[Bethlehem Steel Works] – Antique Print
![[Bethlehem Steel Works], 1881 May. — historic drawing](https://images.jameslantos.com/img/90/902aad4b5f58-L.webp)
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
Few images capture their era like this historic drawing of [Bethlehem Steel Works]. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.
Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. Perfect for a home, office, library or classroom wall, and a gift with a story behind it. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Since 2001, Snapshots of the Past has shipped historic prints to tens of thousands of customers around the world.
[Bethlehem Steel Works]
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This watercolor shows the Bethlehem Steel Works in eastern Pennsylvania, a plant that grew out of the Bethlehem Iron Company, founded in 1857 in a town long known for its Moravian heritage. Joseph Pennell made it in May 1881 for an article on the Moravians intended for the Century magazine. The article never used the drawing, but Pennell later called it his first important "Wonder of Work" drawing. The wash and gouache give the works a broad, atmospheric presence, and the image records how heavy industry was reshaping the Lehigh Valley in the early 1880s.
| Created / published | 1881 May. |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 drawing on cream paper : watercolor, wash, gouache ; sheet 35.3 x 47.8 cm. |
| Genre | L.A. List of original drawings and paintings |
| Notes | Exhibited: The Pennell Legacy: Two Centuries of Printmaking, An Exhibition at the Library of Congress, December 1983 through May 1984. Inscribed on mount: 62. Published in: Pennell, Joseph. The Adventures of an Illustrator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1925, Limited edition, p. VII, with the caption The Bethlehem Steel Works-wash drawing 1881-drawn for the article on the Moravians in the Century but not used-first important Wonder of Work drawing." Signed in pencil |
| Subjects | Bethlehem Iron Company--Buildings--1880-1890. Steel industry--Pennsylvania--Bethlehem--1880-1890. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 4,096 × 3,298 px · prints to 14 × 11 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-219363 |
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