Johnstown, PA with Carlos Irisarri (A21), Elliot Lam (A21), and Arjun Padalkar (A21)
Channel: TuftsIGL
Date: 2020-10-28

JOHNSTOWN, PA 
 
In the summer of 2019, Carlos Irisarri (A21), Elliot Lam (A21), and Arjun Padalkar (A21) – from Panama, the U.S., and India, respectively – wanted to gain a better understanding of the battleground states from the 2016 U.S. election and leading into the 2020 election. They chose Johnstown, PA as the site for their exploration, a city that had benefitted from the coal and steel industries in its heyday and then faced decline with a changing economy and changing demographics.  Coming out of the EPIIC year on Migration in a Turbulent World, the students wanted to look at a city that no one was moving to and where the population was in decline.  
 
What was the impetus for this project? 
We wanted to see how a town that has faced countless obstacles in its history has chosen to recover from the latest hurdle - the economic recession and the closing of steel mills. Once there, we wanted to be able to tell part of Johnstown’s story through the stories of its people and its changemakers. We chose to do short vignettes which tell the stories of the different citizens of Johnstown, and the ways they are trying to contribute to the community. The primary purpose of these short stories is simply to give a biopic on the person they are about, but when put together with the photographs, they provide a glimpse into the town’s history, geography, and possible future. 
 
Why did you choose Johnstown? 
At first our plan was to travel throughout Pennsylvania to find out about different towns and how they adapted to the recession and how the 2016 elections played throughout the state. We met with Boston Globe journalist and IGL alumnus Neil Swidey A91, who recommended that we spend all of our time in one town to get to know one community as much as possible. We then selected Johnstown. In 1894, 1907, 1924, 1936 and 1977, Johnstown experienced catastrophic floods that essentially wiped out the community center each time. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, nearly all of Johnstown’s coal mining operations and steel mills (Johnstown is the American town where the patent for steelmaking, also known as the Bessemer Process, was filed) closed. In 2003, the US census found that Johnstown was the least likely town in America to attract newcomers: no one was moving there. In the 2010s, Johnstown had to ask itself very serious questions about what it wanted its future to look like. We arrived at the tail end of that decade and got to observe the start of an incredible transformation process, one which we want to describe through short stories from the perspectives of the people who are leading the transformation.