More to Hagerstown than Meets the Eye: Stories from a Post-Industrial Community

On August 30, 1983, Fairchild Industries announced that it would be closing its main plant in town by the end of the year. For community members in general, this was a hard pill to swallow. Yet this was only the opening act for what would become a larger tragedy, as less than ten years later, Hagerstown once again experienced a great industrial loss when the M.P Moller Pipe Organ Company, founded in 1875, closed its doors permanently in April of 1992. By emphasizing workers’ voices, speaker Frank Milihram relates how they felt when their factories closed, what attempts they made to recover for themselves and for Hagerstown, and how their own stories helped them make sense of the present and the future.