Corporate vs. Community History

I have a completely, tragically one-sided beef with the yet-to-open National Museum of Industrial History in Bethlehem, PA, as some of you may vaguely recall. It's a Smithsonian affiliate twelve years in the making, dogged by fundraising issues and the costs associated with renovating pieces of the now-defunct Bethlehem Steel plant. They're hoping to open by the end of next year. It's an amazing site, ambitious, and is intended to raise public interest in industrial history. I can't wait to visit. So what's my problem?

Let's start with the museum's President and CEO, who retired from the dying Bethlehem Steel Corp. as the VP of Public Affairs. He built a career, and now a second career in the museum field, on carefully crafting a public face for the company. Similar Steel executive backgrounds for most board members. Steve, I swear, it's not personal. I'm just wary of the constraints this arrangement has the potential to place on critical, multi-vocal interpration.

Second, here's how the Smithsonian website describes the NMIH: "The National Museum of Industrial History will tell the story of America's industrial achievements and accomplishments of its inventors, managers and workers, and preserve the record of industry's development and advancements from the mid 1800's to the present [Italics mine]." This is a classic progress narrative, and corresponds with the city's major economic redevelopment aims surrounding the steel plant. Incidentally, this includes a Sands casino. Further evidence is provided by the museum's own website: "We are building a museum about building America." Every single one of its eleven proposed permanent exhibits has the word "America" in the title. Industry (industrial capitalism?), it proclaims, is the foundation of our country. And machines, rather than human experiences, appear to be at the heart of the museum's conception of industry.

I could go on! (Shocking!) But...I'll spare you the rest. Suffice to say, I'm worried by the NMIH's corporate, top-down approach to industrial history. I'd like to see less PR-speak and more focus on worker experiences, the real contradictions of innovation, exploitation, and daily life, and the unsolved questions of astounding boom and devastating bust that are so apparent on the Bethlehem landscape. Also, maybe a little creative exploration of this landscape itself. I know this is easier said on a blog than done in an old steel mill.

  

Bethlehem Steel, 2002. Society for Industrial Archeology.



<>So, what's an alternative vision? The Steelworkers Archives, for one, is a more community-based approach to the Bethlehem Steel story. Founded by former steelworkers and other local residents in 2001 -- the same year Bethlehem Steel went bankrupt, and six years after it ended production in Pennsylvania -- the Archives has been active in gathering photographs, oral histories, and artifacts related to the experience of working in the local steel industry. Volunteers offer outreach educational programs. Its ultimate goal is "to create a permanent community center...for the preservation of the history of steelworkers, their rich heritage and diverse cultures, their struggles and accomplishments."

Like the National Museum of Industrial History, the Steelworkers Archives has a lot of pride in its interpretation of the past. However, the pride revealed in the archive's oral histories and interpretive materials is a more complex pride in community, work, the quality of steel produced, union achievements, of a shared experience and a desire to educate the next generation. There's also lots of frank discussion of danger, hardship, hazard, contentious labor relations, and the ambiguity of the future. It takes literally the idea of a museum/archive as a sustainable community center.

The big furnaces, that made a big impression on me. That’s like walking inside a volcano. I mean that’s the way it felt most of the time around that hot molten metal. I always tell my wife, I don’t worry about going to heaven, I’ve already been to hell, I worked at the steel company. -- Joe "The Hat" Wilfinger, Steelworkers Archives

And finally, allow me to leave you with a glimpse of the heavy industrial past:

Steelworker fishing in Bethlehem, PA, 1937. ExplorePAHistory.com. I have to wonder how many eyeballs that fish had.