HIS 112
Unit 5: European Modernization

Bethlehem Steel

Photo of the Bethlehem Steel plant in Bethlehem, PA, very near to where I grew up. At one time in the early 1950s, over 20,000 men and women worked in these enormous steel works in Bethlehem, which, if memory serves me correct, stretched for something like ten miles along the Lehigh River and then back along and behind South Mountain in eastern Pennsylvania. Many of my relatives worked there and a lot of my friends' dads. My uncle was killed there in a blast furnace accident in 1948.

There is not much left of the plant now after the company went bankrupt and most of the steel works are slowly rusting away or are being dismantled for revitalization and development (into a casino). There is also now a National Museum of American Industry. This photo taken in 1992 shows the plant still a hub of activity. This is what the industrial revolution was all about. Photo used with permission Harald Finster. Please check out his marvelous website with images of European and American factories and industrial works.

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