Marketing the Machine Age: Industrial Archaeology and Heritage Tourism in America’s "Rust Belt"
Page 9
We ignore this evidence at very great peril. The eighteenth century landscapes commented on by Raymond William were carefully doctored to remove the "facts of production". Such surgery on industrial sites is seemingly impossible. The machines and tools of production are the very "stuff" of these new monuments. It will be all the more ironic if we interpret these places absent the context which allows us to understand the social relations underlying production, for, this context is the very soul of these places.

27. D L & W railroad yard during the 1877 national strike.

 28. Industrial complex, Johnstown, PA, 1994. (Photo: J. Levin).

 

So, we live in a post-industrial society. As factories close and manufacturing is moved ‘off shore’ the rust belt grows. Towns, indeed entire industrial regions, wither with the plant closings. How will we come to terms with these monumental changes? And how will we preserve the memory of a dying way of life? After the immediate agony of these condemned communities passes, will we resurrect them as nostalgic monuments— with softened edges?

 
DOCUMENT NAVIGATION
SITE NAVIGATION
 
P-J.NET HOME