Youngstown

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Thank You, Youngstown!

/ rtrube54 / 9 Comments

I finished Joseph Lambert, Jr.’s biography of David Tod this week (review). It’s really a fine piece of writing about one of Youngstown’s most illustrious citizens. If you like Youngstown history, you will want to pick up a copy! In the conclusion, he quotes Tod as saying, “I would not have been born anywhere else than in Youngstown if I could.” I find myself in thorough agreement with David Tod. And since it is the Saturday before Thanksgiving, I thought I’d share some of the reasons I’m thankful to have been born and grow up in Youngstown.

  1. Maybe it goes without saying, but it was where my family was. My father John and mother Dorothea (who had what I think is one of the most beautiful of names) loved me and raised me right. I have fond memories of time spent with both sets of grandparents. My brother, sister, and I were greatly blessed in this regard.
  2. I’m thankful for Dr. James Birch, without whom I might not have been alive. I remember him making housecalls with his black physicians bag and the toys in the waiting room of his office.
  3. Mill Creek Park has got to be high on the list. I loved hikes there with my dad as a kid. Naturalists like Lindley Vickers and Bill Whitehouse helped us understand the delights of this place. From our wedding pictures to my parents sixtieth wedding anniversary, Fellows Riverside Gardens is a place that carried so many special memories.
  4. I’m thankful for good memories of downtown Youngstown from McCrory’s soda fouintain to milk shakes at Strouss’. I think of the endless fascination of the stamp counter on Strouss’ mezzanine, and being able to watch shoppers on the main floor. In later years, I had the chance to work at another of those grand department stores, McKelvey’s. I remember all the decorations and crowds at the holidays.
  5. I learned the value of work and responsibility not only from my dad but from the customers I cut grass and shoveled snow for, and delivered papers to. Everybody worked hard in my neighborhood and from when I was ten or so, I learned the satisfaction of earning my own money.
  6. Of course, you have to be thankful for so much good food! At this season, I think of my mom’s turkey dressing and her cranberry salad with a dash of 7-Up. There is so much good food that I have written about.
  7. I will forever be grateful for the dedicated teachers in every school I attended from Mrs Smith who taught me to read to Mr. Erickson who taught me to love math. They, along with Youngstown’s libraries, fostered in me a love of learning that has endured throughout my life.
  8. Youngstown State made it possible for me to get a college education. Between scholarships and my own earnings and the low tuition, I finished without any debt. That and a number of great professors and the chance to make a number of new friends was a gift.
  9. I’m thankful that I met my wife in Youngstown, over 50 years ago (and married for 45). We’ve had such a rich and good life together and our shared upbringing in Youngstown is a part of the bond between us.
  10. Finally, I am thankful for you, all my Youngstown readers. You have taught me so much about the hometown I try to write about, over nearly ten years. You confirm my own sense of what a great good place Youngstown was for us all.

I could go on and on. But I want to leave room for you. What are you thankful for because you grew up in Youngstown?

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

Review: The Political Transformation of David Tod

/ rtrube54 / 7 Comments

The Political Transformation of David Tod, Joseph Lambert, Jr. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 2023.

Summary, A biography of Governor David Tod from Youngstown, focusing on his political career and his transformation as a “War Democrat” from support of popular sovereignty to supporting the Union war effort and ultimately Emancipation.

Growing up in Youngstown, I’ve long known of David Tod as one of our most illustrious citizens. In particular, I was familiar with the Tod farm at Brier Hill, first settled by his father George, also a state lawmaker, but not a very successful farmer. David’s success as a lawyer allowed him to acquire and pay off the farm, allowing his parents to live out their years there. His act set the stage for the discovery of high quality coal, the construction of blast furnaces contributing to the growth of the iron industry in the valley and his stake in rail companies, enabling the shipment of coal and iron from the Mahoning Valley, establishing his fortune.

Beyond knowing that he served a two-year term as Ohio’s governor during the Civil War, I was unaware of the political career of David Tod. Joseph Lambert’s new book opened my eyes to the political career of Tod, from its beginnings in Warren to the statehouse. I was unaware that the first part of his career centered around Warren Ohio, where he got his first taste of politics. From 1825, when he went to read law in the firm of Roswell Stone until 1841, when his father died, Tod’s activities centered around Warren, the bustling county seat of Trumbull County, of which Youngstown, then a township, was still a part. Admitted to the bar in 1827, by 1832, he was named postmaster by Andrew Jackson. Brief stints as a councilman and as Warren’s mayor were followed by election as a Democrat to Ohio’s state senate. He left after one, two year term, returned briefly to Warren, and then took over the Brier Hill farm after his father’s death.

Lambert shows how Tod’s political activities went along with the development of business, whether speaking for other candidates, or running twice, unsuccessfully, for governor. Then, in 1847 he was named ambassador to Brazil, replacing an ambassador with a fraught relationship with the Brazilian government. Lambert shows how Tod, with no previous diplomatic experience both represented U.S interests well while winning the favor of the Brazilians. His exposure to the slave trade confirmed his personal opposition to slavery.

However, in returning to the states, he was caught up in the debates on slavery. Ohio was a microcosm of slavery, with the north being staunchly abolitionist, and southern Ohio much more favorable to the institution just across the river. As a Democrat, he was part of a national party trying to bridge sectional difference. Before the war, he supported Stephen Douglas against Lincoln and Douglas’s position of popular sovereignty and leaving slavery in the south alone, hoping it would wither of its own accord.

Lambert shows how Tod’s politics were shaped by the constitution, which upheld slavery, and how they evolved over the course of the war. Since the Union was also created by this constitution, he vigorously supported Lincoln when hostilities began. After personal efforts to raise troops, Tod, as part of a Union Party of War Democrats and Republicans was elected Governor in 1862, widely respected around the state.

This didn’t last long. His arrest of Clement Vanlandingham brought charges of being an iron-handed dictator. He faced sniping from his own party. But he met Lincoln’s calls for troups, cared for returning soldiers, and particularly the wounded, guarded the state’s borders, and managed the state’s finances. During this time, as the war progressed, he slowly moved to support emancipation and to eventually allow Blacks from Ohio to serve in the military, a significant transformation, and one that alienated him from the Democrats. After the war, he could not go back. As the 14th and 15th amendments were proposed, he moved to support Black citizenship and suffrage, the latter a corollary in his mind.

Lambert portrays Tod as tireless in campaigning, in or out of office, to the detriment of his health. He refused Lincoln’s appointment as secretary of the Treasury for health reasons. While campaigning, he suffered several “apoplectic strokes” and died of this in 1868, although Lambert raises interesting questions of whether these “strokes” may have been malarial in origin, given the description of symptoms.

The portrait of Tod is one of a savvy businessman and politician, although a man of great personal generosity and integrity. He balanced Ohio’s interests and security with unstinting support of the Union effort. He devoted significant attention to the welfare of soldiers. He handled loss with grace. And he put Union and the constitution ahead of political party, growing, albeit slowly, in his commitment to emancipation and basic rights of Blacks. Though never a presidential candidate, he might be one of Ohio’s greatest political leaders. Ohio was a key to the Union victory, and Tod’s war leadership a major factor in that. Tod has not received the attention due him. Lambert’s book remedies that. The man who said “I would not have been born anywhere else than in Youngstown if I could” lived a life that should make all of us who grew up in Youngstown proud.

________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — The Trumbulls Behind Trumbull County

/ rtrube54 / 3 Comments

Trumbull County was always the county just to the north of Youngstown. What many of us didn’t know was that for nearly the first fifty years of Youngstown’s existence, until 1846, Youngstown was part of Trumbull County. Trumbull County was created in 1800, and at one time was the county of the Western Reserve with its county seat in Warren. In reading Joseph Lambert, Jr’s The Political Transformation of David Tod, I discovered that David Tod, who we so often associate with either Brier Hill or the Governor’s Mansion, spent the first half of his adult life in Warren as lawyer, councilman, mayor, and state senator.

Eventually a number of counties were formed out of Trumbull County, including Mahoning County, in 1846. Canfield was the county seat until it was moved to Youngstown after a court battle, in 1876. But where did the Trumbull name come from?

Jonathan Trumbull, Jr. Strictly speaking, the county was named after the governor of Connecticut at the time the county was formed. He was governor of Connecticut from 1797 until his death in 1809. He was General Washington’s aide de camp with the rank of Lt. Colonel during the Revolutionary War. He was in the House of Representatives from 1789-1796, serving as the second Speaker of the House, and a US Senator the following year.

Jonathan Trumbull, Sr. The father of Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., he was Governor of the Connecticut Colony from 1769 to 1776. He refused General Gage’s request for assistance at Lexington and Concord, throwing his support behind General Washington. He continued as governor until 1784, dying of a stroke the following year. He played an important role in asserting the state’s claims to its western territories, forming the County of Westmoreland in what is now Pennsylvania in 1776. Then on November 15, 1783, Governor Trumbull issued a proclamation protecting Connecticut’s rights to “all lands by virtue of the charter granted by King Charles”. At the time, these extended from the western border of Pennsylvania to the Mississippi River!

Jonathan Trumbull, Esq., for the State of Connecticut (Printed by Timothy Green), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

There are two other famous Trumbulls in the same family that the Trumbull County name also reminds us of.

John Trumbull (1756-1843) Trumbull was the artist of the Revolutionary War. He was at Bunker Hill, also was an aide de camp to Washington. He then turned to art painting 250 portraits, including one of Washington from memory. Perhaps his most famous was his Declaration of Independence, which hangs in the US Capitol.

By John Trumbull – US Capitol, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

John Trumbull (1750-1831). This John Trumbull was the cousin of John (who painted his portrait) and Jonathan Trumbull. He was one of America’s first great poets. His most noted work was M’Fingal, a masterpiece of political satire. He was also a staunch Federalist.

The Trumbull name was an illustrious one in American history. While no Trumbull ever set foot in the Western Reserve, the name expresses the role that the two Governor Trumbulls played in its existence and the hope for a shining future for this territory that eventually became a home of a president (McKinley) and a major industrial center. Youngstown, once a part of Trumbull County and still its neighbor, shares in that history.

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

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Atty. Clarence L. Robinson

/ rtrube54 / 3 Comments
Attorney Clarence L. Robinson

His grandfather was one of the foremost Black citizens and businessmen in Youngstown. He was an outstanding football player and his team’s captain. He became a prominent attorney, serving on both local and state commissions, and was name to the first group of trustees when Youngstown University became Youngstown State in 1967.

Clarence L. Robinson was born March 6, 1892 to Thomas B. and Addie Berry Robinson. Addie’s father was P. Ross Berry, the area’s leading brick contractor of his time, who built many Youngstown area buildings including the still-standing original Rayen School building. His father was the headwaiter at the Youngstown Club. Clarence played tackle for The Rayen School, never missing a minute of play in three years, and was named a team captain.

He started out as a clerk and later secretary for the William Tod Company after completing studies at McGrath Business College. He went on to work in 1917 as a stenographer for the Wilkoff Company. While there, he enrolled in the Youngstown College night law school, studying under Judge George H. Gessner, passing the bar in 1925. On the death of Leo Wilkoff in 1931, Robinson succeeded him as counsel and became a director of the company in 1937.

Community service marked his life from early on when he volunteered as a football coach at the Booker T. Washington Settlement, leading his team to a city championship. He served on the Parks and Recreation Commission for ten years in the 1940’s. He also worked with organizations pursuing racial equality including the Inter-racial Committee, served as director for race relations for the War Manpower Commission during World War II, and the Governor’s Committee on Civil Rights in 1957. He was a member of the Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority, beginning in 1959.

He played a leadership role in a number of legal organizations. He was president of the Roberts Deliberating Club, chairman of the legal redress committee of the NAACP, a trustee of Youngstown Civil Liberties Union, and a trustee and vice president of the Legal Aid Society. His distinguished leadership and Youngstown College roots made him an outstanding choice to serve as a trustee of the newly named Youngstown State University, appointed by Governor James Rhodes.

Robinson was a dedicated churchman. named as one of the most outstanding parishioners of St. Augustine’s Episcopal church, where he served as a lay reader, senior warden, and later, warden emeritus as a 57 year member. He was a vice president of the Youngstown Council of Churches and served on the committee on management for the old West Federal YMCA. In 1963, he received the first “Letterman in Christian Living” award from the national Laymen’s Movement for a Christian World.

Clarence L. Robinson passed away 50 years ago on October 27, 1973, at 81 years of age. In 1967, his community service was recognized when the new Clarence Robinson Center opened on the South Side. The building was eventually vacated in the early 2000’s and fell into disrepair and was demolished in 2016. During the same year the city dedicated a new Clarence Robinson Park, located in the 1700 block of Oak Hill Avenue at West Chalmers. It is fitting that this distinguished community member (and former volunteer coach and Parks and Recreation Commission member) be remembered in this way and it is to be hoped that the city and community will continue to honor his memory by caring well for the park for many years to come.

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

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Oliver Phelps

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment
“Oliver Phelps” from Milliken, Charles F. (1911). A History of Ontario County, New York and Its People Vol. 1. Lewis Historical Publishing Co. p. 15. Retrieved 2008-01-25., PD-US.

During the years I worked at McKelveys, I roamed downtown Youngstown on lunch breaks, learning the various street names that made up the grid of downtown Youngstown. One of those was Phelps Street, intersecting West Federal one block west of the square and running between Wood Street on the north aned Front Street on the south. In recent years, I’ve become more curious about the origin of street names, usually tied to an early Youngstown resident who lived along that street.

The puzzle is that there is no early Youngstown residents by the name of Phelps that I can locate. The early histories I’ve read do not help. All I could find is that in 1802, John Young executed a document describing the platting of the early town including the streets that then existed. I’ve not located it in an online search to see if it confirms my hunch.

I believe Phelps refers to Oliver Phelps, who helped organize the Connecticut Land Company, which purchased the Western Reserve lands from the state of Connecticut. He is the only Phelps I’ve found with any connection to the Youngstown area, and his role in the acquisition and sale of these lands might well have justified a street name. Whether this is so or not, his story is relevant to the story of Youngstown and an interesting one at that.

Phelps was born near Poquonock, Connecticut, on October 21, 1749. His father died when he was young. He started working in a local store at age 7. By 1770, he had his own store in Granville, Massachusetts. He briefly fought with the Continental Army but left in 1777 to become Massachusetts Superintendent of Purchases of Army Supplies. He also served in the state legislature. He became a successful businessman and went on to serve in the Massachusetts Senate in 1785 and the governor’s council in 1786.

In the growing movement of Americans west of the Appalachians, Phelps and others recognized an opportunity. At various points he acquired interests in lands in western New York from Massachusetts and also along the Mississippi River. He eventually moved to Suffield, Connecticut but also resided in Canandaigua, New York, in the heart of his New York lands, where he built a gristmill and established an academy. Land speculation was risky. Purchases usually required huge loans and the hope is that sales would cover the payments due on the mortgages. In 1790, depressed prices led to him selling his home in Suffield and his interest in the Hartford National Bank and Trust Co.

Phelps did not give up after these failures but played a lead role in the formation of the Connecticut Land Company in 1795, and in arranging $1.2 million in financing to acquire 3 million acres of Western Reserve land from Connecticut, surveys of which began in 1796, followed by land sales, one of which was in 1797 to John Young who acquired 15,560 acres from the Connecticut Land Company for $16,085.16.

Not all went so well. There was no central coordination of sales efforts, uncertainties about land titles and about government protection from Native peoples still occupying the land. By 1800, only about 1,000 had moved to the Western Reserve, leading to depressed prices, giveaways and finally bankruptcy. Significant growth would come only after the War of 1812. Phelps, who had borrowed heavily, faced debtors prison, even though he was a New York legislator between 1803 and 1805. About the same time that the Connecticut Land Company dissolved, declaring bankruptcy, Phelps died, in 1809, by some accounts, in debtors prison.

Oliver Phelps was an entrepreneurial risk taker. While his investment in the Western Reserve went badly, his efforts in forming the Connecticut Land Company helped clear the way for men like John Young to acquire land on the banks of the Mahoning River. The only other place I can find that was named after him was Phelps, New York, located in upstate New York. If, indeed, Phelps Street gets its name from him, that seems fitting.

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

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — The Klan in Youngstown in 1923

/ rtrube54 / 5 Comments
A Klan rally in Youngstown. Public Domain

It was November 1923. Youngstown had just elected a mayor and five of seven councilmen who had been endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan (only Wards One and Two did not). Likewise, all four of the Klan endorsed school board members were elected. Many churches throughout the Valley embraced the “hundred percent American” rhetoric of the Klan that denigrated the eastern and southern Europeans as well as Blacks streaming into the Valley that would provide the manpower for Youngstown’s steel industry. On November 10, 1923, between 50,000 and 100,000 people gathered at a Klan Konclave at what was then known as “Dead Man’s Curve,” a meadow near the location of the Newport Theatre. It was a celebration of the election victories in Youngstown. A portion of the group paraded throughout the South Side singing songs like “Onward Christian Soldiers.” The following year, Niles also elected a Klan mayor who appointed a number of Klan members to law enforcement positions.

It wasn’t just happening in Youngstown. After the reign of terror of the Klan against Black citizens in the 1870’s it went underground for a period. It was refounded in 1915, a response to “Red Scare” fears during World War I and the surge of immigrants coming into the country from eastern and southern Europe, many of whom were Catholics. By the early 1920’s, it was a national movement, electing Klan candidates in many cities and infiltrating numerous Protestant churchs and this is what happened in Youngstown.

Two notable exceptions to the wave of Klan activity in the Valley were Reverend William H. Hudnut, Sr. pastor of First Presbyterian Church. Hudnut spent significant time among the Valley’s steel workers and he and his congregation stood against this movement. So did the Youngstown Vindicator, which cost the paper circulation. Remember, over half of Youngstown’s voters supported Klan candidates.

The rally in November of 1923 may have been the movement’s high water mark. A year later, after the Klan gained control of the Mayor’s office and police force, they planned a parade on November 1. A rival group of Italians and Irish, calling themselves the Knights of the Flaming Circle, were denied a permit, and rioted, intimidating the Klansmen. Also, the primary leader of Klan activity, “Colonel” Evan A. Watkins was found both to be a fraud, himself not being born in America, and a womanizer, resulting in him fleeing the Valley. Klan activity dwindled, leaving only a hard core of members.

The best documented study of the Klan in the Mahoning Valley was done by a former Youngstown State history professor, William D. Jenkins, is titled Steel Valley Klan, and reviewed on this blog. It is one of the darker stories in Youngstown’s history. I like to focus on what is good about Youngstown and this episode was not. I hope we’ve learned and changed although that doesn’t always seem to be the case. My wife is from a family that at one time wouldn’t have been considered “100 percent American.” People from the backgrounds that the Klan incited fear and hatred toward built Youngstown into a major steel-making and manufacturing center.

Sadly, those who would have us fear “them” are still with us. The “them” has changed but this episode from Youngstown history shows me what a tired and tawdry narrative this is. Those who were different helped make Youngstown great. Despite our suspicions and animosity toward those different from us, the “secret sauce” of this country’s greatness is that it takes all of us to make it work. Our experience in Youngstown during its greatest years taught us that.

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