The Social Worlds of Steel. Re-thinking Industrial History and Heritage

This project explores how the steel industry shaped lives and communities in twentieth-century Britain. Based in Swansea, and using newly-catalogued archival material, the researcher will use Wales as a regional case study to examine the corporate influence of leading steel firms over the workplace behaviours and social lives of employees and their families. Through their role as providers of amenities, housing, sports facilities, transport and services in towns like Shotton, Ebbw Vale, Newport and Port Talbot, the reach of large steel companies extended well beyond the workplace. This research project aims to better understand the social impact of steel by considering how workers and their families responded to corporate culture in four key spaces of interaction between steel firm and community:

1. Neighbourhood
Ambitious, steel industry-related housing initiatives such as the planning of Sealand Garden City in Shotton from 1917, and the construction of Sandfields Estate in Port Talbot in the 1950s had a profound impact on the urban landscape as steelworks and their labour forces grew in the twentieth century. Combining company and local authority housing records with evidence from oral interviews and sociological surveys, this part of the project will ask: how effective were steel firms in meeting the housing needs of their workers; and how were these new residential neighbourhoods viewed by the intended occupants?

2. Social Interactions in the Workplace
Steelworks were highly segmented workplaces. Employees were differentiated into craft, process and white collar divisions as well as a host of different production departments. How did steel employees respond to the compartmentalised nature of their workplace? How did the provision of canteens, washing and changing spaces and toilet facilities reflect status divisions in the workplace? How were differences of role and status signalled through conventions such as clothing and forms of address? What resilience, if any, did employees show in response to these practices? Company records, including minutes of Works Councils will be used to examine how these workplace structures were challenged and tested by employees.

3. Leisure Spaces
Steel companies invested heavily in sports and leisure facilities for their employees, but what did these investments deliver? Company-generated publicity represented steelworks sports and social clubs as well-supported institutions which fostered workplace identity and company loyalty. Using oral evidence and minutes of internal meetings, the accuracy of this picture will be questioned. What motivated steel firms to invest in these facilities? Did steelworkers embrace corporate social life, or were the alternative attractions of home or neighbourhood social clubs more compelling?

4. Domestic Space
In the years after 1945, changing worker identities and the growing importance of the home (over the club or works institution) as the main space occupied by the steelworker outside working hours, led steel companies to attempt to extend their reach into the domestic and family lives of their employees. Evidence from company newspapers and oral testimonies will be used to ask: what measures did firms use to connect with the families and social worlds of their employees? How did workers and their families respond to this corporate presence in the world of their home?

By investigating the social worlds of steel, the research aims to transform the way we understand the role of the industry in our past, moving away from more dominant economic perspectives which rarely position people and places centre stage. Through a range of outputs and engagement activities aimed at public audiences and heritage professionals, the project findings will inform new thinking on representations of steel in museums, and give the residents of steel communities, past and present, a greater sense of their place in industrial history.

The project has two key beneficiary groups:
1. Heritage professionals working in the museums sector in Wales and beyond. These include:

The National Waterfront Museum Swansea: This is home to the most important museum interpretation of Welsh steel history. Its 'Metals' gallery, opened in 2005, displays and interprets selected material from Amgueddfa Cymru's vast industry collection. Due partly to space limitations and a broad remit, attention devoted in its gallery spaces to steel is not extensive and focuses on explaining the industry's key products and processes as well as its technological developments over time. By conducting a survey of visitors to this gallery, and sharing the findings of new academic research, the project will offer the Museum ideas and recommendations for the reinvigoration of its steel-related displays.

Amgueddfa Cymru (the National Museum of Wales): In 2017 the Museum was the subject of an independent review, the results of which included, as its number one recommendation, that 'Amgueddfa Cymru should consider being more ambitious in its interpretation and tell a short that is not narrowly Welsh but more about Wales's part in the global industrial revolution' (Thurley Review, 2017). The research on the social history of steel in Wales, proposed in this project, offers one way of responding to this recommendation, by showing how the lives of people and communities in Wales's steel towns were shaped and transformed by their connection to a modernising, international industry.

Curators of industrial history collections in other museums in the UK and internationally: Many of the challenges faced in interpreting steel history in Welsh museums, are also relevant to wider industrial histories and how their stories are communicated to public audiences in heritage institutions. By engaging with museum professionals throughout the UK, through forums like the Social History Curators Group, and by inviting participants from other industrial museums ito participate in a museums workshop, the project findings will be shared more widely in the sector with potential benefits for industrial heritage in a broader context. Impact will also be extended more widely in the sector through the publication of project findings in an international heritage journal.

2. Members of the public living in communities linked to the steel industry, past and present. These include:

Community groups engaged in steel heritage work, such as the Ebbw Vale Works Archival Trust and Brymbo Heritage Group. These organisations have been some of the most active agents in the preservation and communication of steel industry history, especially in parts of Wales where the steel industry is no longer active.Their members will be invited to attend two early project talks in the regions where these groups are active. As well as communicating early research findings, these sessions will invite audience members to share their experiences of preserving and presenting steel history to the public.

Residents of Port Talbot and the surrounding area. As home to the largest steelworks in the UK, Port Talbot presents a key location for the project's impact activity and its inhabitants form a key beneficiary group. In recognition of this, the project's largest public engagement event, the 'Celebrating Steel' day, will be held in the town to enable as many local people as possible to participate in the programme of events and contribute to the historical discussions to elicit their views on how the industry has shaped the town and their lives.

Visitors to industrial history museums in Wales and beyond: by bringing public views and new research approaches to bear on the representation of the steel industry and its related communities, the long-term aim is to empower people whose lives have been shaped by steel, by giving them clearer sense that their stories are valued and form part of public history for future generations.