The Kutztown native recently received a doctorate at Bowling Green State University. It was there, in an introductory American Studies course, he taught "Allentown" with other documents of the American Dream/Myth. His sources included the Horatio Alger stories; the 1960s board game "Park & Shop," based on the layout of downtown, "All-American" Allentown; nearby Toledo, Ohio, a fading manufacturing city like Bethlehem, and Walker Evans' photographs of Bethlehem Steel in the Great Depression.