This Labor Day, see the decline of working America in a 36 photo display in North Jersey

The decline of industrial America is a ghost that haunts us — and haunts our politics.

The fiery union speeches at the DNC convention, the signature phrase Make America Great Again on the other side — what do they signify, if not the mourning of Americans for a vanished way of life, and the way of work that sustained it?

But it's one thing to talk about the decline of industrial America. It's another thing to show it.

That is what photographer Martin Desht has tried to do in his exhibit, "Faces From An American Dream," running at the American Labor Museum in Haledon Sept. 1 to Dec. 28.

His 36 black and white photos, taken in the rust belt regions of Pennsylvania, are stark images of hardship and distress. Street kids hanging out on corners. Laid-off industrial workers. Ramshackle tenement houses on grim city blocks.

He's not making a political preachment. He is simply documenting our hollowed-out heartland — and leaving it up to the viewer to respond appropriately.

Make up your own mind

"I just take photographs, put up my exhibits, and try to avoid politics." said Desht, a Toms River resident. "I want people to come away and make their own judgments. I don't want to be propaganda. Propaganda is too easy. I want them to form their own opinions."

The exhibit kicks off the Labor Day season at the museum, located at the historic Pietro and Maria Botto House in Haledon. The town's annual labor day parade launches 10:30 a.m. Sept. 1 at the museum entrance at 83 Norwood Street.

This is actually the second time Desht's exhibit has appeared at the American Labor Museum.

It's been on tour since 1992; Harvard, Dartmouth, New York University and the U.S. Department of Labor have all hosted it.

"This exhibit is never going to go out of date," he said. "Because the problem has never disappeared. What other exhibit has been running since 1992 on just one topic?"

Coming to the right house

Botto House, the historic center of union activities during the 1913 Paterson silk mill strike, and where "Faces From An American Dream" last appeared in 1996, is an appropriate setting.

It was the labor movement of the early 1900s, many would argue, that gave birth to the so-called The American Dream — the promise of a steady job, house, health care, and a better future for the kids, that Americans once took as their birthright.

"We lost that," he said. " We gave it up. The Republicans didn't care, and the Democrats didn't care much, either. We exported the American Dream. We did that willingly. And now we're supposed to be satisfied with having an AR-15 rather than a good job. We are supposed to be happy living in a high-rent apartment rather than a mortgage on a house. That was what industrial employment offered."

That was the America that Desht, 75, grew up in — as a Lehigh Valley, Pennsylania, native whose father worked for Mack Trucks, and who himself got a job as a electrician, servicing the cranes at Bethlehem Steel.

"There was a time when you walked onto that property as an employee, you were guaranteed more money than when you went in," he said. The plant — and with it the city's livelihood — ground to a halt in 2003.

The end of a dream

Capital's desire for cheap labor, and labor's desire for cheap products, doomed this social contract, he said. And with it, a way of life.

"Honestly, the unpatriotic Americas are the corporations, chasing the dollar," he said. "We're supposed to be satisfied, not with making shoes, but buying a cheap pair of shoes from overseas. How did America get into this hole? And how are we going to get out of it? No matter what Trump says, or even what Kamala says, they can't bring it back. Because corporate America won't bring it back. The government's hands are tied. They depend on corporate money for their campaigning. We're sort of in this bind."

It was left to America's cities, and people, to pick up the pieces as best they could. Bethlehem turned to tourism. Desht turned to photography.

His other exhibits have included "Voices of Conscience: Then and Now" (2018) and "A Certain Peace: Acceptance and Defiance in Northern Ireland" (2006) have been seen around the country and internationally.

"I really wanted to be objective as a photographer," he said. "Riding the bus, walking the street, what did I see? People who used to work in factories, who used to be employed, who now have these menial jobs. And 'Faces from an American Dream' is not only the people, it's the neighborhoods, the landscape. It's the entire thing."

Go...

The Botto House National Landmark, headquarters of the American Labor Museum, 83 Norwood Street in Haledon, NJ.  The Museum's hours of operation are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m..  Visitors are welcome Wednesday through Saturday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and at other times by appointment.  For further information, call 973-595-7953 and visit www.american-labor-museum.org .

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: This Labor Day, see the decline of working America in a 36 photo display in North Jersey