Overview

Men of Steel is an engaging journey through an abandoned steel mill. It interweaves memoir, interviews with retired steelworkers and the history of steel through the mill's rise and demise in a narrative and photographic tapestry. The origin of Simonds Saw and Steel, an early 20th century specialty alloy steel producer on the banks of the Erie Canal in Western New York is traced through successive owners to modern times through the voices of men involved in the work of manual steel making, the labor movement, social issues of race and gender, and the human and environmental costs of a secret contract tor radioactive steel. The ultimate bankruptcy of the mill is examined in the context of the root causes of the steel industry's decline that left the steelworker as bereft and abandoned as the property where they worked, one of the nation's industrial tombstones--where time has stopped and layered up, and where things left behind blend with the action of nature reclaiming the site.

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9780984962112

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Reviews

It's been said that steel built America. From the rails that tied two coasts together to the automobiles that defined the 20th century, steel was the backbone. It's also the story of immigrants who toiled to build their own lives in a new home. Dr. Rosati's folksy story of Simonds Saw & Steel not only tells us of the history of the plant, it tells us the history of the families who defined the American Dream. Men of Steel gives us the local flavor for a national movement. It's hard to put down. Craig E. Bacon Niagara County Deputy Historian Lou Rosati's Men of Steel is a monumental effort and is proof that a historical book can have heart and soul. His research shows on every page as does his power of observation. Rest assured, this book which you hold in your hands on Simonds Saw and Steel will be considered a definitive work for years to come. Marshall Terrill Author of Steve McQueen: Life and Legend of a Hollywood Icon

Author Information

Dr. Louis A Rosati was born and raised in Lockport, New York where he attended Lockport public schools. He graduated from the University of Buffalo ('62) and the Upstate Medical Center at Syracuse ('66). He did his residency in pathology at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, and then served in the Navy at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. He practiced pathology for 37 years in the Phoenix metropolitan area where he was a co-founder of Clin-Path Associates and Sonora Laboratory Sciences (Sonora-Quest). Now retired, Louis resides in Mesa, Arizona with his wife Rosalie, his Lockport High School class of '58 sweetheart of more than 55 years. His publications include pathology articles and book chapters in the peer-reviewed medical literature, and a creative non-fiction book-My Winning Season, which traces the summer of 1954, in a memoir about growing up and playing baseball in Lockport.

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