Haydon 160: Bolts on Unity Street
A true story of how a pair of Irish immigrant brothers came to Philadelphia during the Civil War and built the American dream, and in the process provided the bolts and nuts for America's burgeoning skyscraper age in 1900s, World War II's shipbuilding effort, and survived the onslaught of globalization at the close of the 20th century. Literally. Haydon Bolts celebrated its 160th anniversary in 2024 and remains one of the largest family-owned companies to have kept manufacturing entirely in the U.S.
I'm co-authoring Haydon 160: Bolts on Unity Street alongside Steven Ujifusa of Tradewinds History. The book traces 160 years of a story still taking shape—equal parts archival digging, on-site reporting, and narrative of the trials, setbacks, and rallies of surviving globalization. All the while Haydon Bolts' Irish-American family and workforce, deeply woven into Philadelphia for generations, see a major metropolis atrophy slowly, survive, and begin a resurgence—and gentrify. Thanks for a trove of crumbling documents found by Steven and I in Haydon's basements, there's no shortage of firsthand stories, squeezed loose from letters, ancient newspapers, and interviews, of a close-knit group that never failed to remember that those who cry together should, too, laugh together.
