Bethlehem, PA III (10/2/2020)

Friday, October, 2, 2020 (continued)

Thankfully, Bethlehem, PA is only a handful of miles from either Easton or Allentown, PA, so it was easy to make yet a third detour as we had one more stop to make in Bethlehem, PA: the National Museum of Industrial History. We could visit for free through our membership with Tyler Arboretum and NARM/North American Reciprocal Museum Association. We had our advance reservations for 13:00.

Bethlehem Steel General Sales Office (1916,
by Graham, Burnham and Company,
renovated 1951 by McKim, Mead & White
in Chicago Commercial style)

The National Museum of Industrial History (2016) is located
in the former Bethlehem Steel Electrical Repair Shop (1913)

P&H double girder overhead bridge crane

Nicholson File Company of RI display of files (KSS)

Linde-Wolf Ammonia Compressor (1884) was used
to compress ammonia to provide refrigeration (KSS)

Snow Steam Pump (1914, from Buffalo, NY)
is run by a Snow-built Corliss Steam Engine

Bullard & Parsons Vertical Drill Press (mid 1860s)

The museum provided pencils for
non-contact pushing of display buttons

Meticulous model (1996 by Phillipsburg, NJ High School students)
of the Northampton Street Bridge (1896) into Easton, PA

We noted the mesh used for the fence railing on the bridge

Nasmyth Steam Hammer (1856) with a
dropping weight of 125 tons

Welfare Room/Locker room for Bethlehem
Steel workers: put your items in a mesh
basket, raise it up on a pulley
(wet items could dry overnight),
and padlock the cable to a numbered grid

Welfare rooms were an early victory for for the union established at Bethlehem Steel in 1841, giving workers a place to shower and store personal property. (You know, back before unions became powerful and corrupted!)

The museum provided information about important women related to the steel industry, including Elizabeth Gurley Flynn who not only championed equal rights for women, but participated in labor strikes. She was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union/ACLU. Mary Harris "Mother" Jones fought against child labor.

Jacquard Automated Pattern-Weaving Loom
(early 20C), this particular loom created
fabric for the White House, using large
hole-punched cards seen hanging on the right

Outside they were preparing for the Bethlehem Christkindlmarkt

Blast furnaces A, B, C, D, and E (F and G were demolished),
now called the Steel Stacks

Steps up to the Hoover-Mason Railroad Trestle (1907)
connected the ore yards to the blast furnaces for making iron

Levitt Pavilion at Steel Stacks (designed by Wallace,
Roberts & Todd to evoke the gun turret on a battleship
since Bethlehem Steel produced ships and guns during
World Wars I and II) provides free community concerts

The Bridge (2011, by Elena Colombo)
 can have fires lit across the top at night (KSS)

Flywheel #7 combined the power of a tandem
set of single cylinder engines to deliver
the hot blast to the furnaces

Tamiko with another Penn State Nittany Lion (KSS)

Another abandoned Bethlehem Steel building

Steel products used as roadside bollards

L to R: former Central Tool Annex, Central Tool with addition
(early 1900s) provided tools used by the worker

Lythrum salicariai/Purple Loosestrife maybe;
invasive weeds taking over Bethlehem Steel (KSS)

Pinion Gears were part of #2 Steam-Powered
Universal Finisher of 48" Mill

Okay, time to head home!