Buffalo's Industrial Past as Part of the Region's Future

Tourism in South Buffalo. Really?

This is a place of former industrial splendor and might, on a colossal scale. It’s also the site of treasures like the Beaux Arts Bethlehem Steel Administration Building designed by L. C. Holden, now under threat of demolition. The sprawling former fiefdom has a magnetic effect for artists and historians. Collaborating with the Steel Plant Museum of Western New York (now located at 100 Lee St. in the First Ward) and the Monroe Fordham Regional History Center at Buffalo State College to produce A Community of Steel(on view until July 1) has been an adventure into local history.

Part of this adventure involved a recent driving tour through Lackawanna with Michael Malyak, director of the Steel Plant Museum. The tour took us to mammoth plants, a few of which are occupied by new industries. Other places required the imagination of now-demolished row houses, family gardens and a hospital for injured workers. We went to a neighborhood once so diverse that it was called “UN Road” and passed many places of worship. One of the most breathtaking stops was at a miraculously preserved, petrified-looking group of dead elm trees. The scene, comparable to a site of Roman ruins, was arresting. If Scranton, Pennsylvania can boast coal mines and railroad tourism, couldn’t a 35-acre museum campus based on our industrial history be a real possibility? (Preservation Buffalo Niagara offers all-day “Hard Hat Tours” this summer.)

In April, Paul Lubinecki, presidential fellow at the Monroe History Center, delivered an informal talk “The Role of the Buffalo Catholic Labor College in Education of the Worker.” The focus of his dissertation, and little-known part of Buffalo’s history, is receiving new attention as a critical force in avoiding labor unrest. Catholic Labor Colleges (in operation from the late 1930s to the 1970s) were free institutions open to all. They provided instruction on topics from industrial ethics to public speaking to theology. Approximately 10,000 students, from the steel plants and other companies, such as Bell Aircraft, General Motors and Westinghouse Electric, graduated from these colleges. Perhaps most importantly, they provided counseling between workers and managers. Interestingly, the Vatican gave approval of labor organizations in the 1880s. Forty years later, a papal decree called for education for workers and encouraged ways for workers and employers to maintain peace and order.

Organizing this Community Gallery exhibition has inspired a journey of sorts that museums try to ignite. By presenting just a fraction of the Steel Plant Museum’s collection, including historic photographs from the early 20th century and Patricia Layman Bazelon prints, we hope to leave you with a thirst to find out more. A kind docent at the Steel Plant Museum urged me to take home a copy of Forging America, available for purchase at their new location. He sold me on the high school-esque photograph of beautiful women in uniforms. “Oh yes, they were escorts for the steel clients. They were told to do whatever it took.” My summer reading has begun.

See A Community of Steel before it closes on July 1. In coordination with the exhibition and on view during the same time period, graduate students in Buffalo State College’s museum studies program curated Steel – The Art of Impressions and Experience, featuring works from our permanent collection and displayed in the Collection Study Gallery.

— Alana Ryder

Email Alana at ryderah@buffalostate.edu

Alana Ryder
Alana Ryder, Curator for Public & Academic Programs, is part of the education department at the Burchfield Penney. She curates the Community Gallery, leads the museum’s student group, the BPAC Street Team, and has organized a number of M&T Second Friday, music and community programs. Ryder was recognized by the Museum Association of New York for RendezBlue art and music festival and by the NFTA and Grow WNY for the Edible Complex farmers’ market event. She earned her B.A. in the history of art from the University of California, Berkeley and recently completed her M.A. at Buffalo State College. Her thesis was entitled "By My Side: Charles E. Burchfield’s Letters to Bertha K. Burchfield from 1923 to 1963."