Provost’s Colloquium Series Presents “Bethlehem Steelworkers: Reshaping the Industrial Working Class”

Jill Schennum

Posted by: Elizabeth Richardson on November 6, 2024, No Comments

East Stroudsburg University’s Provost’s Colloquium Series, an intellectual experience that promotes dialogue among ESU faculty, staff, students, and community, concludes the Fall 2024 semester with a presentation by Jill Schennum, Ph.D., professor and chair of social sciences, County College of Morris. The presentation, “Bethlehem Steelworkers: Reshaping the Industrial Working Class”, will take place on Wednesday, November 13, at 5:30 p.m. in Beers Lecture Hall. The presentation will also be live streamed on the ESU Live Events webpage.

In her presentation Dr. Schennum will explore the moral economy forged inside Bethlehem Steel’s flagship mill as experienced by the last generation of Bethlehem, PA steelworkers. Schennum is a cultural anthropologist who has conducted 15 years of ethnographic research on ex-steelworkers and processes of deindustrialization in Bethlehem, PA. She is author of the new book, “As Goes Bethlehem: Steelworkers and the Restructuring of an Industrial Working Class”.  Her research explains how workers entering the mill in the 1960s and early 1970s walked into what they described as a “different world”.  One in which social relations built inside a union-mediated workplace gave strength to steel workers. This position of power was then eroded by 20 years of deindustrialization, ending in bankruptcy of the corporation. Ultimately, a “new economy” was redefined in the region. These processes of deindustrialization continue to shape contemporary American politics and have contributed to the creation of a more precarious and insecure U.S. working class.

For more information about the Provost’s Colloquium Series, contact Lynne Ozgur, assistant director, office of sponsored projects and research, at (570) 422-7908 or lozgur@esu.edu.