Few of us today treasure the sight of smoking, noisy factories in our own towns. But when this image was made, says Ackland Art Museum curator Timothy Riggs, the flames and puffing smokestacks meant prosperity, jobs, and seemingly unstoppable progress. The iron works at Colebrookdale wasn’t just beautiful; it was sublime.
Iron Works, Colebrookdale is one of thousands of prints collected by John P. Eckblad. Earlier this year, many of the prints from Eckblad’s collection — some two centuries’worth of scenes depicting industry and labor and their effects on the landscape — were on display at the Ackland Art Museum in an exhibition called “At the Heart of Progress: Coal, Iron, and Steam since 1750.”
Colebrookdale was a longtime center for iron smelting. But its major innovations — including using processed coal, rather than charcoal, in the iron-production process — suddenly made iron cheaper and available in huge quantities, and it became the building material of choice. Entire landscapes were swiftly transformed.
“Today, with our economy and environment under siege, it’s useful to remember that crisis begets invention,” Eckblad says. As wind-power turbines and solar arrays slowly begin to transform our country’s vistas, “the seeds of our next reality have already been sown,” he says. “Once again, artists will be there to both document and interpret.” 
