CANFIELD — Sept. 19, 1977, also known as Black Monday, saw Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.’s Campbell Works suddenly close its doors and throw 5,000 workers into unemployment. The Ohio History Connection is focusing on that event for its latest oral history project.

“Our target is looking at the Youngstown area since that event,” said OHC oral history coordinator Cameron Wood. “We are talking about anything steel.”

Wood will be working closely with the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor museum, which recorded oral histories on Black Monday in the 1990s. The histories involved the lives and work of people in the steel industry as well as the unions and community leaders.

The new oral histories will focus on the years after Black Monday and how people were affected, the changes that have taken place, and where the Youngstown area is today.

Wood is working on digitizing the museum’s 1990 oral history to become part of the project. He will be adding the new interviews, and the entire collection will be available for exhibits and researchers.

“This is an opportunity to record the voices of residents who experienced this era of history firsthand,” Wood said. “Even young people in their 30s or 40s who grew up in the post-steel era could talk about the culture and how the Youngstown area adapted.”

He said anyone who has memories of the steel days in the Youngstown area, or are local business leaders, politicians, or have something to add to such a topic, should contact him.

The actual interviews will take place at the Loghurst Farm Museum, 3967 Boardman-Canfield Road, Canfield, on Oct. 14 and at the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor, 151 Wood St., Youngstown onOct. 15. Appointments will be set ahead of time, mostly in the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. range on both days. Appointments for recording time slots will be scheduled individually in advance.

Anyone interested in recording an oral history should contact Wood at 614 208-0946 or

cwood@ohiohistory.org.

“We are happy to open Loghurst for the interviews and serve as a location for the oral histories,” said Canfield Heritage Foundation President Bruce Neff.

The same goes for Susan Lowery, reference archivist at the steel museum.

“I’ll be here to open the doors too,” she said.

Wood has been involved with collecting oral history for the past eight years. He has conducted interviews with more than 200 Ohioan artists, veterans, industry leaders, sports stars and politicians to assemble oral history collections.

The Loghurst location also participated in another OHC program called Open Door on Sunday. The Open Door program, according to Neff, was developed by the OHC to give people a chance to visit a museum for free, when it normally charges.

“The goal is to get more foot traffic into Ohio museums,” Neff said.

He said it also encouraged people to just stop. He said many drive by Loghurst, but really don’t know what is there. The Sunday event was part of a statewide week-long OHC event featuring dozens of Ohio locations and structures.

Loghurst Farm Museum was built in 1805 by Conrad Naff and had served as part of the Underground Railroad. Neff is a descendent of the Naff family and no one knows how the one letter was changed over time.

Today, the Loghurst Farm is owned by the Western Reserve Historical Society and is operated and maintained by the Canfield Heritage Foundation of which Neff is a founding member.