A single industry can define a town’s identity for centuries.

Evidence

Woburn’s first commercial enterprise had been a tannery, built by the Wyman brothers in 1648. Back then the land was densely wooded, hilly in the west and north, flatter in the east where the Aberjona River flowed through marsh and bog. The Wyman brothers prospered until King Phillip’s War, when John Wyman’s eldest son was killed by Indians in a swamp fight. That season the Wyman leathers spoiled in the tanning fats. Another tanner named Gershom Flagg cleared an acre of forest near the Town Meeting House and built his dwelling and tannery. By the Civil War, Woburn had twenty tanneries, matching Philadelphia in the production of leather. The city acquired the nickname Tan City. The most prosperous bank in town was the Tanner’s Bank, and now the high school football team called itself the Tanners. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 26

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: how American towns became single-industry brands, and what happened when the industry left — the name stuck while the payroll vanished.
• XREF: connects to: Cultural reverence in a provincial city can anchor its inhabitants identity — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 196; A city’s modern identity depends on excluding its own opposite — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 515

Broader Connections

• Cultural reverence in a provincial city can anchor its inhabitants identity #corroborates (0.75) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 196
• A city’s modern identity depends on excluding its own opposite #expands (0.75) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 515