THIS MONTH IN HISTORY: MAY 1937
Companies Spend Obscene Amounts to Defeat Steelworkers In May 1937, the steel companies moved quickly to prepare for a looming strike. Youngstown Sheet & Tube contemplated spending “several million dollars” to defeat the union (one million in 1937 dollars would be nearly seventeen million today . . . so "several million dollars" could be upwards of sixty-eight million). By May, the company had already set aside $550,000 to address such "contingencies" (in today's dollars, th
THIS MONTH IN HISTORY: MAY 1937
As Possibility of Strike Looms, Steel Companies Prepare for War By May 5, 1937, with a steel strike looming, the sheriff of Mahoning County, Ohio (where Youngstown is located) had sworn in 214 deputies. Fifty-seven were on Republic Steel’s payroll and 114 on Sheet & Tube's. Between May 6 and May 25, he swore in another 168 of the companies’ employees as deputies. Meanwhile, Republic shipped over $16,000 worth of munitions, mainly gas weapons, to the sheriff’s department; this
