The recent mill closings in New Hampshire’s North Country have re-focused attention on the state’s long and difficult transition to a post-industrial economy.
As towns like Groveton and Berlin struggle to adapt, millworkers – many of them immigrants or the children of immigrants - face the end of a way of life they have known for generations.
This weekend, nationally-known storyteller Jay O’Callahan brings to a Portsmouth theatre a tale that should resonate in those mill towns.
NHPR Correspondent Kevin Gardner has this preview.
FROM THE DEMISE OF MANCHESTER’S AMOSKEAG TEXTILE MILLS TO THE SLOW DISAPPEARANCE OF THE NORTH COUNTRY’S PULP AND PAPER INDUSTRY, NEW HAMPSHIRE HAS SUFFERED DECADES OF MILL-CLOSINGS.
A MILL SHUT-DOWN AFFECTS MORE THAN JUST THE ECONOMY.
THERE’S ALWAYS A HUMAN SIDE TO THE STORY.
JAY O’CALLAHAN EXPLORED THAT SIDE WHEN HE CREATED HIS STORY, POURING THE SUN.
IT’S ABOUT THE CLOSING OF THE GREAT STEEL PLANT IN BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
HE SAYS HE WAS NOT PREPARED FOR WHAT HE LEARNED ALONG THE WAY.
O’Callahan: (2:49) ….and I had no sense, I mean I studied some history in college, no sense that these people built this country; Bethlehem Steel, those hands built much of the New York skyline, they built the Supreme Court of the United States, they built the Golden Gate Bridge, these people.
O’CALLAHAN WORKED ON THIS VAST STORY FOR THREE YEARS.
HE SPENT CONSIDERABLE TIME IN BETHLEHEM, WHERE HE INTERVIEWED SCORES OF RETIRED STEELWORKERS AND EXECUTIVES.
O’Callahan (Trk 2): …and they eventually led to one family, a steelworking family, and an immigrant woman who intrigued me, Ludvica Waldony, who came to this country when she was 18, in 1907.
SFX: Starts singing song under following –
O’CALLAHAN TELLS POURING THE SUN IN LUDVICA WALDONY’S VOICE.
SFX: O’Callahan (as Waldony - 11:38): I grew up on a poor little farm on the outskirts of Warsaw; don’t think a city – it wasn’t a city…(continuing, fading)
LUDVICA’S STORY STRETCHES OVER MOST OF THE 20TH CENTURY.
SHE FINDS WORK, MARRIES A STEELWORKER, RAISES A FAMILY.
SHE ENDURES THE DEPRESSION, TWO WORLD WARS, THE STRIKES, THE LAYOFFS, GRUESOME ACCIDENTS AND PERSONAL TRAGEDIES.
HER RESILIENCE STANDS FOR THOUSANDS OF SIMILAR HISTORIES IN BETHLEHEM.’S STEELWORKER COMMUNITY.
FOR MOST OF HER LIFE, THAT COMMUNITY FLOURISHED AROUND THE FOUR-MILE-LONG INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX KNOWN SIMPLY AS “THE STEEL”.
JAY O’CALLAHAN:
O’Callahan: (14:40) ….and I was told that every day, in three shifts, the steelworkers would come down the steep streets, and you come down into the Steel, and I was told about the languages, so I could imagine, if you were coming down Hay Street, you’d hear Italian, next street over, Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks, Irish, Polish, Slovak. In the 20s and 30s they’re talking those languages, so the sound of that fascinated me.
O’CALLAHAN FINDS UNEXPECTED WAYS TO PERSONALIZE THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE IN BETHLEHEM.
DURING WORLD WAR TWO, LARGE NUMBERS OF WOMEN WERE EMPLOYED AT THE PLANT.
ONE OF THEM TOLD O’CALLAHAN HOW HER HAIR WAS BURNED OFF ON HER FIRST DAY AT THE JOB.
SHE RETURNED TO WORK THE NEXT DAY.
O’Callahan: (19:22) And she also told me something very simple that I tell the audience, she said men and women, they eat differently. We would bring our food, we steelworkers, but the women shared food. The men didn’t. We’d be sitting, the cranes going by, circle of us, and to my right a Cuban girl, Irish girl, Russian girl, Ukrainian girl – lunch with the world, and we shared our food. That was terrific. And the men, of course, eat their own food, so they missed out. And she never forgot that.
O’CALLAHAN’S TALE REACHES ITS DRAMATIC PEAK WHEN BETHLEHEM STEEL’S MANAGEMENT ACCEPTED A UNION.
BUT THE WORLD’S ECONOMY CHANGED IN THE LATE 20TH CENTURY AND AMERICAN STEELMAKING DECLINED.
JAY O’CALLAHAN SAYS NO ONE SAW HOW FAR-REACHING THOSE CHANGES WOULD BE.
O’Callahan (9:44) I’m convinced by my reading that the steel executives lost sight of the fact that there may not be steel forever and ever…But I think there was some blindness on the part of the union, too, so there was I think some denial….you know it’s gonna go on, it’s gonna go on, we’re being well-paid and this is not going to end.
BETHLEHEM STEEL SHUT DOWN FOR GOOD IN 1995.
O’CALLAHAN HAS A STORY ABOUT THAT DAY, TOO, WHEN THE FINAL CAST OF MOLTEN STEEL CAME OUT OF THE LAST BLAST FURNACE.
O’Callahan: (12:36) ….so this is an actual moment like the theatre, thousands of people are there, the steelworkers are there, their families are there, the executives are there, dignitaries are there, outside, watching the big cast, and a steelworker walks up and gets on the platform – what is he doing? - and this guy goes to a microphone, and he starts to whistle, (whistles) he whistles Amazing Grace. ……..So then there’s this moment when you have to emotionally take it in…and this man has made us see that this is the end, it is over.
THE CLOSING OF THE MILL BROUGHT AN END TO THE DANGER AND THE HARDSHIP.
IT ENDED THE TENSIONS BETWEEN UNION AND MANAGEMENT, AND BETWEEN DIFFERENT ETHNIC GROUPS.
BUT A SADNESS GREW WHEN THE MILL’S LAST FIRES WENT OUT.
O’Callahan: (22:29) …..many steelworkers said we spent more time at the Steel than we did with our families, so we got closer to one another than we did to our families. ….You know them. You’re related to them, you grew up with them, and you get very close to them. And there was something about that that they missed…
O’CALLAHAN ENDS WALDONY’S TALE WITH SADNESS, BUT ALSO WITH PRIDE IN WHAT BETHLEHEM’S STEELWORKING COMMUNITY ACCOMPLISHED.
AN IMAGINARY LETTER FROM LUDWICA TO HER FATHER BACK IN POLAND SUMS IT UP.
DESCRIBING A SINGLE STEEL BEAM IN THE NEW YORK CITY SKYLINE, AND THE MANY WORKERS WHO CREATED IT, SHE SAYS:
“MY HANDS ARE ON THAT BEAM”.
SFX: O’Callahan as Ludwica sings Polish song, fading…
JAY O’CALLAHAN PERFORMS HIS TALE POURING THE SUN AT PORTSMOUTH’S WEST END STUDIO THEATRE THIS WEEKEND.
FOR NHPR NEWS, I’M KEVIN GARDNER
