I write about Bethlehem. You know - Bethlehem. In Pennsylvania. The town made of steel and Gilded Age Capitalism™.
…What, you thought I meant the other Bethlehem? Who cares about that one?
In 2023 I had a conversation with Jack Despain Zhou (Tracing Woodgrains) about Philadelphia. To paraphrase what he said, “My most reactionary opinion is that humanity peaked in 1911. There was so much optimism in the air: technology! Science! The World’s Fair! The future was right around the corner - and then World War I happened, and it’s all been downhill since.”
I answered: “I agree in principle, but I think the year was 1925.” The United States wasn’t as affected by WWI as Europe, and we still had the Roaring Twenties. Then Euclid v. Ambler came down in 1926 and allowed municipalities to enact zoning and banish commerce from our lives. Then came the Great Depression, WWII, and the car-dependent sprawl of the mid-20th Century.
There is a spirit of that past age - the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, the Roaring Twenties - that is missing from our lives. Despite all our social and technological progress, we’ve never really been the same since.
This blog is my attempt to recapture some of that spirit.
While I have since moved down to the Philly area, think of these posts as being from the Bethlehem that was.
