Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the context of "Rust Belt"

A festival is an event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or Eid. A festival constitutes typical cases of glocalization, as well as the high culture-low culture interrelationship. Next to religion and folklore, a significant origin is agricultural. Food is such a vital resource that many festivals are associated with harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in autumn, such as Halloween in the northern hemisphere and Easter in the southern.

Festivals often serve to fulfill specific communal purposes, especially in regard to commemoration or thanking to the gods, goddesses or saints: they are called patronal festivals. They may also provide entertainment, which was particularly important to local communities before the advent of mass-produced entertainment. Festivals that focus on cultural or ethnic topics also seek to inform community members of their traditions; the involvement of elders sharing stories and experience provides a means for unity among families. Attendants of festivals are often motivated by a desire for escapism, socialization and camaraderie; the practice has been seen as a means of creating geographical connection, belonging and adaptability.

Musikfest is an American music festival that has been held annually since 1984 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. It is the nation's largest non-gated free music festival. The festival begins on the first Friday in August, though it has been preceded since 2015 with a Thursday preview night involving the premium stage and adjacent areas. The festival ends the second Sunday thereafter.

Musikfest draws thousands of visitors to Bethlehem from around the nation and world in a celebration that weaves through a Moravian community that dates back to 1741. Festival visitors are treated to hundreds of free shows with great genre variety over the course of the event. Each night, the festival's premium stage, Steel Stage, formerly known as RiverPlace and Kunstplatz, hosts a nationally known recording artist. These premium concerts, along with select shows at other stages, require paid tickets to gain admission.

Herrnhut (German: [ˈhɛʁnhuːt] ; Upper Sorbian: Ochranow; Czech: Ochranov; Upper Lusatian: Harrnhutt, Harrnutt) is a town of around 6,000 inhabitants in Upper Lusatia, in the district of Görlitz, in eastern Saxony, Germany. The town is mainly known as the place of origin of the community of the Moravian Church (established by Nicolas Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf in 1722), and of the Moravian Stars (Herrnhuter Sterne).

In 2016, the town was awarded the honorary title European City of the Reformation by the Communion of Protestant Churches in Europe, and in 2024, Herrnhut was inscribed on the World Heritage List as part of the serial site "Moravian Church Settlements" (Siedungen der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeinde) alongside Christiansfeld (Denmark), Bethlehem (USA) and Gracehill (Northern Ireland). Herrnhut lies between the larger towns of Löbau and Zittau in the hilly foreland of the Zittau Mountains on the Petersbach, the longest headstream of the Pließnitz, a tributary of the Lusatian Neisse.

Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry.

There are different interpretations of what deindustrialization is. Many associate American deindustrialization with the mass closing of automaker plants in the now so-called Rust Belt between 1980 and 1990. The U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest and exchange rates beginning in 1979, and continuing until 1984, which automatically caused import prices to fall. Japan was rapidly expanding productivity during this time, and this decimated the US machine tool sector. A second wave of deindustrialization occurred between 2001 and 2009, culminating in the automaker bailout of GM and Chrysler.

Hilda Doolittle (September 10, 1886 – September 27, 1961) was an American modernist poet, novelist, and memoirist who wrote under the name H.D. throughout her life. Her career began in 1911 after she moved to London and co-founded the avant-garde Imagist group of poets with American expatriate poet and critic Ezra Pound. During this early period, her minimalist free verse poems depicting Classical motifs drew international attention. Eventually distancing herself from the Imagist movement, she experimented with a wider variety of forms, including fiction, memoir, and verse drama. Reflecting the trauma she experienced in London during the Blitz, H.D.'s poetic style from World War II until her death pivoted towards complex long poems on esoteric and pacifist themes.

H.D. was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to wealthy and educated parents. Discovering her bisexuality, she had her first same-sex relationship while attending Bryn Mawr College between 1904 and 1906. After years of friendship, H.D. became engaged to Pound and followed him to London in 1911, where he championed her work. Their relationship soon fell apart, however, and H.D. instead married the Imagist poet Richard Aldington in 1913. In 1918, she met the novelist Bryher, who became her romantic partner and close friend until her death. An associate literary editor of the Egoist journal between 1916 and 1917, H.D. was published by The English Review and The Transatlantic Review. During World War I, both her brother and father died, and she separated from Aldington. She was treated by Sigmund Freud during the 1930s, as she sought to address and understand both her war trauma and bisexuality.

A music festival is a community event with performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme such as musical genre (e.g., rock, blues, folk, jazz, classical music), nationality, locality of musicians, or holiday. Music festivals are generally organized by individuals or organizations within networks of music production, typically music scenes, the music industries, or institutions of music education.

Music festivals are commonly held outdoors, with tents or roofed temporary stages for the performers. Often music festivals host other attractions such as food and merchandise vending, dance, crafts, performance art, and social or cultural activities. Many festivals are annual, or repeat at some other interval, while some are held only once. Some festivals are organized as for-profit concerts and others are benefits for a specific charitable cause. At music festivals associated with charitable causes, there may be information about social or political issues.

Allentown (Pennsylvania Dutch: Allenschteddel, Allenschtadt, or Ellsdaun) is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is the county seat of Lehigh County, and is the third-most populous city in Pennsylvania, with a population of 125,845 as of the 2020 census. It is also the most populous city in the Lehigh Valley metropolitan area of eastern Pennsylvania, which had a population of 861,899 and was the 68th-most populous metropolitan area in the nation as of 2020.

Founded in 1762, Allentown is located on the Lehigh River, a 109-mile-long (175 km) tributary of the Delaware River. It is the largest of three adjacent cities, including Bethlehem and Easton in Lehigh and Northampton counties, in the Lehigh Valley region. Allentown is located 48 miles (77 km) north of Philadelphia and 78 miles (126 km) west of New York City.