Ohio Steel, Rubber & Oil: The Industry That Built the Buckeye State

For a century Ohio was one of the workshops of the world, its cities each mastering a different industry.

Steel in the Mahoning Valley

Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, along with Cleveland, formed one of America’s great steel districts, drawing Slovaks, Hungarians, Italians, and Poles into the mills and the Black migration into the mill neighborhoods.

Akron, rubber capital of the world

Goodyear, Firestone, Goodrich, and General Tire made Akron the rubber capital of the world, pulling in Appalachian and immigrant workers to build the tires that put America on wheels.

Standard Oil and Cleveland

John D. Rockefeller built Standard Oil out of Cleveland in the 1870s into the greatest industrial monopoly in the nation — a story that begins in Ohio’s refineries and account books.

Finding your Ohio ancestors

• Company, union, and census occupation records tie a family to this industry — start with the occupation column and the local company’s payroll and union rolls.
• Census records (free through 1950) list occupation and residence — placing your family in a specific Ohio county and town, decade by decade.
• Death & cemetery records — search our Ohio database for the people in this story and the generations around them.
• The Ohio History Connection in Columbus holds the deeper collections — company, church, military, and county records.
• Newspapers on the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America carried the obituaries, accidents, and milestones of these communities.

Frequently asked questions