Youngstown, Ohio Preserves History With Museums
Youngstown was named after John Young who purchased 15,000 acres of land from the Western Reserve Land Company. Youngstown was originally part of the Western Reserve of Connecticut. Youngstown is located midway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh and midway between Chicago and New York.
E. W. Powers Auditorium
Powers is listed on the National Registry of Historical Places. The Warner Brothers opened their Youngstown theatre on May 14, 1931 The brothers grew up in Youngstown and began there theatre career in Youngstown. This grand structure features magnificent imported marble, elaborate Egyptian brass chandeliers, rococo plaster designs, a Grand Foyer with a sweeping staircase, Australian and African cherry woods, Carpathian elm, Italian olive wood, Madagascar ebony, and burled English walnut. Oil paintings, tapestries, bronzes, and other objects depict the fine elegance of the era. E. W. Powers Auditorium is at 260 Federal Plaza West, Youngstown, Ohio 44503. For more information visit the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra Web site or call (330) 744-0264.
Arms Family Museum
Open the old oak and leaded glass doors and step into the early twentieth century in Northeastern Ohio. Explore artifacts of different people at different times such as the Native Americans, pioneer settlers, and Eastern European immigrants, Welsh coal miners, and African-American freeman.
The Arms Family Museum was the former house of Wilford P. and Olive Arms. The Arms Family Museum displays the history of all the people who have lived in the Mahoning River watershed from the earliest evidence of human habitation to the present. The Mahoning Valley Historical Society has preserved the gardens, sitting room, dining room, reception room, library, butler’s pantry, and solarium since 1905. In addition, the Mahoning Valley Historical Society has preserved Bibles, wills, photographs, published works, manuscripts, maps, deeds, fraktur, maps, county and local government records, architectural and mechanical drawings, ledgers, and more.
The Arms Family Museum is at 648 Wick Avenue, Youngstown, OH 44502. For more information visit the Web site or call (330) 743-2589.
Stambaugh Auditorium
Stambaugh Auditorium is a massive Greco-Roman architectural structure that was built in 1926. The auditorium houses a large un-augmented E. M. Skinner pipe organ with a four manual console. The largest pipe is 30 inches by 30 inches and weighs 750 pounds. The organ features rare pipe work.
Stambaugh Auditorium is located at 1000 Fifth Avenue, Youngstown, Ohio 44504. For more information visit the Web site or call (330) 747-5175.
Youngstown Historical Center of Industry & Labor
The Youngstown Historical Center of Industry & Labor was one the first major museums in the United States that looks at the steel industry. The iron and steel industry had a dramatic impact on Youngstown and its surrounding communities. The building’s unique architecture is representative of steel mill architecture.
Walk into the past as you explore the lives and times of the people who put Youngstown on the map as one of the largest steel and iron centers in the United States. This museum preserves immigration and urban history, labor, and reconstructed scenes from the past. The museum’s permanent exhibit, “By the Sweat of their Brow: Forging the Steel Valley,” tells the story of Ohio’s steel and iron industry. The wooden shoes that were worn by the mill workers who relined the blast furnaces demonstrate the mill’s harsh reality-the heat of the furnaces would have burned up leather shoes instantly.
The pulpit, which is a control room from a booming mill, gives visitors a glimpse into the life of a steel mill. Visitors can look up from the basement at the rusted and battered exterior of the pulpit or look down into the pulpit. A video leaps into the not so distance past and shows a grunting, smoky, dusty, and noisy working steel mill.
The Youngstown Historical Center of Industry & Labor is located at 151 W. Wood Street, Youngstown, Ohio 44503. For more information visit the Web site or call (330) 743-5934.
Butler Institute of American Art
Youngstown is the home the Butler Institute of American Art. This is one of the nation’s most outstanding American art museums. The Butler Institute of American Art houses over 12,000 individual works by American Artists. The masterpieces date from 1719 and showcase America’s art – past to present. The works of art exhibit throughout the world.
Joseph G. Butler Jr. made the decision in 1919 to collect exclusively American works. In 1917, he hired the architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White, to design the building to house his American collection.
The Butler Institute of American Art displays over 40 temporary exhibitions of works by historic and contemporary American artists each year. The Sweeney Gallery features hands-on activities and interactive work stations for children. The Donnell Gallery features sculpture, drawings, paintings, and prints by renowned American artists which use sports themes.
The collection of paintings span generations with Colonial Portraiture, 19th Century Genre and Still Life, The American West, The Gilded Age, Scene Painting in the Early 20th Century, Early American Modernism, and Post-War Painting.
The Butler collection includes works by John James Audubon, Milton Avery, David Gilmour Blythe, Romare Bearden, Al Bright, Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt, Frederick Edwin Church, Mary Cassatt, Ralph Blakelock, Cecelia Beaux, Bill Dotson, Samuel S. Carr, Victor Dubreuil, Nanette Carter, Elizabeth Catlett, Robert S. Duncanson, Frank Weston Benson, Williarn DeForest, Stuart Davis, William Merritt Chase, Arthur Dove, Charles Burchfield, Nassos Daphnis, Chuck Close, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Helen Frankenthaler, Janet Fish, Rafael Ferrer,Adolph Gottlieb, Sam Gilliam, Winslow Homer, Martin Johnson Heade, Robert Henri, William Harnet, Thomas C. Eakins, Edward Hopper, Joe Jones, Paul Jenkins, Eastman Johnson, John Frederick Kensett, Alex Katz, Jacob Lawrence, Fitz Hugh Lane, George Inness, Gari Melchers, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Nehemiah Partridge, Georgia O’Keefe, George Luks, Andrew Wyeth, Andy Warhol, Charles Willson Peale, John Frederick Peto, Horace Pippin, Edward Henry Potthast, Phillip Pearlstein, Rembrandt Peale, Remington, Severin Roesen, William Tylee Ranney, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Robert Rauschenberg, Joshua Shaw, Joseph Henry Sharp, Charles Sheeler, John Sloan, and Hughie Lee-Smith.
The Butler Institute of American Art is located at 524 Wick Ave. Youngstown, Ohio 44502. For more information, visit the Web site or call 330-743-1711.
McDonough Museum of Art
The McDonough Museum of Art is a center for art, contemporary ideas, education, and community. It is conveniently located across from the Butler Institute of Art and on the campus of Youngstown State University. The McDonough Museum of Art is located on Wick Avenue in Youngstown. For more information, visit the Web site or call (330) 742-1400.
Visit Youngstownphotos.orgree.com to view photographs of historic homes and buildings in Youngstown, Ohio.
