The Ruhr mythology is a story set against a backdrop of coal and steel, hard work and solidarity and, no less important in the eyes of many, football.

It has been cast by the coexistence of different cultures and religions, the influx of millions of immigrants, the development of close local ties, the economic boom caused by the presence of "black gold", and the culmination of a critical European and global era: industrialisation.The years after the Industrial Revolution up until the 1960s defined this mythology and the cultural identity of the people. Over a period of around a century, the Ruhr region developed a facet that it had not inherited from princes and kings: its culture. Indeed, a wholly unique cultural landscape has come into being, shaped by the mores, credos and customs brought to the area by people from other nations, by workers' initiatives, by flourishing industrial enterprises and by philanthropists and patrons.

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