Keweenaw County’s Echoes of Copper Mining
Keweenaw County, Michigan, once the heart of America’s copper mining industry, now stands as a quiet testament to the rise and fall of an industrial empire.
On Raymond Thompson’s “Appalachian Ghost”
Thompson captured photos of the place — the hills of WVA folding into each other like origami, holding mist and dew in the hollows. And he staged new photos which conjure these working men, bearing up under hours of physical labor, covered in white dust, looking otherworldly but also fully human and integral to the achievement.
Bard in the Belt
That observation made me wonder if there might not be something particularly “Shakespearean” about the Rust Belt, the arc of success and devastation, the clashing of all of those villainous characters during the Gilded Age and the nobility of those who resisted them, and the narrative culmination of the post-industrial landscape as blasted as Lear’s heath.
Bethlehem Fortune, Bethlehem Elegy
The center didn’t hold. Things fell apart. For the second time in its history, a faith was betrayed and the gates of Eden were soldered shut.
A Coal Miner’s Legacy
Touring the area my grandmother grew up, only a few hints of the coal mining history remain.
Donora’s Suffocation
Inside the factories zinc fumes flushed out of horizontal retorts, and spread through the factories as an eerie blue powder.
Rendering
A poem by Caleb Gill.
Novelist Idra Novey on the Places That Made Her
"I came from somewhere that has a lot of character and really fascinating people who have carved out really beautiful lives, and they don't fall easily into the caricatures that we see of rural Pennsylvanian people in the news."
Pink Piano
Crayons were my birthright. Crayons were in my blood. The blood of family lore matched American Crayon’s most powerful primary red crayon in every box. Crayons sent me down the road to adulthood.
An Auto Plant Becomes a State Park
“Green space is an equity issue... Part of environmental justice is making sure that everyone has access to the outdoors. It's important for physical health, it's important for mental health, and it's not a luxury—it's a human right.”
Starstruck: An American Tale
A cut through the layers of America past and present in the historic steel town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Figments of a Pittsburgh Imagination
Andy Warhol meets the Breatharians.