Youngstown's Steel Company Laid Off 5,000 People in One Morning — Black Monday

On September 18th, 1977, the board of Youngstown Sheet and Tube met to decide the fate of a city — sixty miles away, in a state that wasn't even Ohio. By the next morning, 5,000 steelworkers found out their mill was closing that Friday. This is the full story of Youngstown, Ohio — from a landlocked disadvantage that started killing its mills before most of the country's, through the rise of a company two local men built to keep their city's steel in local hands, to Black Monday, the most ambitious grassroots fight any American community ever mounted to buy back its own industry, and what a city built for 250,000 people looks like when it settles at 60,000. — Topics covered: The founding of Youngstown Sheet and Tube and the fight for local ownership Youngstown at its peak — population, industry, and a Supreme Court case that still defines presidential power today Black Monday, September 19, 1977, and the closure of the Campbell Works The Ecumenical Coalition's fight to buy back the mill, and what happened to it What remains in Youngstown today — This video uses AI-generated imagery created to visually represent historical scenes and present-day locations. — This is Abandoned US Industries — the channel that covers the places American industry built, used, and walked away from. New video every week. Subscribe to follow the series.