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just how to go about fixing the problems. Letters and petitions were all very well, but they did little to improve the
situation. People clung to vague ideas of worker collectivization, but no one could really fathom exactly how that would
work; the people of Youngstown were, after all, not particularly familiar with socialism or collectivization in general.
Beyond that, no one knew how they should proceed: everyone knew that saving the mills was important, but nobody stepped
forward with a full-fledged plan to do it without losing huge amounts of money and dragging even more people down.
Without a real plan, nothing could truly be achieved.

Without funds to drive the efforts, or even a real plan of action, the Save Our Valley Campaign did more harm than
good. In effect, it raised the hopes of workers without having any real chance at saving anything. People became excited
and waited for the mills to reappear, but they never did. The Campaign failed to save any jobs and Youngstown was
plunged into economic chaos.

The Apathy of USWA

United Steel Workers of America was the union representing the Youngstown steel workers when the closings hit.
Initially many assumed that their union would take a lead role in fighting for the recovery of their jobs. However, it
soon became clear that although the local union leaders were prepared to fight, the international branch was not. The
higher levels of the union became increasingly disassociated with Youngstown and its plight, attempting to shut out the
appeals from workers and local union representatives and to ignore what was really happening.

Actually, one main reason for the behavior of the USWA was that union leaders really had no idea what to do. No one
had ever seen a shutdown of this magnitude and rapidity before, and none of the leaders of USWA, not even president Lynn
Williams, knew what could be done. It was clear to everyone that the economic fallout from this series of closings
would be one of the worst in US history, and so without any real precedents the union leaders were flustered. Rather
than try and come up with some sort of scenario, the USWA simply ignored what was going on in Youngstown, hoping that
perhaps the problem would resolve itself, or at least not spread any further than it already had.

Besides incompetence, the USWA had one other major reason for rejecting their local counterpart: fear of socialism.
Obviously the union itself was not afraid of socialist action, but they worried that the federal government might see
the efforts of Youngstown workers to collectivize as a movement towards socialism and perhaps even communism. If the
USWA supported the efforts to revive the mills and encouraged worker control and ownership of the factories, then the
government (and potentially other important people and institutions as well) might begin to think that the UWSA leaders
were encouraging socialism. This would mean that UWSA would lose credibility with the American government and its
people, something they could not afford to do. Therefore, they decided to withdraw support and let the local branch
fight it out alone.

Regionalism

From its very first days the Mahoning Valley has been an area packed with small villages and hamlets. Youngstown is the
name of the major city area, but surrounding it on all sides are small communities which to the casual viewer are
indistinguishable from the main city itself. Boardman, Poland Township, Struthers, Lowellville, Warren, Lordstown,
Canfield, Niles, and many other towns and districts are crowded around Youngstown (see Figure 3). People from each town
work, shop, eat, and socialize in towns separate from their own, making each town strongly dependent on every other
town. However, although traffic is heavy between each separate district, each area has its own distinct cultural
ethnicity, educational system, heritage, history, and even food. For example, Struthers is a poor town with a large
Slovak population, where education is generally better than in surrounding towns, but unemployment is much higher and
pollution is widespread. Most people in Struthers are either Orthodox or Baptist. Two blocks over one finds Boardman, a
well-off township with a reputation for rich but unsuccessful schools. Its residents are mainly Italian and Roman
Catholic, with a small concentration of Methodists on the east side. Unemployment is low in comparison with surrounding
towns, and the streets are clean and well kept. With many more cultures, religions, and economic levels living in close
proximity to one another, a curious phenomenon has overtaken the area: regionalism. Each town, with their own identity,
instills a strong regionalistic feeling within their respective populations, which dictates many habits, exchanges, and
interactions between populations. Oftentimes this regionalism takes the form of bizarre forms of hatred, with certain
towns becoming sworn enemies of others.

With so much regional tension, it became very hard for workers to unite under a common cause, even one that would
save their jobs and their futures. Workers from Poland Township would refuse to attend rallies with workers from
Campbell, and citizens of Struthers would become suspicious of people from Boardman, even if they were supposed to be
working towards the same thing. A lack of cooperation became a crippling problem for the movement, because no one was
willing to put aside regional differences to work together. In some instances, small companies would express interest in
helping the movement or in relocating their business in the area, but because of regional pride no one could ever agree
where the new businesses should relocate. In this way the people of the Mahoning Valley missed many opportunities for
new industrial or commercial lifeblood because of arbitrary arguments where the goal was simply to protect regional
pride.

Conclusion: The Aftershock and the Significance of Black Monday
 
Black Monday was a devastating blow to an entire generation of people. The efforts to avoid catastrophe after the fact
were unsuccessful for four main reasons: the failure of the international steel market, the lack of funds and plans in
initiatives such as the Save Our Valley Campaign, the refusal of the USWA to support their local chapter out of
ineptitude and fear, and the absurd but very real regionalism which corrupted solidarity efforts and drove away any hope
for brining in new companies.

What happened in Youngstown may not seem significant on an international or even on a national level, and perhaps it
is not. But to the thousands of people living there, the loss of the mills was a devastating event that sent shock waves
through their economic, political, and social futures. Because of the mills and their conspicuous absence, hundreds of
people were uprooted, forced to leave their homes and tightly knit communities. Hundreds more joined the unemployment
lines, or even began living on the streets. For the people of Youngstown, Black Monday was not just a historical event-
it was the most important event in their lives.


The steel workers who tried to save their jobs and their lives were part of something greater than themselves, something
which would endure long after they had moved away and moved on. Even though they eventually failed, the fact that they
tried to preserve what they felt belonged to them is an amazing example of how far people will go to save their lives
and the futures of their children.