Little Steel Strike of 1937
Youngstown, Youngstown, Ohio
Marker Inscription
The Committee for Industrial Organization, later called the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), formed the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) under the leadership of CIO president John L. Lewis in April 1936. Following successful CIO strike… transcription continues on the marker
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The Story
In the spring of 1937, the fledgling Steel Workers Organizing Committee — created by John L. Lewis and the CIO — pushed to organize the smaller 'Little Steel' companies after landmark contracts with U.S. Steel. When firms like Republic Steel refused to recognize the union, workers across the Ohio and Great Lakes steel towns walked out. Youngstown, one of the nation's great steel-producing cities, became a flashpoint of the bitter, sometimes violent confrontations between strikers, company guards, and police that summer.
Why it matters
The Little Steel Strike marked a hard, bloody turning point in the American labor movement, exposing the limits of early New Deal union protections and setting the stage for the industrial unionism that would reshape 20th-century working life.
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Related people
- · John L. Lewis
Related events
- · Little Steel Strike of 1937
- · Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC)
Themes & tags
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