Hertiage Discovery Center, Johnstown, PA

Johnstown in the 1800s

We’re heading from Pittsburgh across central Pennsylvania to Lancaster County. Our stop today was in Johnstown at the Heritage Discovery Center. The Heritage Center describes the growth of Johnstown as an iron and steel town. Around town were both coal mines and iron ore mines making this an ideal place to forge steel. Initially iron forges required skilled labor, but over time with the industrialization of the process there was a large need for cheap labor – bring on the immigrants. Johnstown became the destination for many southern and eastern European immigrants, usually driven out of their country because of discrimination (particularly against Jews) or lack of farming opportunity in their country. They came here to a dirty industrial city with no English language skills and were given the low paying dirty jobs in the mill. The women often ran their house as a boarding house (often having 3 people assigned to a bed, working different shifts). Each ethnic group lived in a separate part of town, had their own social life, and churches and were despised by the Americans. The iron mills and coal mines were dangerous places to work and an injury meant no income for that family. Meanwhile the mills did everything they could to avoid unions. At one point, the steel mill here produced more steel than any other factory in the U.S. In the 20^th century, steel was important for both world wars, unions established a foothold, and pay and benefits increased. The children and grandchildren of the immigrants learned English and began to intermarry. And then in the 1970’s the U.S. steel industry declined, and the mill here closed.

Striking for fewer hours and better pay

Even more interesting than the Heritage Museum was the movie on the iron and steel industry. It described how Johnstown’s mill became one of the first mills to economically produce railroad rails. I also learned that steel had historically been accidently created out of iron and that it took 3 different men with 3 different patents that needed to be combined into one industrial process to make steel in bulk. The room would shake and get hot at appropriate times, so that it almost felt like you were in the mill as the steel was being made.

Modern steel making

Tonight, we’re in a beautiful KOA in Elizabethtown, PA. It’s centrally located near Harrisburg, York, and Lancaster.