In 1974, U.S. Steel closed its seamless tube mill in Ellwood City. “Casualties of Steel,” a documentary, chronicles the cultural impact of that closing through first hand accounts of the people who lived during the booming times of steel and its sad aftermath. This film was created by Ben Minett as a requirement for an ethnography class at Carnegie Mellon University.
The documentary has no narrator and instead progresses through the voices of Ellwood City residents.
Minett is a 1997 Riverside High School graduate. He created “Casualties of Steel” during his master’s degree studies at Carnegie Mellon University. Minett lives in Canonsburg and teaches English at Mt. Lebanon High School.
The documentary was definitely worth watching. I have live in the area all my life and both of my grandfathers worked at U.S.Steel. I was born in 72 and I can remember my one grandfather always worked 2 or 3 jobs at one time. That was after the mill closed. It’s sad because it does not seem to get better only worse.
My dad worked here during the war in the chem lab.
My family lived in Ellwood City when I was a very young child. My farther moved us there in the mid 1950’s when he went to work for Aetna Standard. In my childhood memory, Ellwood City, like much of the Metro Pittsburgh area, was thriving in that era. Jobs in the steel mills and related industries were plentiful. We moved to a neighboring state during the summer following my second grade school year. After college, job transfers took me around the country but never back to Ellwood. Still, my memories of Ellwood City, our neighborhood, the schools I attended, downtown, etc. are still vivid.