New Research Initiative in American Industrial History to Launch at Rutgers-Camden

CAMDEN – Thanks to an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) at Rutgers University—Camden, scholars, public historians and archivists will explore how scholarship and museum interpretation together can make industrial history a visible and important story regionally, nationally, and internationally.

A two-day workshop will be held on the Rutgers-Camden campus Wednesday, June 25, and Thursday, June 26.  Workshop participants will represent 14 academic institutions and major regional institutions involved in industrial history from across the country, including Lehigh University, the Hagley Museum and Library, and the Smithsonian Institution. The research initiative grows out of MARCH’s four-year engagement with saving and interpreting the abandoned Bethlehem Steel Corporation plant in Bethlehem, Pa. 

Closed in the 1990s and abandoned when the Bethlehem Steel Corporation declared bankruptcy in 2003, the 120-acre site houses the last fully integrated steel mill in the United States. In 2004, the Rutgers-Camden research center initiated a community-based planning process with the support of local cultural groups and the city government. Last summer, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, MARCH worked to develop a plan for public programming, business planning, and a new research effort.

“We are convinced that the extent of intact infrastructure, the rich vein of community memory, and the proximity of millions of potential visitors could make the Bethlehem Works into the same kind of iconic historic site for the 20th century that Colonial Williamsburg has been for the 18th century,” says Howard Gillette, MARCH director and professor of history at Rutgers-Camden.

The $25,485 Mellon Foundation grant will fund the intensive research workshop that will offer sessions on collaboration among scholarship, collections stewardship, and site interpretation, as well as roundtable discussions on social history and the history of technology.

Additional details about MARCH’s efforts to preserve the historical attributes and attractions of the Bethlehem Steel site are online at http://march.rutgers.edu/bethSteelJuneconf.htm.

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities formed in 2001 with a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Based at Rutgers University—Camden, MARCH provides services to humanities professional throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. MARCH publishes Cross Ties, a newsletter for regional humanities professionals, and has promoted community-based preservation efforts at the President’s House in Philadelphia as well as in Bethlehem.

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