Faces of a Fading Industry: Janine Wiedel’s Vulcan’s Forge and the Decline of the West Midlands
In the late 1970s, American born photographer Janine Wiedel turned her lens to the industrial heartland of England, the West Midlands, a region synonymous with the birth of modern industry. Her photobook Vulcan’s Forge, based on her 1979 exhibition at London’s Photographers’ Gallery, serves as a compelling visual testament to the working lives of those employed in factories at a time when their world was on the brink of irreversible change.
Wiedel’s work offers a window into a period of decline for the West Midlands, a region that had long been known as the “workshop of the world.” The area’s coal seams, heavy manufacturing, and steel production made it the driving force behind the Industrial Revolution. It was a land of soot, fire, and iron, a place still known as The Black Country. The name, rooted in its industrial past, conjures images of coal dust blackening the sky, while the fires of industry lit up the night. Elihu Burritt, an American Consul to Birmingham in the 19th century, famously described the region as “Black by day and red by night” due to the pollution and the constant glow of furnaces.
By the time Wiedel arrived in 1977, the once-powerful industries that had shaped the region were struggling. British manufacturing had been hit hard by competition from overseas, and decades of underinvestment meant that the machinery and factories were outdated. Wiedel, an American photographer who had studied under the legendary Ansel Adams, was awarded a bursary by West Midlands Arts to document local life. She arrived at a pivotal moment, capturing the end times of an industrial age that had defined the region for generations.
Her photographs in Vulcan’s Forge are deeply human, focusing on the individuals whose livelihoods depended on these now-fading industries. Through her images, Wiedel gives us the faces of a working class whose future was increasingly uncertain. These workers, men and women who laboured in factories, forges, and foundries, are depicted in environments thick with the grime and heat of industrial production. Yet, beyond the mechanical and industrial surroundings, it is the people that take centre stage. They are portrayed with a quiet dignity, despite the backdrop of economic hardship and social change.
The late 1970s were a period of transformation in the West Midlands, a place that had once fuelled Britain’s imperial ambitions through its industrial output. The same region, by then, was also giving birth to a cultural shift in the form of heavy metal music. The sounds of industry—the grinding, clanking, and hammering—found an echo in the raw energy of bands like Black Sabbath, who hailed from nearby Birmingham. Wiedel’s photos, though silent, seem to capture this connection between the physical and cultural landscape, revealing the link between the environment of the Black Country and the music it inspired.
Wiedel was no stranger to capturing pivotal moments in history. Her early work in America had documented the Black Power movement in the late 1960s and the 1969 protests at Berkeley’s People’s Park. These formative experiences shaped her as a photographer committed to documenting social change and marginalised communities. Her move to England in 1970 marked the beginning of a series of long-term projects that focused on the everyday lives of people on the periphery of mainstream society. She spent five years documenting Irish travellers, capturing their traditions and way of life, a theme that resonates with her later work in the West Midlands.
As industries in the West Midlands shuttered and communities faced an uncertain future, Wiedel’s work in Vulcan’s Forge became a historical document, preserving a world that would soon vanish. Many of the factories and forges she photographed no longer exist, victims of economic decline and deindustrialisation. The region has since transformed into something very different, but Wiedel’s images remain as a testament to what once was, to the men and women whose labour fuelled a global industrial powerhouse.
Beyond the West Midlands, Wiedel continued to explore social justice themes throughout her career. She photographed the Greenham Common Women’s Camp, a protest against nuclear weapons in the 1980s, and chronicled life in diverse communities such as the squats in St Agnes Place, London, and Brixton’s Rastafarian population. Her more recent work took her to the Calais ‘Jungle,’ where she spent six months documenting the lives of migrants living in the infamous camp, further extending her lifelong commitment to documenting marginalised communities.
Wiedel’s photographs in Vulcan’s Forge provide a powerful narrative of change—one that connects the industrial decline of the West Midlands with broader themes of cultural and economic shifts in late 20th-century Britain. As we view her images today, they stand as a reminder of the individuals whose faces tell the story of a world in flux, a world shaped by industry and transformed by its decline.
“I remember one woman saying to me, ‘Couldn’t you have got him to wear a suit?’ In those days, you might be photographed at your wedding and that was about it. Women didn’t know what their men looked like at work because they’d never been inside the forge or down the pit.
“It was important to record these lives. For me, it’s been great to give people back their history – that’s the best part of what I do.”
– Janine Wiedel