Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory (The Lyndhurst Series on the South)
Davidson, who wrote36 Views of Mount Fuji(1993) and coeditedThe Oxford Book of Women's Writing in the United States(1995), offers thoughtful commentary, including interviews with six individuals, and Bamberger supplies probing photographs; together, they create a telling portrait of the last six months of the White Furniture Company of Mebane, North Carolina. A 111-year-old firm specializing in high-quality reproduction antiques, White was family owned until 1985 and employed more than 200 people. Davidson researched economic factors and the furniture industry and talked with a range of former White employees (a mill worker, shop-floor supervisors, an executive assistant, and the CEO who decided to close the plant). Bamberger spent days at the factory in its final months, capturing on film the commitment and skill of these six and other workers, as well as their reactions to the elimination of jobs many had held for decades. An eloquent essay on the human cost of downsizing and globalization.Mary Carroll--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.