Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor

Visiting the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor

During your visit to the Youngstown Steel Museum, discover how the history of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley is inextricably linked to the iron and steel industry and how its history has affected the development of the entire state through the museum’s permanent exhibit, By the Sweat of Their Brow: Forging the Steel Valley. Be sure to take the time to appreciate The Steelworkers, a sculpture outside the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor by renowned artists George Segal.

Permanent Exhibit

By the Sweat of Their Brow: Forging the Steel Valley

By the Sweat of Their Brow: Forging the Steel Valley brings labor immigration and urban history to life through videos, photographs, artifacts and reconstructed scenes. As you explore the exhibit, learn about topics such as housing, recreation and urban history through videos. Hundreds of photographs, some over 30 feet long can be found throughout the exhibit. Objects from worker’s tools and clothing, to “last heats,” the last batches of steel produced at each of the mills before they closed are also displayed. Recreated scenes of a mill’s locker room, part of a company-built house and a blooming mill, where steel ingots were shaped for further processing, are also included in the museum’s permanent exhibit and offer visitors a better understanding of the history of the steel industry that once dominated Youngstown, Ohio.

The Steelworkers

Sitting just outside the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor is The Steelworkers, a sculpture by George Segal, commissioned by the Youngstown Area Arts Council in the late 1970s and constructed in 1980. The two men in the foreground were literally molded on two steel workers, Wayne Paramore and Peter Colby Jr., who were chosen by their union local to represent all workers in the steel industry. While the sculpture was originally intended to be a commemoration for steelworkers in central Youngstown, it became a memorial because it was created at the time when the loss of steel industry jobs was most painful. Because the sculpture was frequently vandalized, it was placed into storage for some years before being moved to the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor. For some time the structure was placed outside and the sculptures of the two workers placed in the museum’s lobby. Finally, in 2002, The Steelworkers was restored and rededicated.

Travel Tip

- The Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor is ADA complaint.