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Degree

MA, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History, 2010.

Abstract

This study investigates the Shenango China company of New Castle, Pennsylvania in its years of decline prior to its 1991 shutdown. Shenango China began operations in 1901 and enjoyed steady success until a lawsuit brought the plant out of family hands into a series of outside corporate owners which led to its closure. Through historical investigation of the meanings of failure, both physical and psychological, this thesis outlines Shenango’s efforts to avoid their own demise in three ways. The first attempts are seen in the work of Shenango’s management within the plant. The company’s leadership actively promoted new products and designs to improve sales as well as renovations of the production facility and incentive promotions for salesmen, workers, and customers to keep up with a growing market of domestic and foreign competition. The dissemination and promotion of its public image through advertising make up another crucial aspect of Shenango’s efforts to avoid failure. Through examination of advertisements for its subsidiary Castleton China, Shenango’s overall failure is seen as a parallel to the decline in its public image as subsequent owners of the company reduced its outward appearance along with its autonomy. Finally, the viewpoints of Shenango’s workforce are explored to see the effects of failure on workforce morale in the plant’s declining years and how memory serves to create a narrative about the plant’s success and failure. In conclusion, the attempts of Shenango China to avoid failure are compared with the overall decline in industry in the region known as the Rust Belt and the social effects of deindustrialization on the population and quality of life in areas such as New Castle that have lost their industrial base since the 1970s and face uncertain futures going through the twenty-first century.

Subject Headings

American History; Economic History; History; Modern History; Social Research

Keywords

failure; Shenango China; Castleton China; business history; social history; New Castle; Pennsylvania; Rust Belt; deindustrialization; oral history; advertising; company history

Committee / Advisors

Kenneth Bindas, PhD (Advisor)
John Jameson, PhD (Committee Member)
Donna DeBlasio, PhD (Committee Member)

Pages

187p.

Document number: kent1289869898
Permalink: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1289869898

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