A Visit to Historic Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: America's Storied Industrial Center

In this video, we explore the storied city of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a place with a rich history of industry and manufacturing for centuries.
The city is located in two counties- Northampton and Lehigh Counties. It is currently Pennsylvanias 7th largest city.
In 1741, William Allen, a loyalist during the American Revolution and a Chief Colonial Judicial Figure (also the founder of Allentown, Pennsylvania), deeded 500 acres to the Moravian Church, a German Protestant Denomination of Christianity.
On Christmas Eve of that year, David Nitschmann and Nicolaus Zinzendorf, both prominent immigrants from Moravia and Saxony, established the first Moravian Church in the area. They named the town Bethlehem in honor of the birth place of Jesus Christ. Bethlehem was also the first U.S. city to feature of publicly decorated Christmas Tree, doing so for the first time in 1747.
Continuing a Pennsylvanian theme originating with the colonies founder (William Penn) of religious tolerance and respect for native Americans, the Moravians treated local Lenape natives well for the standard of the time and even allowed those who had converted to Christianity to be buried in cemeteries next to early European settlers.
During the American revolution, in the autumn of 1777, many Patriots fled from Philadelphia to Bethlehem and the surrounding area as the British Army advanced from the east following the American defeats at Brandywine and Germantown in September and October of that year.
The young Frenchman the Marquis de Lafayette recovered from an injury received at the Battle of Brandywine in Bethlehem, and several of the most prominent members of the Continental Congress fled north to Bethlehem before the congress eventually reconvened in Lancaster.
Before, during, and after the American Revolution, George Washington and his wife Martha, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and the Marquis de Lafayette all frequented Bethlehem and many members of the Continental Congress stayed there at various times.
Bethlehem has a rich industrial history.
Along the Monocacy Creek and the Lehigh River, the community immediately began building their heavy industrial area - initially using small log structures for their workshops. Within two years of their arrival in Bethlehem, the Moravians built a sawmill, soap mill, and wash houses; constructed their first grist mill, oil mill, tannery, blacksmith shop and brass foundry. By 1747, thirty-five crafts, trades and industries were established.
The Bethlehem colonial industrial quarter is considered to be one of the oldest centers of major industry in the United States.
When John Adams visited this community, he called Bethlehem a “curious and remarkable town” stating to his wife Abigail in a letter (April 1777) that:
“They have carried the mechanical Arts to greater Perfection here than in any Place which I have seen …They have a fine set of Mills. The best Grist Mills and bolting Mills, that are anywhere to be found. The best fulling Mills, an oil Mill, a Mill to grind Bark for the Tanyard, a Dying House where All Colours are dyed, Machines for shearing Cloth.”
In 1762, Bethlehem built the first waterworks in America to pump water for public use. In the industrial revolution, various water and steam powered manufacturing facilities operated in the city.
Most of the colonial buildings were made of locally mined limestone. The colonial quarter had fallen into neglect and disrepair by the mid 19th century. Local community efforts to preserve and restore the area began in the 1950s and they were largely fruitful.
In 1973, the colonial quarter was placed on the national register of historic places.
In the mid 19th century, steel production began in Bethlehem. Between the 1860s and 2003, Bethlehem steel operated facilities in the city that produced various products, like railroad spikes and rails for the nations expanding locomotive industry, steel plating, ships, and ordinances for the United States naval fleet, material to build the world's first ferris wheel, and more.
Financial hardships and mismanagement plagued the company in the later half of the 20th century. The plant closed in Bethlehem after nearly 140 years of operation in the city in 1995. In 1997, shipbuilding operations ceased, and by 2003, the company had dissolved after filing for bankruptcy in 2001.
Ultimately though, Bethlehem steel and the city of Bethlehem is remembered proudly in American history as a place of significant industry and a symbol of America's manufacturing dominance through much of the 19th and 20th centuries.