Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown–General Fireproofing

February 12, 2022February 12, 2022 / rtrube54 / 17 Comments

On February 13, 1972, one of the front page stories in the Youngstown Vindicator was titled “GF is Struggling in Financial Vise.” The “vise” was rising labor costs and price ceilings determined by growing competition. The story discusses measures the company was taking from strengthening its sales efforts to dispersing its plants in the hope of lowering labor costs. It mentioned that this was raising questions about the security of the 4200 factory jobs in Youngstown. Only one of eight new products had been assigned to Youngstown in recent years. This was a warning signal of what was to come. My father-in-law retired from GF about this time, perhaps seeing the handwriting on the wall. Many furniture lines were discontinued. By 1989 the company was bankrupt, purchased by TANG Industries of Gallatin, TN. They renamed it GF Office Furniture Ltd. That company was dissolved in 2008, bringing to an end an illustrious Youngstown-based manufacturer, once a world leader in office furniture.

The company began in 1902 by Herbert White. Initially, they manufactured fireproof construction materials, perhaps explaining the origins of the name. During the Panic of 1907, they pivoted to focusing on steel office furniture. They started with a four draw vertical file in 1910 followed by a fireproof safe in 1912. In 1923, they decided to implement an assembly line approach to manufacturing steel office desks. In 1925, they introduced their 1600 Series, that they continued to make with updates until the 1970’s. My wife still has one of these desks that her father bought her when she was in school.

The ALCOA Company introduced the first aluminum chair in 1925. By 1929 General Fireproofing began manufacturing aluminum office chairs that they call “Goodform.” They added the Comfort Master executive office chair line in 1937. By the end of World War II, Youngstown was the largest aluminum working district in the country with General Fireproofing as one of the anchors.

During the war, General Fireproofing, like many factories, was converted to war production, manufacturing aircraft parts. They quickly converted back to office furniture after the war, reaching pre-war sales levels by 1946. In 1948, they introduced their Mode-Maker line of office furniture, designed by noted industrial designer Raymond Loewy, featuring streamlined, flowing lines and curves rather than sharp corners. We also had one of these desks, pictured below, now residing at my son’s home.

GF Mode-Maker Desk, Photo by Robert Trube

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, General Fireproofing was the industry leader in office desks, shelving, file cabinets, and aluminum office chairs. They furnished railroad passenger cars and sailing ships in the heyday of these modes of transport.

Sadly, competitors making cheaper and inferior equipment challenged that industry dominance. By 1990, the once bustling industrial complex that comprised General Fireproofing was idled for good, and has sat unoccupied, slowly deteriorating ever since. This drone footage, shot in 2019 is both sad, and still suggests the once-great factories on these grounds.

The company is now defunct and their buildings decaying. But their furniture is virtually indestructible. It’s not contemporary, but it works. File drawers still open and close smoothly. Desk drawers close properly. Many have taken their furniture to auto paint shops and gotten them refinished. Our desk is still the original gun metal grey. We also have a like-new set of file drawers. They remind us of a time when design and quality workmanship mattered. They remind us of a once great company that shipped its products all over the world–from Youngstown.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Made in Youngstown

September 26, 2015August 25, 2025 / rtrube54 / 9 Comments

General Fireproofing desk still in use in our home office!

I came across a link recently of a set of cabinets manufactured by Youngstown Kitchens that had been boxed up for 67 years, that were opened up and assembled. For anyone that is into retro materials, this is an amazing find. In its day, this would have made for an amazing kitchen.

What struck me was that this was just one example of the quality workmanship that was characteristic of the people of the Mahoning Valley during the years we were growing up in Youngstown.

Of course, there was the steel industry itself. Youngstown at one time was the third largest steel manufacturer in the U.S. and this only comes about through a work force that was good at what it was doing.

My wife’s father worked for General Fireproofing and the office furniture they manufactured was both stylish for its day and built to last. We have two GF desks and a file cabinet in our house and I swear they will probably outlast the house–and us! We’ve actually thought of hiding under the desks during tornado warnings!

There were a number of other companies connected to steel manufacturing. Youngstown Steel Door and Republic Steel both manufactured various steel doors for commercial uses. I believe the lockers we used at school were manufactured by Republic.

Sadly, all these great companies are long gone. GM Lordstown continues to build American-made cars, subject to the ups and downs of the auto industry. The main steel manufacturing these days is Valourec Star’s operations located off of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, northwest of downtown. They manufacture pipe for the oil industry. Recently declining oil prices have led to idling the plant in February of 2015. Renewing steel manufacturing in Youngstown continues to be a challenge!

It seems that one other area where “made in Youngstown” continues to have a regional and national impact is in the area of food processing. Schwebel’s has long been a fixture. My wife grew up down the street from their plant on Midlothian Boulevard, and you could often smell fresh baking bread in the air from her home, or as you drove past the plant. Of course there is Handel’s just down the road from Schwebel’s. And, as I wrote about in a recent post, DiRusso’s has a plant that supplies a several state area. All three have Columbus outlets and I have Schwebel’s bread and DiRusso’s sausage in my fridge as I write this. Rust Belt Brewing has gained a foothold in local craft beer brewing in Youngstown (hard to find in Columbus, however). National fast food chains Arby’s and Arthur Treacher’s were once headquartered in Youngstown.

“Made in Youngstown” reflects the pride of workmanship of the people who built the economy of the city in the post World War Two era. The work was often hard, and made more difficult because of management/labor conflicts. Whether the delight was to the eye, or the tongue, or simply in the feel of something well-made, products coming out of Youngstown were associated with quality.

No doubt, I’ve not exhausted the list of things “made in Youngstown.” I’d love to hear your stories of other things made in Youngstown, and the people who made them.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Unions

May 24, 2014August 27, 2025 / rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Unions. It seems people either hate them or love them. Growing up in urban, working class Youngstown, they were part of the fabric of life. Many of the parties and weddings I attended as a kid were in local union halls. This was true even though, except for when my brother briefly was a member of a steel workers union, we were not a union family. Most of those in my neighborhood who worked in the mills, or manufacturing plants, or the big GM Lordstown plant that opened in the 1960s were union members. Most wouldn’t have it any other way.

General Fireproofing Nameplate. Photo by Robert C Trube (c)2014

That was true for my wife’s father, who worked for General Fireproofing, a manufacturer of office furniture. We actually have two GF desks in our home, and I swear you could land aircraft on them! They are practically indestructible. That was the quality of workmanship that came out of these factories.

Whatever you might say about unions today, it is important to understand what it was like for workers in the factories of Youngstown in the first part of the twentieth century. The work was dangerous and physically demanding. An injury could often end a life or a working career. OSHA and health, workers comp, and disability benefits only came later. Companies were known to arbitrarily fire workers weeks short of retirement. Workers were an expendable commodity–and knew it.

William Gropper, “Youngstown Strike” 1937, Butler Institute of American Art

Union organizing was dangerous. Strikes even more so, especially in the early years. On January 7, 1916, striking workers for the U. S. Steel Corporation seeking a 5.5 cent hourly raise were fired upon by company security, perhaps after someone had thrown a brick or rock at them. Several volleys were fired. Three died, 27 were wounded officially, possibly more because many feared seeking treatment. In Youngstown’s Butler Museum of Art, a striking painting by William Gropper captures the violence of this event. Similar events occurred 21 years later at the “Women’s Day Massacre”.

My wife has memories of her dad’s union giving kids toys at Christmas. They were the ones providing strike pay when strikes became necessary. Unions were far from perfect and union officials sometimes misused their power. But they were the only advocate the “little guy” had. Indeed, the “little guy” mindset is one that shaped the mindset of generations of those of us who grew up in Youngstown. The corporate world was filled with “fat cats” who didn’t care about the guys on the line, only the bottom line. Only much later in life as I met principled people of faith in business who didn’t take huge salaries and who valued and developed their workers did I realize that it didn’t have to be this way.

How has growing up in this environment shaped me? One thing is that I just can’t buy the arguments against unions by those who I see profiting with huge stock gains and dividends and who defend the huge disparity of wages between the lowest paid workers in companies and the CEOs of those companies. A 2013 Businessweek article finds that the CEOs of the Standard & Poor top 500 companies make an average of 204 times as much as rank and file employees, and it is nearly 500 times as much in the top 100 companies. It has also sensitized me to the labor exploitation that goes on in the sweatshops that make our clothing and our tablet computers and phones. I guess I just can’t stop thinking about that “little guy”. That’s what happens when you grow up in Youngstown.