page_title: History of Syracuse, New York
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of Syracuse, New York / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: Franklin Square, Syracuse, New York, USA
context_page_description: Syracuse is a city in Central New York sited on the former lands of the Onondaga Nation. Officially incorporated as a village in 1825, it has been at a major crossroads over the last two centuries, first of the Erie Canal and its branch canals, then on the railway network. The city grew on the back of its salt and chemical industries, and later as a center of manufacturing and engineering. Although its industries have dwindled, the city has remained the economic and educational hub of Central New York, a region with over a million inhabitants; the population of the city, though, has been in decline since peaking in the 1950s.
context_section_description: By the 20th century, Syracuse University was no longer sectarian and had grown from a few classrooms located in downtown Syracuse into a major research institution. It is nationally recognized for its college basketball, college football, and college lacrosse teams. In 1911, under the leadership of Syracuse University trustee, Louis Marshall, the New York State College of Forestry was re-established in close association with Syracuse University. It since has evolved into the SUNY-ESF. Le Moyne College was founded in 1946 and Onondaga Community College in 1962.
  World War II sparked significant expansion in the area in the specialty steel, fasteners, custom machining industries. After the war, two of the "Big Three" automobile manufacturers (General Motors & Chrysler) had major operations in the area. Syracuse was headquarters for Carrier Corporation and Crouse-Hinds traffic signal manufacturing, whilst General Electric had its main television manufacturing plant at Electronics Parkway.
  Syracuse's population peaked at 221,000 in 1950, when the Census Bureau reported Syracuse's population as 97.7% White and 2.1% African American. Immigration from abroad introduced many ethnic groups to the city, particularly German, Irish, Italian, and Polish. African Americans had lived in Syracuse since the Revolutionary War but, between 1940 and 1960, some of the three million African Americans who migrated from the south to northern cities settled in Syracuse. In the 1980s many immigrants from Africa and Central America also moved to Syracuse, sometimes under the auspices of religious charities. However, these new Syracusans could not make up for the flow of residents out of Syracuse, either to its suburbs or out of state, owing to job loss. The city's population slowly decreases every year.
  Much of the city fabric changed after World War II, although Pioneer Homes, one of the earliest government housing projects in the US, had been completed in 1941. Many of Syracuse's landmark buildings were demolished in the 1950s and 1960s. The federal Urban Renewal program cleared large sectors which remained undeveloped for many decades, although several new museums and government buildings were built.
  The manufacturing industry in Syracuse began to falter in the 1970s. Many small businesses failed during this time, which contributed to an already increasing unemployment rate. Rockwell International moved their factory out of the state, and General Electric moved its television manufacturing operations firstly to Suffolk, Virginia, and later to Singapore. The Carrier Corporation moved its headquarters out of Syracuse and outsourced manufacturing to Asian locations. Nevertheless, although city population has declined since 1950, the population of Syracuse metropolitan area has remained fairly stable, even growing by 2.5 percent since 1970. While this growth rate is greater than in much of upstate New York, it is far below the national average during that period.
caption: Syracuse is actively renovating former industrial areas into usable space today. One example is Franklin Square.
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