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Allentown, PA, 1900.
Credit: Library of Congress
Laid out in 1762, Allentown in the early 1900s was home to a broad range of industries and a major center of silk and textile production. Deindustrialization would hit the city hard in the late 1900s. Between 1970 and 2000 the Lehigh Valley lost 44 percent of its manufacturing jobs.