History lessons at the Steel Museum

Sunday’s Vindicator included a great article on kids experiencing history at the Steel Museum. The museum does a great job of explaining how steel is made, showing scale-model views of different processes involved in its production, and bringing to life the people and places that made steel in the Valley.

One of the students says, “It’s a fun way of learning, rather than just looking at books at school.” And shouldn’t learning be fun? We need to bring learning up to kids’ modern sensibilities, and there are few better ways than the hands-on approach offered at the museum.

The kids in this article are shown exploring the recreated locker room at the museum, where you can read news, view artifacts from worker lives, and even try out clothes. That was my kids’ favorite part when we explored the museum together.

Keith Mann, education specialist at the center, said he’s happy to discuss the past with whomever shows up.

“They get to tie in with our collective memory. This is the collective memory of the Mahoning Valley,” Mann said as he looked around at the exhibits that show what steelmaking used to be like.

He talked with the children about the violent steel strike of 1937 and explained how President Harry Truman tried to take over the nation’s steel mills in 1952 to avoid another strike.

What we choose to memorialize and what we choose not to memorialize constitute our collective memory. The Steel Museum is valuable to our community, because whatever else disappears from our legacy as leaders in steel-making, the museum preserves these images, monuments, and stories for our children.

Please make a date to visit the Steel Museum on Wood Street, support our history and share in our collective memory.

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