The Ecumenical Coalition of the Mahoning Valley: How Church Leaders Became Involved in the Steel Business

Abstract

Youngstown, Ohio was devastated by the closing of three major steel mills in three years: In all, more than 15,000 steelworkers and another 35,000 in related industries lost jobs in this period. The purpose of this thesis is to study the response of the local nonprofit sector to the closing of the Campbell Works, a mill located just outside the city of Youngstown that employed approximately 4,100. The activities of traditional nonprofit organizations are briefly reviewed; however, much of this study focuses on the story of the Ecumenical Coalition of the Mahoning Valley, a diverse group of religious leaders whose mission evolved into a campaign to garner the resources necessary to purchase the Campbell Works and reopen it as an employee-owned company. Additional analysis is made of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Weirton, West Virginia; two nearby steel centers that faced similar economic downturns in the 1980s and used the lessons learned from the Ecumenical Coalition.

The final chapter of this thesis examines the work of two researchers, Vaughn Grisham, Jr. and Richard Cuoto, and their work studying Tupelo, Mississippi and Appalachia, respectively. In these works, we see cities and regions laid bare by stark economic conditions and the collective action taken by a wide variety of constituencies to not only survive but to thrive.