadays...I have been to Yongstown-OH in 2010, visiting a supplier, and I can say that you still can feel the Steel legacy there!!
have there been any redundancies in the Brazilian steel industry in 2020-2021? Any mass lay-offs?
Wow!!
I’m commenting through my sons account. My father immigrated from Mexico. He was a scarfer in the 40” finishing dept at Ohio works In Ytown. I worked in the mill after I graduated from Hubbard High (1966) and when I was in Law School. Made me appreciate how hard my Dad worked to educate me. Thanks Pops.
Always felt badass telling my friends how much welding I would do after school with my pops at 15. Then I look at these guys.....
Well to be fair, that is respectable in its own right. I wish I had picked up welding at an early age.
Thats Johnny Chocko on the snort valve. Go Johnny go.
That last quote is what I’ve been saying forever. So much money, time, young minds and bodies to fight each other in war. If only we could all get along the amazing things we could all accomplish together. We’d be traveling the stars by now.
This is a tribute to all those hard working people who contributed so much to get us where we are today.
This popped up on my recommended and I was so exited because I literally live in youngstown and I’m like omg
Same lmao
Damn sorry you live there
Im 47, my Dad worked at the mills. He used to bring me a HUGE chunk of coal everyday. As a kid Id wash it and treat it as a Jewel lol. When we'd go pick him up, I always pictured him fighting some BEAST coming out the Mill all covered in soot and Coal dust.
During a shut-down of my home division, I worked on a temporary assignment on the pouring floor of the blast furnace at Lone Star Steel (now US Steel) during the Texas heat wave of 1980. We tapped the blast furnace, routed the slag to an outdoors cooling pit and the molten iron through sand-lined brick ditches to torpedo cars. After the furnace was emptied we stood on boards on top of still red-hot remains of iron and slag in the ditches, cleaning them with shovels and wheelbarrows and adding a new layer of dry sand to protect the ditches used to carry the molten iron to openings in the floor to the torpedo cars on a lower level. As soon as were were done, it was usually time for another tapping of the furnace. My additional duty was to take the temperature of the molten iron with a long road and thermocouple. We didn't have any fancy silver suits and face shields, just green fire retardant denim jeans and jackets and cotton gloves. It was unforgiving, punishing work. I was so glad to get back to my home division of the plant when that line came back up. I can't imagine doing that for 20-30 years. The 1940's era blast furnace was disassembled back in the 80's and sold, along with related equipment like the coke ovens. Those jobs are gone forever.
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these processes are still in vogue in most of the parts of the world!!
Far from gone forever. I work at the largest blast furnace in the western hemisphere. We make 14,000 tons a day.
And yes, the work is still punishing.
I did pretty much the same jobs at a 50's era Blast furnace at Algoma Steel. A tough job on the best of days, but it could get a lot worse. We were tapping the furnace one day when the drill got stuck. Only way to get it free was to use an oxygen lance. About 40ft of copper pipe screwed together with pure oxygen fed in one end. The driller repeatedly rammed the lance into the drill hole ( eye of the monster), two summer students (I was one) were behind him helping to hold the pipe as we repeatedly rammed it into the hole. The oxygen burned everything, the drill the fire mud and the copper lance, which got shorter as you went. The pipe got shorter and shorter until we were so close that the driller could hold the pipe by himself, and waved us away. The old driller had a face shield that was so distorted from the heat that he kept it up, held the lance in one hand, and used his other arm to protect his face from the heat. Right when the pipe was so short that the driller was within a few feet of the furnace the thing popped like a balloon. Molten iron sprayed across the room , the driller disappeared in the shower of iron. We ran for our lives, I thought he was dead. He ran out after what seemed like an eternity, his eye brows and mustache had been burned off his face. He sat down on the bench beside me, and started to cry. He said, 'Marco, I hate this a f'n joba, I gotta three more years, Marco stay in a school!'. Best lesson I ever had. Went back to school and finished my engineering degree!
I did the same thing at Sharon Steel Corp, Romer Works, blast furnace in the 1960's it was very similar as you described it, I worked mainly on the cinder side but remember standing on the the smoking boards working in the troff and skimmer taking turns with a sledge hammer driving huge bars to breakup iron build up and clinkers. Shovels and Wheelbarrows were the main tools!
Thank you all. For all you do.
I'm from Pittsburgh, PA and we have a very similar history as Youngstown, OH because we are 1.3hrs away from each other. I'm proud of this.
we used to play around the tracks near my grandma's house in Hubbard. What was neat was seeing the P & LE ingot cars (ladle cars, too) on their way to Struthers glowing at night- you could feel the heat they put out hundreds of feet away. never forget that....
Yes I know about those hot bottle cars ,over here going to what was sharon steel from Sharpsville pa when i was young 2
Dad was a steel worker there. Talk about balls.......just incredible drive, effort, commitment to make America great!
tom parker sadly it is messed up nowadays thanks to PCs
In those times the Americans were able to to work ⚒ now are a bunch of fat and lazy and sometimes drug addicted people, never great again are gone
You will make America great, and America will not pay attention to you, because America is not a territory, but people .. Why make other people great who don't give a damn about you? Make yourself great better.
@@franciscodelbarrio2101 oh please man, there were tons of people back then drinking themselves to death being lazy pieces of shit. If you want to work to work in America you're just as able as you were then, I'm 26 with no college education and I've never had trouble finding honest work. Those rose tinted glasses are blinding you, the 40s wasn't some magical time.
Youngstown is having a hard time now . Sad it was so full of life back then
I've watched quite a few of these videos over the years; this narrator is by far the best one. He's one of the only ones I've heard that actually talks like a human being
Amazing how much things have changed . Modern steel making is alot safer and efficient now days. Thanks to these pioneers that built this country with blood sweat and tears !
@@ИмяФамилия-ц6д slaves ??? What are you talking about ???
Nowadays
@@drunkenduncan7285 cotton plantations
it's safer and efficient in the imperialist center, in the global south it's often just as dangerous as it was back then
@@ИмяФамилия-ц6д they played an earlier role, not by 1944 however
I was only a small kid when it all came crumbling down but the thing I remember most was how massive and intimidating all of it was. Driving over the Center Street Bridge, you could get a peak at some of the action sometimes (at least what I could remember). There is little left now to define the industrial landscape. A few buildings here and there but nothing reminding you of how giant it all was.
My family is from Youngstown. My grandparents grew up in Briar Hill on Calvin St right by the ITAM bar. They are Italian American and loved growing up there. I remember going to visit them and walking up to St. Anthony's to get a Briar Hill pie. Good memories
My home town was Rawmarsh in UK . Worked on Open Hearth furnaces exactly the same until 1968 (19th century technology and work practices in the 20th). Hot dirty dangerous work.
The ash would fall like snow on every thing in Gary Ind.
Still does if we screw up... lol.
Sounds healthy lmao
all that is gone now, moved were the taxes and labor were cheaper:South America.
th-cam.com/video/pnvMowbbp_o/w-d-xo.html
I do concrete construction and it's hard work but this makes what I do look like a cake walk! I have a lot of respect for the men who did jobs like this! Cool video by the way!
I grew up in Buffalo, a city that was supported by a giant steel industry. I knew people who worked at these plants... it was hotter than hell! 120 degrees F was the ambient temperature. When they opened the furnace, it was unimaginably hot. Only a few people could stand the work. They had permanently burned skin, and drank "boiler makers" on the way home.
Amelia Elizabeth Voss
I work in metal foundry and can confirm your statement! I'm the youngest guy on the melt deck currently. They hired 6 men in a 3 month period for my job before I came along and stayed.
The last guy hired before me walked out after an hour.
It ain't easy work, but I like the pay and enjoy the science! The senior crew taught me the trick to staying on your feet is to drink at least 2-3 gallons of water/gatorade per shift. Otherwise you'll become dehydrated and collapse. It's not for everyone, but a few of us wierdos enjoy it! Haha
I can certainly identify I was a slag and metal tapper for FMC in Pocatello, Idaho from 1989 up until the plant closed in 2001 The furnaces weren't the open type because the product we made was phosphorus, captured as a gas from the molten ore...the gas then went through electrified precipitators, then condensed down into a sump as elemental phosphorus. The tapping floor was as you describe "hot" especially during summer where your sweat soaked your shirt, then clung to you form literally doing nothing but standing there watching your tap. Each furnace had a tapping shed equipped with an air conditioner which sometimes worked depending how fast maintenance could get to it. Sometimes it was cooler outside in 100+ degrees where at least mother nature provided a draft. Sometimes your furnace got sick when the feed combination of ore, coke, and silica were not right you would be at the tapping hole burning multiple burn pipe, spilling over because you couldn't get a decent flow or even plugged, the slag therefore would build up and then you'd have to jackhammer it off the runner and turn box, then start all over. Fuck I remember those days, some were shitty fucked up stressed out days, but ironically I had some of the best and weirdest times of my life there. And by weird I literally seen ghost workers there dressed in their regalia of their time. I thought I was hallucinating at first from sleep depravation from the graveyard shifts, so I didn't tell anyone until I asked another co worker/ friend of mine if he had seen these ghost and he confirmed it as he described them to a " T " as wearing the same clothing and vintage hard hats the same that I saw in the same location as well. It added a whole new meaning to the term 'graveyard shift.
C D Kennedy chills down my spine. Spiritual sensitive here with a few encounters from the other side. I know many sailors in the USN speaking of seeing either workers of former sailors in odd places throughout the boats. Let us pray that we all one day see the light and to be carried by the Holiest of Hollies.
Did you have to be college educated for this job ?
@@n.ll.8796 No, but you had to identify as non binary.
Excellent archival film. Views inside an operating mill are hard to find.
1973 Colorado Fuel & iron, Pueblo, CO 3:18 I started as common labor in the Open Hearth by chipping clinkers. 3 weeks later I was a Motor Inspector (mill electrician) and worked in most of the mills such as 10 inch rolling, central shops, and so on. Sears made tools nearby Canon City and would bring steel drums of broken tools to be inserted into the open hearth to be melted down. There was also the largest steam engine west of the Mississippi River there, rated 22,500 hp I was told. It was interesting to see it roll steel; interesting facts were that it could reverse direction instantly and had max torque at stall with the crank at 90 degrees and I watched it snap a steel fuse.
It’s cool knowing that I’m in Ohio and my father is an iron worker so it’s cool to watch and learn about this stuff
Millwright here - been in and around and every which way with those rollers at 8:30
Amazing pieces of machinery. Ancient, but still moving and grooving here at the Gary Works like they're brand spanking new.
Dangerous stuff out here, but equally as cool to watch!
Yes, at night going across center street bridge ,fascinating watching them pour the hot molten!
Breaks my heart to see what that building and town lookED like. Got to paint the boxes at ellwood one time.
Thanks for posting. I was born and raise in Youngstown and my father worked at Sheet and tube until the doors closed in 1977. This is amazing.
The production of a country. How beautiful
I remember driving past the Stubenville Iron plants on my way out to California in the mid 80's...The size of those plants was staggering...I had never went to U.S steel in Bethlehem so I had no idea how big those plants were...When you see a business that stretches for a mile or more; you know you're seeing a grand enterprise...:)...Thanks for the upload.
I lived in Youngstown for a while and loved it there, great people!
Earl Strong a man who blessed our community. Rip and thank you for all you did! My Uncles James King and John Copeland both worked at the Steel Mill in Youngstown
Been working in foundries since 2000 and we've come a long way!! I work in centrifugal casting! A very cool process!! Great video much appreciated and why I'm having a rough day I'll think of these guys and how much harder it was!!!
14 years as a steel worker in Alton Illinois
Proud to have been one
Even in 1944, they knew hard times would come in the future. It's sad when towns that depend on a single industry begin to crumble when the plants close one by one. I remember a line from Coal Miner's Daughter, "You got 3 options. Coal mine, moonshine, or roll on down the line." When there's no opportunity left in town, you have to move on down the line to find it elsewhere.
I was born and raised in Pittsburgh. Dad worked from 1937-1979 at U.S. Steel, Homestead. This posting is very interesting, thanks.
I was on a film crew that covered the story of the closing of the mills in Youngstown. The unions tried to save the mill, but somehow financial manipulations made it more profitable on Wall Street to shut the mills. What a pity ....
there were a lot of other problems then wall street
@@dknowles60 More problems *than* Wall Street.
The unions did not try hard enough
Iwas like "This look like one of factories in my country (Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia) and than I hear this: 5:34
I wasnt expecting that :D
Thank you markdcatlin for such great video!
Every person in that factory looks like they take their jobs very seriously. No smiles, no clowning around, just good quality steelis the goal. Good video, one year till the war is over...
No smiles no clowning around think about what your saying android mentality
Good ole Fred Lost his job trying to make the place safer.
Omg that video was awesome, it was like hell on earth in those factories back then
Documentaries like this one, is a treasure.
My Grandfather worked there for years sad the bottle and women were more important than feeding his family. Left here as a little girl and came back almost 6 years ago cost of living is very cheap. But the poor choices that have been made throughout the years is why this place is still suffering. Sad place
Wow - I know that's hard, dangerous and deadly work. But wow it looks like fun too!
I’m from Youngstown and this is really awesome to see!
My mother was a ship fitter welder in the shipyards. I am a retired Ironworkers. that's as close to working in a Steel mill our family got.
Had a friend who's job it was to vacuum up firebrick. Once got his foot caught in the vacuum, took several men to free him. He died of cancer, slowly suffocating until death.
Hard working men from an era that we must never forget!
9:24 there is no smoke in the skies now sadly! I live in Akron and I can remember the city smelling like burning rubber in it's heyday. My Dad use to say smell that boy, that's money! Only good thing now is the air..
Akron, Ohio, the tire capital of the world! At least as I knew it back in the 1960s.
I worked for about 5 years at the Mount Isa Copper Smelter in Queensland, Australia. Some of the best years of my life.. hard work but great guys to work with, and I'm still really proud of what I did there. The process is very similar for copper, a little more complex than what they showed here, each metal is different.
Back then, we were the number one producer of steel, and had the best industry in terms of steel fabrication, science and technology. After the war, we didn't continue the science and focused on things other than steel production while our former enemies rebuilt their steel industries into technologically superior systems. Now we don't really make steel in the USA. It's too dirty, too energy intensive and polluting. We don't like to get our hands dirty anymore and let those in our Nation who don't speak the language do all the hard, manual labor like pulling steel in a foundry. We've gotten soft.
Watch how average Americans just a generation or two ago did it. See ourselves now, a service-oriented commerce all about sitting around at a computer. Yet the steel's still needed everywhere, in our cars, trains, buildings, bridges, computers and yes, even in our cell phones. It's time for American's to roll up their sleeves and get to the dirty work again and start making things here, not importing them from there.
divisioneight Most of the people who worked in these mills spoke little to no English. My grandfather came from Poland and spoke primarily Polish. My other grandfather said many he worked with also didn't speak English. Plus the United States has no national language. You don't need to speak it.
Give me a break. We have a national language, and have had a national language, and it has always been english. Cultural changes occurred later, leading up to the point we are at now, where most people simply consider themselves americans, and you can bet money that those people speak english. You are also a bit confused about the setting of this video, there were certainly recent immigrants in ohio at that time, and in that town, but it was no where near "most". Just wow..
There's a lot more to the decline of our steel industry that this. Steel company managements refused to innovate and only promoted from within, leading to the stagnation you mentioned. In 1958 the USW went on strike for 116 days because management wouldn't give them a long overdue wage increase while profits were at record levels, leaving an open door for imported steel materials and products to come onshore and gain a strong foothold. The pendulum swung the other way, and by 1964 the USW was getting their workers 13 weeks vacation each year, at a cost that wasn't sustainable. In the 1970's new environmental regulations added to the problem, as companies were forced to spend countless millions retrofitting their equipment with pollution controls, preventing them from spending on newer, more efficient equipment. During the same decade OPEC quadrupled the cost of gasoline almost overnight, and consumers started buying cheap, small, energy efficient Hondas, Toyotas and Datsuns (now Nissans), while Detroit gave us the Pinto, Vega and Gremlin to compete with them - junk. By 1980 overall quality from Detroit was almost non-existent. As the big 3 American automakers lost market share the steel industry lost orders and continued t down-size. The large, integrated steel companies also faced a new domestic competitor, the low-overhead and efficient minimills, who took away more market share. Eventually there were more retirees than active employees, and Big Steel couldn't afford the legacy costs for the retirement pensions and medical benefits. The golden goose that almost single-handedly helped us win WW2 was dying, as steel companies went bankrupt. Steel is now a global market with global suppliers. Domestic suppliers had to find niche markets for specific products. Youngstown OH and Bethlehem PA and many other cities are ghost towns compared to what they were 50 years ago. Believe it or not, there is a resurgence in both the auto and steel industries in the US, as import brand automakers are building assembly plants here, but most of them and the new steel mills to support them are being built in the southern states, where taxes, regulations, labor and utility costs are lower than the rust-belt states.
Everything has its time, in the 1400's Venice was the center of the world for trade with Asia, then came the discovery of America, that set the beginning of the end for Venice's heyday and it started its long and painful decline.....change is the only constant in the universe.....You can see the rise of the new world power as we speak in the far east
CRAIG LAUGHLIN the unions are not necessarily needed now. At one time yes, but when you have a very large manufacturer come into an area and voluntarily give all the benefits and pay scale of union jobs then why have a union? The unions want that income they get by having members. Birmingham, Al was at one time the second largest steel producing centers in the US. When we started losing in the production race us steel laid off over 6000 employees in under 2 years. Now our largest employer is UAB medical center. Excluding nothing we have the perfect setting for the production of pig iron and steel, iron ore, coal limestone, and water.
Crazy watching this seeing how the blast furnace looked and operated to how it looks and operates now,,I work on blast furnace , seeing a guy manually operate the snort valve is just crazy to me in 2020, definitely took more man power to make steel in the 40's , computer operated hydraulics is the way it's done now, definitely took many jobs from hard working people..
31.5 years in East Chicago In mill, equipment became RC
I love these old short documentary films. Loved watching logging. And railway construction. And mining.
my greatgrand father emigtrated to USA in 1912 from former Czechslovakia , and have worked in Pennsylvania for US STEEL... :-)
When Bruce Springsteen writes a song about you, you’ve had it rough.
2:35 That's JOHNNY CHONKO on the SNORT VALVE controlling the BLAST. God damn what a line.
I live in northeast ohio,after all this industry left nothing really came to replace it. There's a reason it's called the rust belt, most of this places are just left abandoned.
i just noticed something, in newer documentaries you would be hearing all about how hot, heavy and dangerous this is, but in these old ones they talk in a way that lets you see how impressive this is
no wonder our perspective has changed, these small changes makes the world a more depressive place
These were real men..
No girly boys today could last 1 shift in the Mill.
Once they started crying the men would kick there asses ( that was called human resources)
@@lawrencelitterini4973 ok boomer
@@yyeetmax2849
What are you 15...
Trans boy...
What offended you..
The fact that real men built this country...
Because I guarantee no little sissy brainwashed punk built it.
Smartasses like yourself is exactly what's wrong with this country.
Wtf is YYEETMAX HIDING BEHIND WORDS.
Edit: seems like youtube removed half of this mans comments
@@lawrencelitterini4973
1 i am 21 and a craftsman, a jeweller to be exact, though i like knifemaking as a hobby
2 being trans is not an insult anymore
3 you actually seem way more offended than i do
4 i do not live in America
5 i was not talking about how manly men from that time are, i am talking about how much of a shame it is that we do not appreciate modern engineering marbles and how we prefer to talk about dangers or inconveniances
6 i do not think i am hiding anything, though the fact you went there seems like you are still stuck in the cold war era
My brother-in-law told me the first time he was in the slagging line (4:00), when his turn to pitch the slag into the furnace came up, it was so hot he pitched slag and shovel into the furnace. After that, I think he decided to work other jobs in the mill.
I used to put pennies on the railroad tracks. That was my low cost copper rolling mill.
Mike Day: My siblings, and I, used-to do-that, too. My dad caught-us doing it, once; let's-just-say that "he wasn't pleased." One reason was that his-own father got hurt, as a kid, while playing near some railroad-tracks.
Haha I put a quarter on the rail tracks once in new Jersey and I went inside after panicking it would derail the train! When I came back, much to my disappointment and relief, someone had picked it up before it got nailed by the train. It was a poor area.
Why is TH-cam recommending this after 13 years 💀
OH NO, THE OHIO SYNDROME
@@lunaticzeroone fr Ohio taking over
"They work like one man with four hands" This is so cool!
My grandpa German use to work there until he passway in 1972.he had big heart attacks there he use to work in the furnaces.
Great granddad, granddad and my dad worked at republic before it closed. I woulda too if it hadn’t
My family used to tell me stories on how polluted the mahoning river was back then, you could drop a penny in the water and watch it fizzle
I've been to places like this when I was young, Unbelievable & it's great to honor some of these guy's by mentioning their names. They endured this to house & feed their families (& win the war), my hat's off to them, they are better men than I !!
My father worked at Youngstown Steel Door from '67- '80 when the bottom fell out. He also worked at Cambell Steel for a while too. I'm very proud of him and all the men and women who worked steel in Youngstown. Sad to see it go away, but it has been building back up!!! Steel Door made armor plate during the war.
Youngstown Steel Door was my first job right out of High School in 1973 operating presses. Standing joke was that if you lost a finger, they made you a supervisor and the general forman who passed out the payhcecks only had 2 fingers on one hand.
Moved to a job across the street to WEAN 6 months later.
@@pagemastr954, did you know John McMillan? He was a press operator fof a while...
I was only there about 6 months and offhand I don't remember any of the names I worked with.