Alice Puerala: A Woman Of Steel
“They’re telling workers they’ve got to step back and do with less. What does that mean? Not having a car? Not being able to make the payments on their house? Not being able to send their kids to college? Not having any money for recreation? I thought that what’s it all about–to make the life of the worker decent and with dignity and the ability to enjoy the things of society like culture and recreation. Now they’re saying we’ve taken too much from the corporations.” —Alice Puerala 1928-1986.
The fires of steelmaking burned all along the southern shores of Lake Michigan when Alice Peurala entered US Steel’s South Works in 1953. Today most of those fires have gone out and with them the thousands of jobs that were once the economic support system for the Southeast Chicago-Gary region, a region that has still not recovered in 2012. Read more