Beyond Dagmars and Warthogs: Hagerstown’s Experience with Deindustrialization in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This thesis explores the impact of deindustrialization on the working-class community in Hagerstown, Maryland, focusing on how the closure of key factories, including those of Fairchild and M.P. Moller, influenced workers’ sense of identity and meaning. While deindustrialization has been widely studied in other American rust belt cities, Hagerstown’s experience has remained entirely neglected. Using a test case of oral histories and archival research, this study investigates workers’ reactions to plant closures, their efforts to recover, and how their experiences help them make sense of a changing economy. It can be argued that the loss of manufacturing jobs led to a profound shift in workers’ concept of self, shaped by four key responses; resistance to victimhood, grief, altered perceptions of work, and the creation of a post-industrial collective memory. Research highlights how the closing of industries in Hagerstown shaped the socio-cultural identity of its workers and the community at large.