Steeples and Stacks: Religion and Steel Crisis in Youngstown, Ohio

Steeples and Stacks is an examination of the religion-based community group that formed in Youngstown, Ohio in 1977 in opposition to the proposed shutdown of a portion of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube's steel works, one of the most dramatic of the plant closings that have come to symbolize American deindustrialization. Church leaders and steel workers banded together to form a powerful ecumenical political coalition, established links with Washington lobbyists, and proposed to buy the plant and run it as a community industry. Though the proposal ultimately failed, the story of the coalition illuminates the growing interaction of religious and public affairs in American life and provides an analysis of the dynamics of intergovernmental, corporate and community relations at the local level. Fuechtmann, who became involved as a participant-observer in the coalition and is trained in both political science and theology, focuses on the process of coalition formation and the pivotal role of religious leaders that distinguished the Youngstown case from so many other plant closings.