After World War II and into the 1950s, young men had more ample time and opportunity to look to their futures in a peacetime economy still dominated by industrial work, and as a result the enrollment in vocational schools on the West Side of Cleveland rose rapidly. During the war, the West Side division enrollment had averaged around 67 students, but by 1948 it had soared to 2,800 before leveling off at a slightly lower number in the following years. 

In 1952, talks began about opening a new trade school on Cleveland’s West Side. The school was proposed to be opened on West 49th and Detroit Avenue. The conditions of the other trade schools on the West side were growing overcrowded, and the old Cleveland Trade School on Eagle Avenue had nowhere to expand in its densely packed downtown block. The new school’s opening was seen as ideal because it would allow more space for the influx of new apprentices in need of space.

There was dispute over whom the new school would be named after. The choice came down to William Green and Max S. Hayes. Green was the former president of the American Federation of Labor and was a conservative figure compared to Max S. Hayes. Hayes was ultimately chosen as the namesake for the school because he was a more progressive figure who stood for workers as compared to Green, who leaned towards favoring greater union cooperation with labor management. 

Max S. Hayes was a Cleveland politician and writer in the early 20th century. Hayes was a member of the American Socialist Party and an advocate for workers’ unions and workers' rights in the city of Cleveland. The newspaper developed in 1891, named The Cleveland Citizen, was Hayes's ultimate mark on the labor and socialist politics in not only Cleveland and Ohio but in the entirety of the United States. The Cleveland Citizen was the first labor-focused newspaper in the United States. The paper concentrated on getting out information relevant to the city's working class. Hayes was also nominated as a candidate for Vice President of the United States on two occasions — once in 1900 under the Socialist Party and then again in 1920 as the candidate for the Farmer-Labor Party — but without success. 

Upon Max S. Hayes Vocational School's opening in 1955, it met with instant success. When the school opened, there were only young men in attendance who were split up into a three-group program. The largest group included 4,000 young men who attended both day and night classes and were already working in their field and now extending their education. The second group included 2,700 students who were apprentices. Another 325 of the students were high school young men who planned on working in the field after graduation and not attending college or university. Max S. Hayes Vocational School offered 22 programs, including bricklaying, automotive, barbering, plumbing, and the list goes on. 

The school has run very much the same since its opening. The primary changes have been the pivot from being a general vocational school to a school only for high school age students, and the expansion of young women also being able to attend the school. However, Max S. Hayes High School no longer exists in its original incarnation. In 2015, it was relocated to a new building on West 65th Street just a few minutes south of the original location. With the funds available, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District decided to build a new Max S. Hayes High School in order to have an updated space with new facilities to better suit its current generation of students. The school still serves as a pull school that educates students from all over the city with the goal of training the next generation of workers in Cleveland and upholding Max S. Hayes's legacy.

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For the hard-core unemployed in Cleveland’s Gladstone neighborhood, the Woodland Job Training Center represented a way out; a way out of poverty and unemployment, a way to a better future. When the Center opened in 1968, it was part of Superintendent Paul W. Briggs’s strategy of improving the quality of education in Cleveland. Through collaboration with General Electric Co. and funding from the U.S. Department of Labor, the Woodland Job Training Center provided job training, basic education, counseling services, and even personal hygiene and citizenship classes. In short, the Woodland Job Training Center represented a full-frontal assault on the cycle of poverty. Briggs’s idea for the Center echoed the sentiment of President Johnson and his War on Poverty. It also played into greater development plans for the neighborhood itself.

Gladstone, which ran from East 37th to East 55th streets between Woodland Avenue and the Nickel Plate Road rail yard, was often described as the “worst slum” in the city. As such, Cleveland designated Gladstone as an area for urban renewal and sought to revitalize the neighborhood without federal funding. In the late 1950s, however, efforts to convert the neighborhood to light industry stalled as the city of Cleveland found the cost of buying and clearing the land too expansive. In 1968, as federal funding rolled in to aid the development process, Mayor Carl Stokes remained committed to turning the vacant land in the Gladstone neighborhood into a viable place for light industry. Given the mandate from President Johnson to combat poverty where it lived, and Briggs’s commitment to quality education, the Gladstone neighborhood represented the perfect place for a job training center.

The Woodland Job Training Center, located at 4966 Woodland Avenue, connected the unemployed and future workers with job opportunities as they learned. The three-story, 200,000 square foot warehouse—donated by the General Electric Co.—housed classrooms while local companies rented out warehouse and office space. Students were employed part-time by partner companies in the building. The Center offered three different programs. The Job Opportunities in the Business Sector program targeted those who had gone to high school, but were now unemployed. The Work-Study Program for Dropouts paired work opportunities with education to serve those who had dropped out of high school. The Job Training for New Workers program was aimed at at-risk youth—students between 16 and 22 years old and either dropouts or potential dropouts. This program provided training in shops operated by cooperative firms. The diversity of programs offered at the Woodland Job Training Center made the center a resource to combat poverty across the spectrum of the urban community.

From the very beginning, the Woodland Job Training Center produced results. By November 1968, one hundred students had already passed through the center, received training, and found themselves employed by one of fifteen different companies in Cleveland. By the mid-1980s, the Center boasted that less than six percent of students remained unemployed six months after completion. President Johnson’s War on Poverty, however, had waned. In 1985, despite evidence that the center was successful and nearly self-sustaining, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District announced the closing of the Woodland Job Training Center, along with three other facilities, in a cost saving measure. Instead of spending money on schools and vocational programs, politicians prioritized prisons over job-training programs. Money that might have gone to keep the Woodland Job Training Center open went instead to build new, multi-million dollar prisons.

Rumors that Cuyahoga Community College might buy the Woodland Job Training Center left many people hopeful for the future. For community members, the idea of losing the job training and employment opportunities would mean dire consequences for those the center served. Without the ability to get skills training and education, the hard-core unemployed of the Gladstone area would be left with no real option but to turn to criminal activity or dependence on the welfare system to survive. On May 29, 1985, however, any thought of saving the center evaporated when a fire broke out in a third-floor broom closet. The fire department estimated damages at $20,000 and determined the cause of the fire to be arson.

Today, the building at 4966 Woodland Avenue is still owned by Cleveland Metropolitan School District, although students no longer go there. Just down the road sits the Unified Technology Center, part of Cuyahoga Community College’s efforts to provide job training. CMSD offers vocational programs at other high schools around the city, including at Max S. Hayes High School. The idea of combating systemic poverty through a concerted, collaborative effort, however, has disappeared. The mission of Paul Briggs, evidenced by the Woodland Job Training Center, ultimately remains unrealized.

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