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Butler's Legacy Extends Beyond Art Institute
By Dan O'Brien
There is the Joseph G. Butler Jr. whose name most people in the Mahoning Valley know well. This Butler was an aggressive collector and supporter of American art who turned his passion into the cornerstone of one of the most important museums in the world dedicated solely to that genre.
Then there is the philanthropist Joseph G. Butler Jr. whose generous support led to the building of libraries and hospitals in Youngstown, including what today is St. Elizabeth Medical Center.
And there is the industrial magnate and political benefactor Joseph G. Butler Jr. who, in shaping the economy of the Mahoning Valley, reflected the bigotry and prejudices of his time.
The Butler Institute of American Art is just one accomplishment in this extraordinary life during which Butler wielded extensive influence, displayed widespread interests, and helped shape and was shaped by the Mahoning Valley in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Joe Lambert, a nursing home administrator for Windsor House Inc., recently completed a biography of the industrialist who cast a huge shadow yet is forgotten today except for his great cultural legacy.
"There are three different sides to Butler," Lambert says. "One is the philanthropist who loved rubbing elbows with the public" as evidenced by his support of community efforts, hospitals, libraries and the creation of the Butler Institute.
Another is the iron and steel magnate: a brilliant businessman present at the creation of an industry that transformed the Mahoning Valley economy and made his fortune off the backs of immigrant labor a segment of society Butler looked upon with suspicion.
And last, Lambert says, there was Butler the author and political operative whose relationships stretched from the White House to England's House of Lords.
"I wanted to tell the story of this local man who had connections and influence all over the world," he says. "You have to often wonder how many people come and visit the museum and don't really know who Joe Butler was."
Lambert first became interested in Butler while studying history in graduate school at Youngstown State University during the early 1990s, when he was also working part-time at the Ohio Historical Center for Industry and Labor. "His name kept popping up everywhere," he recalls.
Butler was born in 1840 in Mercer County, Pa., the son of an iron producer and owner of a blast furnace. "He literally had iron in his blood," Lambert says. Thus, the narrative of Butler's life correlates with the industrial development of the United States and a region that would, within a half-century, emerge as one of the world's largest steel-producing hubs.
His family moved to Niles when Butler was about 4. It was here that Butler met and attended school with a future president of the United States, William McKinley. "Their fathers had shared business interests and they became friends," Lambert notes.
Butler started his career with the iron producer James Ward & Co. in Niles, where he was a company clerk. "He never really engaged in the rough and tumble work" of the company's rolling mills, Lambert says. At age 30, Butler struck out on his own and pursued iron production in Girard and Youngstown. Soon, the venture led to the establishment of the Brier Hill Co. and relationships that would propel the industrialist into the heart of the steel industry.
In 1892, he joined with Henry Wick to form the Ohio Steel Co., which built two Bessemer furnaces along the Mahoning River. In 1899, the company was sold to the National Steel Co., and in 1901, the plant became the Ohio Works of the newly formed U.S. Steel Corp.
By the first decade of the 20th century, Lambert says, Butler was regarded as an elder statesman among iron and steel producers who affectionately referred to him as "Uncle Joe."
Butler served as director of the American Iron and Steel Institute and president of Portage Silica Co; he also was a director at The Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., Youngstown Suburban Railway Co., Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. and Commercial National Bank of Youngstown.
He was selected as a member of the American Industrial Commission to France in 1916, a privately sponsored delegation formed and staffed with leading industrialists to investigate the impact of World War I on French manufacturing.
It's likely most of his workers didn't hold Butler in the same esteem his peers accorded him. "He wasn't a saint by any means," Lambert notes. "No doubt, he took advantage of immigrant labor and had no problem breaking labor strikes."
Indeed, in his three-volume History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, published in 1921, Butler is quick to blame unrest, strikes and the attempt at organizing labor in the region's steel industry on foreign-born workers.
In 1916, workers at Youngstown Sheet & Tube's plant in East Youngstown today, Campbell went on strike, spurred by the company's refusal to pay higher wages. A confrontation Jan. 7 between mill guards and strikers spilled out into the city, ending in a disastrous riot in which the business district was torched and many buildings burned to the ground. The Ohio National Guard was called in to restore order.
To Butler, the riot was "merely a drunken orgy among workmen of foreign birth." Jan. 7, he noted, was celebrated as Orthodox Christmas among workers in East Youngstown, and provoked "as usual, much bibulousness [drinking] among the immigrants from Southern Europe."
Again, during the steel strike of 1919, Butler, in his History, singles out immigrant workers as the culprits. Organizers "were practically all radically inclined foreigners and freely threatened others," especially those American-born workers who may have resisted a strike.
Lambert says Butler was cut from the same cloth as other industrialists of his era and held the same, paternalistic attitudes when it came to immigrant labor. "He wanted to 'Americanize' them," he writes, "and wanted them all to learn English."
Still, Butler was enthusiastic about becoming involved in his community and his energies earned the admiration and respect of Youngstown residents. "I got a sense there was a genuine affection for this man," Lambert says
Butler reveled in the durable political relationships he forged, Lambert notes, most prominently his friendship with McKinley and his acquaintance with President James A. Garfield. Garfield was assassinated in 1881, McKinley in 1901. Butler served as an honorary pallbearer at the funerals of both.
Butler worked methodically as an effective political insider, Lambert says. In 1910, Butler wrote a short memoir, Presidents I Have Seen and Known. The book, published and circulated only among friends, tells of Butler's encounters with presidents that began with his glimpse of Abraham Lincoln in 1861 in Cleveland as the president-elect was en route to his inauguration. That was followed by his correspondence and meetings with Garfield, McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.
It was Butler who convinced the Niles Board of Trade to support a memorial dedicated to the memory of McKinley and helped secure funds to build the National McKinley Birthplace Memorial. The monument was dedicated Oct. 5, 1917; former President Taft delivered the dedication address.
Butler held considerable sway in the national Republican Party, adds Bill Lawson, executive director of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society. "If you were a Republican and were running for office, you came to Youngstown to see Joe Butler," he says.
But it was Butler's deep dedication to community improvement efforts that brought him so much esteem during his day, Lambert says.
Butler donated money to construct libraries, bought and sent books to small towns across the country where his companies held mining interests, and spearheaded a campaign that raised $100,000 in a single week to lay the groundwork for what became St. Elizabeth Hospital in Youngstown.
Meantime, he began to quietly build his art collection in his home on Wick Avenue. "As he became more influential and traveled abroad," Lambert relates, "Butler noticed there weren't a lot of American artists represented in Europe."
That was one factor that motivated him to become a serious collector of American art, says Lou Zona, director of the Butler Institute. "There was this general feeling that all art was in Europe," he says. "He was buying and collecting works of American artists when no one else was. He loved it."
The Butler is considering publishing Lambert's book, Zona says, but "can't do it now [on a large scale]. He's done a thorough job," drawing from a vast bank of resources in the museum's collection, such as Butler's letters and photographs.
A fire at the Butler house in December 1917 swept through the third floor, destroying all but one of the industrialist's paintings. In his autobiography, Butler noted he then determined to build a new art gallery that "would be a credit to Youngstown."
Lambert says his research shows plans for The Butler were well under way when the fire broke out. "He lived in a fairly modest home," his biographer says, "considering his wealth."
In 1918, Butler was struck by a car and "never fully recovered," Lambert says. From then until his death, he published his autobiography and wrote his History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley.
Butler died Dec. 20, 1927, one day shy of his 87th birthday.
Copyright 2008 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.